Abstract

Tyranny and Torture in Venezuela

It is a habit in the U.S. to regard Latin-American despotisms as comic opera. Whatever justification that attitude may have in some cases, it has none in the present situation of Venezuela. There are plenty of comedians on the stage, to be sure, but the play is a tragic representation of the ruthless sacrifice of liberty, supposedly on the altar of prosperity. A strong, ignorant, stupid, cruel peasant, who knows how to drive peons and run a farm, has ruled relentlessly for sixteen years-during the last eleven of which his rule has been as unconditionally arbitrary in Venezuela as that of a boss on a peon-worked acreage and has achieved the following results: an almost total destruction of political, civil, and personal freedom and self-respect among the Venezuelan people.