Venezuelan protests -2017
I've been taking pictures of protests in my country for a while. Heck, you could say i've learned most of what i've known and how to take pictures through these experiences. And it's been my intention to always show another face of these things: the desperation, lack of control and improvisation, not knowing what to do in these kind of situations. I prefer to avoid portraits and show a shot of a big scenario, where everything is happening already and looking at a camera is an ill advised thing to do. Resembling the paintings from our independence war.
May 1st protest. Photographers stay in the sidelines while the “resistance” holds the frontline with makeshift shields to use against tear gas and "rubber" bullets (officers also use glass and iron marbles). An old man carries a rally flag.
April 19th, the day where most went to the streets to march for: "La Toma de Caracas". These kids from the slum in Sta. Fe prepare and arm themselves for the clashes against government officers. These were most of the faces you saw in the frontlines of the protests: kids and young adults who would give everything for this fight since they didn't have anything left.
"La Toma de Caracas", remembered as the greatest concentration of people (even breaking world records) with 2.5 million protesters, was quickly overrun and dispersed. Making it in the driveway with just 4 lanes ensured the kind of chaos that stays for a while in your mind. A stampede filled with cries, shouts, desperation, and tears, filled this day with ups and downs. I remember being split up from my friends for most of the day: a group of them had to withdraw to a house of someone who offered it near the site this photo was taken. The others had to hide in a hotel where the clashes extended for the rest of the evening.
There's this river in Caracas besides the highway that crosses through the whole city, it's called "El Güaire" and also works as the main sewer canal for the capital. During the protests, the combination of a massive amount of people, and inconvenient city planning made the people desperate enough to throw themselves to the river to avoid being captured. The other option for those fast and agile enough was to use pipes that where across the river and worked as bridges since the government took the real ones for "no reason whatsoever".
Most reporters had to watch out for themselves; only a few were protected by both sides, international and pro-government press for example.
The unlucky ones (like me) had to run as much as any protester, they where regularly targeted by the FANB: easy prey who normally stayed behind taking pictures or recording.
Government forces were far-fetched from something other countries could call authority or law enforcement. They were fear, power and violence in the flesh. There wasn't a shred of remorse or pity in their actions: they could shoot you point-blank with rubber bullets or tear gas grenade which could cause severe trauma or death. Videos and photos show them using real guns at times. It was pretty much implicit what happened when it was being captured on film. Armed and equipped to their teeth, they always had the upper hand, making the youth of Venezuela who stayed in the frontlines, cannon fodder for the conflict to persist.
There was some taunting, there were provocations, and of course the FANB fell for them most of the time. But when the time came, and the opposition was more organized, just staying their ground and holding their hands up in the air as a sign of no-aggression was enough of a challenge for the GNB to repress indiscriminately.
What the group of kids on the frontlines (I'd hardly call a group of adults, the vast majority of people who fought were between the ages of 13-25) had to defend themselves were but molotov cocktails and paint jars, which didn't last and just scared or surprised the national guards...
...Makeshift shields made out of aluminum or wood, to protect reporters and themselves, most of the time breaking or crumbling after a day’s use....
...and slingshots with rocks, which couldn't do much with the riot armor and the shields that the guards always had (Ps: fireworks and shit jars where used as well but the first one was way too unstable and dangerous and the second one turned out to be a disaster the first time it was used).
Sleeping wasn't easy
I'm not saying it's PTSD or anything like that, nowadays I bet most of the people that where there can sleep without a problem (at least, not this one), I can. But, back then, you returned home and you felt somewhat incomplete, somewhat still anxious, even angry at times, it was the adrenaline of course. You had to lay in bed for a while reviving your day: how that tear gas bomb almost hit you, the bleeding guy who no one helped, having watched the GNB capturing people a few feet away from you, the choking, and on top of it all, the sounds. All of that felt beyond real, you couldn't sleep no matter how tired you were, you had to relive it, all that sensory overload was already in your head. Here are some of those memories made picture.
Then came the times we got close and personal. The couple of minutes during those endless hours something came straight up to your face and you couldn't avoid looking at it, be it yourself, realizing you can no longer run, be it someone else, when he cant move because of the shock:
When exhaustion is the only winner
By the end, every time you went to the streets was pretty much the same. People already knew what was going to happen. Asides from that, no one was leading us, and protesting just for the jist of it grew old real quick. We were getting killed for no reason at all, no one was answering for us, no one offered protection for us. We felt like pawns. That was one of the many things people felt near the end.
In Chacao, one of the city's nucleus, bystanders coming and going from their daily routines to watch or run from the clashes where pretty common, another layer to the surreal of Caracas' landscapes during those months. By the moment this photo was taken, June 7, inhaling tear gas and being paranoid/scared around any government officer became a habit.
This conflict ended practically through attrition. Protests were already sectorized, the repression was far more brutal than in the big ones because of the small amount of people. In my neighborhood, they would capture 3 or 4 kids every time we tried to protest; I once had to throw myself down the sewers because there was nowhere else to run or hide. People were just too scared to keep on it and we had little to no response from the political opposition parties. This photo was the last one I took from these conflicts which took around 150 lives and half of the year from 2017. A man at a crossroad between a fading resistance and an unwavering all-powerful narcotic government.
