Five points about Venezuela | Responsibility

The oil-rich South American nation of Venezuela will hold a presidential election on July 28, amid an unprecedented crisis that has led to an economic collapse and a mass exodus of people.

Here are five things to know about this country:

Simón Bolívar (Caracas, 1783 – Santa Marta, Colombia, 1830), known as “The Liberator”, is Venezuela’s greatest hero. As a politician and military strategist, he is considered the architect of the independence of several colonies from Spain in the early 19th century, which today include Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador and Peru.

He has always been revered as the “Father of the Nation,” but his image was further promoted and exploited with the advent of Chavismo. The 1999 constitution, pushed by socialist leader Hugo Chavez, added his last name to the country’s name: “Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.”

Chavez, a charismatic military man who led a failed coup in 1992Elected president in 1999. He enjoyed high approval ratings on the back of numerous social programs in healthcare and education, and he revised the entire state structure. His opponents criticized him for his omnipresence, economic mismanagement, and abuse of public resources. In 2013, he died of cancer and was succeeded by the leftist Nicolás Maduro.

Maduro has come to power with the support of the armed forces and the national security apparatus in the face of a severe political, economic and humanitarian crisis that has led to an exodus of about seven million of the country’s 30 million inhabitants. He seeks re-election for a third six-year term in the July 28 election.

Venezuela has about 300 billion barrels of hydrocarbon reserves, the largest in the world.

Crude oil production peaked at 3.5 million barrels per day in 2008, but then fell to 400,000 barrels per day due to mismanagement and corruption. Today, production is closer to one million barrels.

The United States imposed sanctions on the industry in 2018After ignoring Maduro’s reelection, he considered Maduro’s re-election to be fraudulent.

Washington eased sanctions late last year after the government and the opposition reached an agreement to hold elections. But it later reinstated the rules, with exceptions in the form of licenses for companies including Chevron, Repsol, Morel and Prom.

Driven by an unprecedented wave of migration, the United Nations estimates that the number of migrants is around 7 million. Venezuela is world-famous for its cornbread, a highly regarded cornbread. Especially in gluten-free cooking.

In New York, Paris, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Madrid, Naples, Melbourne, Tokyo or Hong Kong, restaurants and street stands offer tacos with many fillings and names: “dominoes,” with white cheese and black beans; “tortillas,” with white cheese and black beans; “pelúa,” made with strips of cheese and meat; or “queen pepiada,” with avocado and chicken.

Venezuela, which for years has been called one of the most dangerous countries in the world, has seen a sharp drop in its homicide rate in recent years, from 91.8 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants to 26.8 in 2023, according to the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence (OVV), an independent non-governmental organization.

But Venezuelan criminal gangs are expanding across the Latin American country. The Aragua train is one of the most famous trainsthe United States is offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest of its leaders.

These groups, along the routes of their main victims, Venezuelan migrants, are engaged in extortion, murder, prostitution, drug and human trafficking, and even illegal mining.

Gangs remain a presence in Venezuela, particularly in the poorest neighborhoods, where they extort small businessmen and others.

Canaima National Park, close to Guyana and Brazil, is home to the oldest giant stone mountains, tepuis, on Earth. There, in Auyantepuy, is also Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world (979 meters), witnessed by American pilot Jimmy Angel in the 1930s but always known to the Pemón indigenous people.

Canaima is a UNESCO Heritage Site. There is also the Ciudad Universitat de Caracas, a magnificent work of modern architecture and art developed in the 1950s by architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva, including works by Jean Arp, Fernand Léger and Alexander Calder, including the Covered Plaza and Aula Magna.