Author: Richard Barnes

Regarding the grand Lake Maracaibo (Lago Maracaibo) perhaps the only aspect connected to it which retains its natural and wondrous beauty are the Catatumbo lightings. And one major reason for its perseverance is that the Communist governments of Venezuela have not figured out how to expropriate them or otherwise tax and regulate them to death.

As for the lake itself, it is heavily polluted by continuous oil and chemical spills and absence of maintenance of the extensive and massive oil equipment, much of which lies dormant, rusting and leaking. Most recent sources affirm that over 70% of the lake’s surface is contaminated with oil, chemicals, and a highly toxic bacteria locally referred to as verdín (‘greenery’).

When the pro-free enterprise Bolsonaro was president of Brazil, hardly a day went by without the media harping on the “destruction” or “deforestation” of the Amazon forest. With the assumption of left-wing Lula to the presidency, such reporting has evaporated, save a few articles here and there lauding the “precipitous drop in deforestation” under the new president. And if you believe such reporting, I have a bridge in Maracaibo I’d like to sell you.

The fact is that under Socialist regimes, the “environment” suffers immensely but the reporting thereof is practically crickets, whereas under civil governments that honor private property rights, the environment fares immeasurably better, yet the “reporting” is apocalyptic.

Environmentalist organizations and activists are silent regarding the responsibility of Communist governments for the chaotic ecocide of Lake Maracaibo. When they do their pontificating, they attack “industry” or “development” and such all-too-familiar platitudes, as if we were still living when Juan Vicente Gómez negotiated petroleum concessions which induced foreign companies to invest in Venezuela before the 1920s, thereby initiating unparalleled prosperity to the country. Prosperity which endured into the mid 1970s.

The diatribes against “private industry” say nothing about the decimation of such industries under the Communists, let alone do they mention the fact that all such industry was expropriated by the benevolent state. It is the state that has been running the petroleum industry in Venezuela for decades now. In fact for as long as the obliteration of the lake has been occurring. 

They are not easy to find, but one can still find photos online of the lake in the 1940s and 1950s and beyond and see that, although punctuated with oil wells throughout, the water itself is nevertheless clean. But if that exercise is not convincing enough, one can search for interviews of people who actually saw the macabre transformation, which happened before their very eyes.

People such as Anibal Gutierrez whose fruit and vegetable business on the shore was destroyed by the expropriations. So he had to learn how to fish and every morning before daybreak he goes out, using an inner tube for flotation and plastic plates for paddling an hour to get to the contaminated fish which he can sell onshore. Mr. Gutierrez fully understands that the Socialistic policies are what has driven him and many like him to find bare subsistence work,  “There are days when we have very little or nothing to eat … Over 90% of the oil rigs you see are inoperable … the lack of maintenance and care have caused great contamination on the lake and on the shores … The investors — Spanish, French, Italians, Americans — left the country, and that’s when we began seeing great scarcities coupled with sky high prices, not to mention the total loss of our currency. Venezuela has never been the same.”

Or families like that of Carlos Enrique Quiñones and his wife, Ailín (pronounced Eileen) who worked in the oil industry and now sell trinkets and whatnots out of their kitchen. Their three children and grandchildren have emigrated to Colombia and Chile to work. Mr. Quiñones says, if offered to return after two decades, he would not accept given that the decades of little or no maintenance have created “ticking time bombs” such as the one that exploded in the Amuay refinery in 2012, leaving over 40 dead and 140 wounded. 

The country never recovered from that catastrophe and can no longer even produce enough petroleum to supply its own needs. For anyone paying attention, that debacle in 2012 laid bare the incompetence and criminal negligence of the Communist regime. However, most reporting does not mention that but rather emphasizes the need for safety measures.

So now, Venezuela, which has the largest reserves of petroleum in the world, has to rely on Iran to supply petroleum and endures the spectacle of interminable vehicle queues to buy gasoline. Although the state blames this lusus naturae on US embargoes, Mr. Quiñones knows better and he says most of the Venezuelan people know better also.

And so now, great swathes of Lake Maracaibo look more like garbage dumps and its shores are beginning to see dead, oil covered land and sea creatures — something unheard of in its history.

But the Catatumbo lightning can still be seen. 

May it serve as a reminder and hope for the people of Venezuela.

The link below (after the photos) will take you to a France 24 video report of about 24 minutes for those readers interested in a bit more (it has English subtitles). I quoted Messrs. Gutierrez and Quiñones from that video.

NASA has confirmed that the Catatumbo phenomenon produces a world record 250 lighting bolts per square kilometer annually. 

The green seen from space denotes the proliferation of toxic bacteria occasioned by the massive, almost daily oil spills since the very early 21st Century.

Lake Maracaibo in 1950, thirty-five years after oil exploration began. The companies operating there were assiduous in cleaning up any spills and in maintenance.

El lago Maracaibo agoniza (france24.com)