RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Venezue­lan na­tion­al Manuel Con­teras works long hours at a sawmill in Pe­nal, his hands rough­ened by wood and his face etched with wor­ry. As mil­i­tary ships, radar in­stal­la­tions, and new sanc­tions tight­en around Venezuela, his hope of earn­ing enough to move his large fam­i­ly out of Tu­cu­pi­ta in the Orinoco Delta re­mains out of reach.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia via What­sApp, Con­teras de­scribed the mood among his rel­a­tives in the river­ine com­mu­ni­ties of the delta as heavy with anx­i­ety. Talk of the block­ade, sanc­tions on Venezuela’s oil tankers, and mil­i­tary ma­noeu­vres in the Caribbean has tak­en a psy­cho­log­i­cal toll on them.

“My fam­i­ly is not do­ing well be­cause of the sit­u­a­tion in my coun­try,” he said. “Trans­port is un­re­li­able and ex­pen­sive, so they can­not come here, and I can­not be with them now.”

Asked why his fam­i­ly had not mi­grat­ed ear­li­er, Con­teras ex­plained: “The fam­i­ly is too big for every­one to come. It is a lot for my fam­i­ly.” He tries to send food and mon­ey when­ev­er he can, but it is nev­er enough.

Mean­while, in Cara­cas and oth­er ur­ban cen­tres, many res­i­dents con­tin­ue to live nor­mal lives. Sev­er­al Venezue­lans said they were bol­stered by na­tion­al pride and uni­ty as they faced US threats.

Eu­d­is­mar Med­i­na, who now lives in Trinidad but whose en­tire fam­i­ly re­mains in Cara­cas, said peo­ple there are not wor­ried.

“Shops are open, and peo­ple move like nor­mal,” she said. Her fa­ther, she added, is prepar­ing to trav­el to Trinidad for Christ­mas. “We do not fear war.”

That con­fi­dence is echoed by a Venezue­lan pe­tro­le­um work­er from Zu­lia, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty. He said his­tor­i­cal con­text shows that Venezuela has faced sim­i­lar threats be­fore.

US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, he not­ed, had made his in­ten­tions clear when link­ing the mil­i­tary buildup in the Caribbean to oil in­ter­ests. Venezuela, rich in nat­ur­al re­sources, saw its as­sets na­tion­alised un­der for­mer pres­i­dent Hugo Chávez—now, he said, there is an at­tempt to seize what be­longs to the coun­try.

A mem­ber of Venezuela’s Lib­er­a­tion Move­ment, al­so speak­ing anony­mous­ly, told Guardian Me­dia that de­spite tight­en­ing US sanc­tions, the seizure of an oil tanker, and the in­creased pres­ence of US mil­i­tary as­sets, many ur­ban Venezue­lans be­lieve a di­rect mil­i­tary con­fronta­tion is un­like­ly.

“The US will not at­tack Venezuela mil­i­tar­i­ly. Trump will not dare, no mat­ter how many as­sets are placed in the Caribbean Sea,” the source said.

This be­lief is root­ed in Venezuela’s in­ter­na­tion­al al­liances and the ex­pec­ta­tion that glob­al scruti­ny would lim­it any es­ca­la­tion. Sup­port from coun­tries such as Rus­sia and Chi­na, along with sol­i­dar­i­ty from some Caribbean na­tions, is seen as a buffer against fur­ther ac­tion.

As the Unit­ed States en­forces stricter sanc­tions on Venezue­lan oil ex­ports, the Venezue­lan peo­ple con­tin­ue to stand firm.

Don­na, who lived in Venezuela for 35 years be­fore re­turn­ing to Trinidad in 2019 to care for her moth­er, echoed this view, ar­gu­ing that fear on so­cial me­dia is ex­ag­ger­at­ed.

“There is a lot of pro­pa­gan­da feed­ing peo­ple, mak­ing them ner­vous,” she said. “But peo­ple are just go­ing around with dai­ly life.”

She high­light­ed Venezue­lans’ deep-root­ed sense of na­tion­al iden­ti­ty and re­silience, forged through his­to­ry.

“Venezue­lans are not eas­i­ly scared or in­tim­i­dat­ed. They fought for their in­de­pen­dence—it was not hand­ed to them. Since then, Venezuela has sworn nev­er to be a colony of any­body again.”

She said this spir­it is par­tic­u­lar­ly strong among grass­roots com­mu­ni­ties and poor­er Venezue­lans, many of whom iden­ti­fy with the Bo­li­var­i­an rev­o­lu­tion and Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro. Don­na pre­dict­ed that if Maduro is forcibly re­moved, the Venezue­lan peo­ple would re­volt and could turn to guer­ril­la war­fare to bring down any il­le­git­i­mate gov­ern­ment im­posed by the US.