Syrian War And Venezuelan Crisis
Syria
is a country well known in the media, unfortunately not for good reasons.
Before
the Syrian civil war began, many people were complaining about high
unemployment, corruption and a lack of political freedom under President Bashar
al-Assad in 2000, and in March 11 pro-democracy demonstrations erupted in the
southern city of Deraa, spreading later to neighboring countries.
Because of
these protests, the government decided to use deadly force to crush the
dissent, protests demanding the president's resignation erupted nationwide, and
in answer to this the opposition took up arms, first it was for self-defense
but later to rid their areas of security forces.
Basically,
this war is now more than a battle between those who are for or against Mr.
Assad, and the innocents are the ones who paid, the war has left 1.5 million
people with permanent disabilities, including 86,000 who have lost limbs, being
forced to leave everything, leaving family, leaving dead and missing and leave
their country to try to survive, seeing how their country is increasingly
divided and unable to do anything other than dry tears and endure the impotence
that floods their bodies.
Will
the war ever end? It does not look like it will anytime soon, and while this
happens more and more people will continue to suffer for the sins of others.
This
year in February, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA)said, ”some 13 million people were estimated to be in need of
humanitarian assistance”, including 5.2 million in acute need.
Venezuela
The
Venezuelan crisis goes back several years before Maduro was
president, even before
the presidency of Chavez. The actual situation where the Bolivarian Republic is
the product of mutual delegitimization between the government and the
opposition, of the bad administration, and the lack of democracy.
Day by
day, the situation in Venezuela becomes more dangerous. Achieving, According to
the Observatory of Social Conflict of Venezuela, in the first quarter of 2019,
6,211 protests were recorded, that is, about 69 daily protests. Also between
January 22 and April 15, 2019, the Observatory of Social Conflict and the NGO
PROVEA registered 51 murdered protesters: 47 men and 4 women, of which 5 were
minors.
In addition, the United Nations Agency for Refugees (UNHCR) and the
International Organization for Migration (IOM), the number of Venezuelan
refugees and migrants worldwide amounts to 3.4 million people today.
The
conflict in Venezuela as well as in Syria does not show a promising future, but
their crises and the uncertain future that lies ahead are not the only things
that these countries have in common. In fact these are two allied countries that have Russia on their side and both in the midst of local crises that leave
their borders, generate headlines and at the same time do not seem to have a
solution in the short term.
Russia
has military forces in both Syria and Venezuela, despite repeated warnings from
the United States to leave the nations, and it is no a secret that the help
that Russia gives them is for an economic well being, based on the raw materials of
these countries.
In
conclusion, Syria and Venezuela are two countries that had a lot of potential
to contribute to the worldwide economy, but because of corruption and the desire
for power they only managed to hurt the innocent by turning these regions into
places of war, death and poverty.
By María Camila Pinzón, Step 10
