Alan Gomes

Delcy Rodríguez, the "acting" president of Venezuela has declared a state of emergency. What you are watching from Venezuela is more than a natural disaster story. It is a governance autopsy. Hundreds are confirmed dead and the real toll is rising because no one is coming to rescue those still trapped in the rubble. Let's break it down: Twin 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes. Buildings collapsed in Caracas and neighboring cities. And where are the ambulances? Where are the fire trucks? Where is the state? There are no emergency services. Because there is no state. There is only a criminal enterprise that wears a costume. The state built a machinery to repress. Silence. Torture. Kill. Not to rescue. To every American businessperson who has traveled to Caracas in the last few months, met with Delcy Rodríguez, signed deals, convinced themselves that "things are changing" and that engagement is pragmatic. This is for you… For those who believe the American government fiction that "everything is going great" with Delcy…. you are watching your thesis collapse in real time, under rubble, with no one coming to help. The fiction that Venezuela is "open for business" exists for one reason: Delcy and her brother Jorge need your money, your legitimacy, and your silence. They have no intention of reforming. They respond that they just "don't know" when elections will take place. They have no intention of being held accountable for the billions looted, the political prisoners disappeared, the diaspora of more than eight million people. They need you as props. They need you to keep telling Washington that things are "great!" And that Delcy is exactly what Venezuela needs right now to "stabilize" and "reform." What this earthquake reveals, as every crisis in Venezuela reveals, is that Maduro and his cronies hollowed out every institution. PDVSA. The hospitals. The fire departments. Civil defense. Emergency services. All of it stripped to the bone and the proceeds wired offshore. The death toll will be much higher precisely because of what the people now in power did over the last 25 years. Let's be clear: The people dying tonight and in the next few days under collapsed buildings in Caracas are not dying because of an earthquake. They are dying because of 25 years of systematic looting by the same people now issuing press releases about a "state of emergency." Because they're wholly unprepared. Because they looted everything. Did away with talent. And on top of all of this have zero empathy or motivation to help anyone but themselves. They didn’t care about millions of people fleeing into a jungle and walking hundreds of miles to freedom. Why would they care about survivors of this natural disaster? The media locally isn't reporting or showing the images of the devastation. They're terrified of upsetting the dictatorship. And tonight: Not a firefighter in sight. Not an ambulance in sight. Just cameras, and Delcy, and the performance of governance where none exists. Those businesspeople were warned. The Venezuelans who fled told you. The human rights organizations told you. The evidence was always there. Now you have photographs.