On January 23, the people of Venezuela look back on the coup d'é·tat that ousted Marco Pérez Jiménez. This man was the dictator of Venezuela for about six years. The Pérez Jiménez regime muffled the press, outlawed political participation, and closed the universities while mistreating the people and taking advantage of the nation's rich oil reserves(Britannia.) This became to be too much for the people of the nation to stomach, so a popular opposition gained the support of the navy and air force to take back their government through a military coup.
The opposition being able to win the presidency back allowed for the free election of Romulo Betancourt. Sadly after this free election was held the nation did not remain free for too much longer. Venezuela today looks similar to that of Venezuela during the Pérez Jiménez regime.
Today the modern opposition party in Venezuela lead by Juan Guaidó, the leader of the National Assembly, is leading a movement of change. Modern Venezuela doesn't have enough paper to keep its new originations open like El Nacional which started during the Chavez time as a way to get information to the people along with basic living necessities.
People have had to flee the nation to neighboring Colombia in order to be able to feed their families. This mass exodus has women chopping off their hair to sell and even selling themselves into human trafficking just for a meal. Children now have to collect rainwater or hike to a waterfall miles away just to be able to have drinking water. Violence flows through the streets of Caracas because people are protesting for a change. The number of medical deaths has skyrocketed since medicine has become scare.
This nation which was once the most oil prevalent country in South America is crumbling before our eyes. The protests in the streets of the capital, Caracas, have caused thousands of deaths and still, Maduro has not changed a thing. Now the opposition is taking a page out of the history of their beloved nation.
Wednesday, January 23, 2019, marks the sixty-first anniversary of the coup d'é·tat that removed Pérez Jiménez, so to mark this occasion the opposition has scheduled a protest in Caracas. People all over the nation have called out the cry of "libertad" which means freedom. These people have called for Guaidó the new president and denounced Maduro. With the support within the nation and international community this could be a shift for Venezuela.
This could mean change is on the way or this could be another blood bath. The world has its eyes on Venezuela for the next couple of days to see whether or not history will, in fact, repeat itself with the people taking back their beloved home.
