Venezuela – Page 26 – The Pull Of The Land

Venezuelan Navy Captain Dies After Signs of Torture

July 5, 2019July 6, 2019 Richard Barnes

If memory serves, this is only the second post where I address current events in Venezuela. As readers know, I am avoiding, as much as possible, the reporting of present-day polemics, preferring to focus on helping to increase understanding of Venezuela by consulting her history (including early links with the United States), portraying her people and culture, alluding to the way we were. That will help us understand, in as irenic an approach as possible, how we got to where we are, and, perhaps, the way forward.

However, sometimes it is necessary to pause and look around at today’s scene. If we know about folks being drawn to death unjustly, let alone cruelly, and say nothing, we will be held to account: “If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, ‘Behold, we knew it not; doth not He that pondereth the heart consider it? and He that keepeth thy soul, doth not He know it? and shall not He render to every man according to his works?”

Although this blog’s purpose generally excludes reporting on contemporary incidents, it does mean to help explain how we got to where we are; and to know where we are, it is at times necessary to not assume folks “know”, especially when the media’s reporting of terrible events is so muddled.

The below link is to the New York Times, not known for its fiery right wing reporting. There’s plenty of other reporting on what is happening in Venezuela: hundreds, if not thousands, drowning on their desperate journey to ever-elusive freedom in Aruba or Curazao; multiple reports of disappearances and tortures; threats to wives and children of anyone suspected to be opposed to the regime; corpses exploding in morgues for lack of electricity and, consequently, no controlled temperatures; the purposeful collapse of criminal law and the consequent explosion of savage wickedness; hunger; and much, much more.

I’ve refrained from posting or commenting on such. Those who wish to know more, are able to find it. But you will have to search beyond the mainstream media enthralled with noisome dingbats who, most recently, tell us that we run concentration camps along our southern border. Mercifully, such pronouncements have been strongly rebuked by a few, including Holocaust survivors who point out, reasonably, that those in real concentration camps were herded there by Nazis or Soviets. Nothing of the sort is happening here, where folks are coming on their own accord. And there are no survivors of the Boer War to tell about the first concentration camps in modern history. They too would be aghast at the comparison. The media should help here, but it seems interested in reporting only invective, not facts.

The article linked below is so low key it’s almost pathetic. It’s as if it’s written to blunt any criticism of its having ignored what’s happening on the ground in Venezuela. They can now say, “Oh, but we have indeed reported on these things.” Spare me. However, I’ve selected it because, for many people, the Times is a credible source that you can point to, should you be asked.

If you prefer reading a more-to-the point summary, this, from the Caracas Chronicles might suffice:

“Navy captain Rafael Acosta Arévalo, arrested by the Military Counterintelligence Directorate (DGCIM), was missing since June 21st until, five days later, regime Communication Minister, Jorge Rodriguez, accused him on TV of being involved in an alleged coup. He was publicly seen two days later, when he was taken to his preliminary hearing in a military court with obvious signs of violence, in a wheelchair and with poor mobility. The captain’s wife, Waleska Pérez, denounced his serious physical condition by torture and requested protection from the Inter American Commission of Human Rights, because her husband’s life was in danger. Hour later, early on Saturday, June 29th, Acosta Arévalo died. Everything happened under State custody. This Saturday night, the regime confirmed the death through statements; none deny the torture, or the reports that torture was the likely cause of death.”

A Scripture verse that was quoted often in the days leading up to and following the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, was II Corinthians 3:17: “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Our rights are God-given, “endowed by our Creator.” If we value liberty we must be a people who values a love for God in Jesus Christ. We must be a people who grasps, however inchoately, that a state pretending to be God is a crass violation of the First Commandment. It is an abomination which eventually brings judgement.

Those of you who pray, please pray for the family of Captain Acosta. Pray for the people of Venezuela. Pray for the restoration of liberty and a decent civil order in that stricken land.

And, most importantly, be sure to thank the Triune God for the liberties we continue to enjoy in this great land of America.

As for the New York Times report, it’s below the photo. Read it and weep.

Navy Captain Rafael Acosta Arévalo. Witnesses report that when he appeared before court on Friday, “he looked barely alive. He couldn’t move his feet or hands. He had excoriations on his arms, traces of blood on his nails, signs of blows in the torso, and he was almost unable to speak.” Upon seeing him, the judge ordered his immediate hospitalization and postponed the hearing. He died hours later in the hospital.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/29/world/americas/venezuela-torture.html

Source: New York Times, June 29, 2019

CARACAS — A Venezuelan Navy captain accused by the government of plotting a rebellion has died in custody a week after his arrest, underlining President Nicolás Maduro’s increasingly ferocious repression campaign amid a spiraling economic crisis.

The captain, Rafael Acosta, is the first of more than 100 active and retired Venezuelan officers jailed by the government on treason charges to die in custody after allegations of torture.

A military judge told Captain Acosta’s legal team on Saturday that the officer had died in a military hospital the previous night, said his lawyer, Alonso Medina Roa. Captain Acosta was detained on June 21 and charged with treason and conspiring to rebel. He denied the charges.Mr. Medina Roa said the captain had been detained in good health but was in a wheelchair when he was brought into a courthouse on Friday. The lawyer said his client was struggling to speak or move, showed visible signs of beatings, and kept repeating the word “help” to his legal team.

Friday. The lawyer said his client was struggling to speak or move, showed visible signs of beatings, and kept repeating the word “help” to his legal team.

He was taken to a hospital from the courthouse and died hours later, the lawyer said.

Venezuela’s information minister, Jorge Rodríguez, a close adviser to Mr. Maduro, confirmed Captain Acosta’s death on Saturday night and asked the country’s attorney general to investigate the “unfortunate event,” without providing details.The head of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, condemned the captain’s death, adding in a message on Twitter that “the crimes of Nicolás Maduro won’t be left unpunished.”

Captain Acosta was one of half a dozen former and active officers who have been detained in the past week over allegations of plotting to overthrow Mr. Maduro. On Wednesday, Mr. Rodríguez presented a video purporting to show Captain Acosta discussing coup plans on a conference call. The video could not be independently confirmed.

Mr. Maduro has survived one coup and one assassination attempt in the past two years, as the country’s economic collapse has weakened his grip on power. His government, however, has also repeatedly used unconfirmed coup accusations to jail and repress political opponents and instill fear in the armed forces.Last year, a detained opposition City Council member in Caracas, Fernando Albán Salazar, fell to his death from a window during his interrogation by intelligence officers. The government claimed it was a suicide.

Mr. Acosta was detained on the day that Mr. Maduro met with Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations human rights commissioner, in Caracas. After the meeting, Ms. Bachelet said she had agreed with the government to evaluate its anti-torture policies.

Her office did not immediately respond to a request for comment following news of Captain Acosta’s death.His wife, Waleswka Pérez, told local reporters that her husband had done nothing beyond discussing in family circles Venezuela’s economic crisis and chronic corruption. She said she had not seen or heard from her husband since his detention.

Playa Hicacos, 1966

June 15, 2019June 15, 2019 Richard Barnes

Towards the end of my childhood life in Venezuela, my father took us to Puerto la Cruz. Back then, this was a 5 or 6-hour drive but Puerto la Cruz was the closest city with an American consulate. She sits on the northeast coast of Venezuela, east of Caracas, west of Cumaná.

We always looked forward to trips there because such trips would invariably include at least one visit to the spectacular beaches on the coast of Sucre to the east of the city. That trip, in 1966, marked the last time I ever visited a beach in Venezuela, not counting those in Canaima, which are river beaches.

Childhood memories are notoriously unreliable. However, over the years I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a few “round-the-world” sailors who agree that this area of Venezuela contains some of the world’s most picturesque, but unknown, ocean spots.

On that visit, my father drove us for what seemed like hours snaking our way through the high coastal mountain ranges over some unpaved roads affording us breathtaking vistas of this striking cordillera and crystalline seas far below. We eventually arrived at Playa Hicacos. We had it all to ourselves. The water was cold (not cool but cold). However, we quickly warmed up and enjoyed our day at the beach. That last beach outing has remained indelible in my memory and I’ve judged all other beaches by that standard. Most others fall short — unfair, I know, to judge the rest by a childhood memory, but indulge me on this, please.

I had little idea that year was a tumultuous one for South America. Signs of political agitation were almost everywhere, not only in Venezuela but in practically all large cities of the continent. Scrawlings on walls — this I do recall — ranged from “Castro is a traitor!” to “Vote Communist!” and, of course the ubiquitous, “Yanqui go home!”

That was the year of The Beatles’ Rubber Soul and I remember hearing “Michelle” here and there at stops during this and other trips — including the one to Maracay alluded to in an earlier post (“Coffee”). That was also the year the same Beatles released an album cover posing as butchers with mutilated dolls and cut meat. It was later pulled, which reflects the fact that, even in 1966, an anteroom year for the Hippies and Woodstock shenanigans, sensibilities were more respectful than today.

I also recall lots of ruckus about a gal named Peggy Fleming who skated on ice, spectacularly. I now understand that she was a key figure (no pun intended) envisaging the return of the USA to figure skating dominance after the entire 18-member team was killed in a plane crash in 1961.

And large scale anti-Vietnam War protests also began to take shape that year.

But news from South America was sparse. You had to be living there to hear about Communist guerrilla bands attacking landowners in Peru or the rumors of Juan Peron’s return to Argentina and the upheavals that led to the military coup, with labor support (!), which deposed its president.

In Chile, Eduardo Frei was president. He downplayed the Communist threat and, like many South American intellectuals, would chide the Americans for being so “childishly afraid” of a non-threat. It was a turbulent year in Chile culminating 4 years later with the election of Salvador Allende with 36% of the vote; an election which had to be decided by the legislature who voted him in, after receiving assurances by Allende that he would not go full Communist. Assurances which went promptly out the window. Such was the shock and such was the disaster, that Eduardo Frei himself came to support Allende’s ouster by a military coup in 1973. The Chile situation did get press in the United States in the 1970’s, but as usual it was very incomplete and much too colored by Hollywood.

In Colombia, lawlessness had its own peculiar name: La Violencia. In 1966, as in prior years, President Guillermo Valencia sought to explain to US diplomats and legislators and dubious journalists that the violent guerrillas causing havoc in the country were Communist-inspired and supported (there was plenty of evidence for this, including Cubans embedded with the guerillas and pamphlets espousing the Communist line).

Perhaps La Violencia’s most despicable exponent was Pedro Antonio Marín, known as Tiro Fijo (Sure Shot). The prior year he had waylaid a bus, and killed thirteen of its passengers (including two nuns). This was followed by an attack on a nearby village. He and his men murdered the mayor and police chief and then preached revolution to the stunned villagers. Marín was the chief leader of the Communist FARC, which he founded in 1966. His toll of known murders exceeded 200 by the end of the 1960’s, then grew exponentially thereafter.

In Venezuela President Betancourt, a former Communist who had been betrayed by Castro (here, besides written propaganda, the evidence included weapons, explosives, and ammunition smuggled in from Cuba), had denounced Castro to the Organization of American States (OAS) and demanded sanctions, thereby earning the eternal hatred of his erstwhile comrades. The FALN (a Communist group akin to Colombia’s FARC) was active, but Betancourt clamped down, hard, in the early 60’s including outlawing the Communist Party. The damage to infrastructure and commerce, including oil pipelines, was great; however, by 1966, things were somewhat calm, business was good, travel was open, and the National Guard checkpoints along critical highways gave us a sense of security. Acts of violence still occurred, but not as seriously as earlier in the decade.

It was an intense year. But as a child, I knew little of all that and certainly had no premonition of the storms which were about to burst in the few short years that followed.

My only concern (whenever I would think of it, butterflies would fly in my gut) was that this would be my last year living at home. That day in Playa Hicacos was fun and peaceful and strikingly beautiful; sort of an oasis, a recreational rest midst the gathering storms. Looking back, I now suspect my father’s desire was to provide opportunities to create memories to cherish in the years ahead. Not only for me, but for him as well.

In September of 1966, at the end of annual family leave in Miami, I bid farewell to my mother and father and siblings as they boarded the Pan American jet which would transport them back to Venezuela. I remained in Miami, Florida for schooling, as did most of my cousins.

As for Playa Hicacos, I later learned that, in 1973, the entire area was designated a national park, Mochima, and I hear it’s as beautiful now as it was back in the day when I visited.

There are some things that never change.

The Beatles’ original *Yesterday and Today* album cover. Later pulled.

The Beatles’ highly influential *Rubber Soul*, which included the song, “Michelle”

Peggy Fleming on a South American postage stamp in 1983, commemorating her gold medal in the 1968 Olympics.

Arturo Illia, President of Argentina, deposed by military coup in 1966.

Eduardo Frei, president of Chile in 1966. He came to support the military coup against Salvador Allende in 1973.

Salvador Allende deposed by military coup in 1973; committed suicide before he could be removed. He was president of the senate from 1966 to 1970. A doctrinaire Communist who betrayed his assurances to the Chile legislature. They would not have supported his appointment as president otherwise.

Pedro Antonio Marín (Tiro Fijo). A most despicable murderer. The United States State Department eventually put a price of $5 million on him. It is said he died, in Colombia, of a heart attack in 2008.

Guillermo León Valencia, president of Colombia until August, 1966. He at least understood much of the instigation of *La Violencia*.

President Rómulo Betancourt and Fidel Castro in 1959. The relationship soon soured.

One of the countless beaches in the Mochima area

All beach photos are from the Mochima area.

The boy and his sister at Playa Hicacos, 1966

Envy

June 7, 2019June 7, 2019 Richard Barnes

“He was the greatest Argentine since San Martín. But two things can never be forgiven him. He created class hatred in a country that had never had it, and he ruined agriculture by siphoning off labor into the towns.” — Inside South America, p. 184

“Los débiles invocan la justicia: déseles la justicia: déseles la fuerza, y serán tan injustos como sus opresores.” [The weak invoke justice. Give them justice; give them force, and they will be as unjust as their oppressors.] — Andrés Bello, Estudios de Crítica Histórica

The former quote was spoken by an Argentine when asked for his opinion about Juan Perón. The quote is most perceptive and applies not only to Perón but to a majority of western 20th and 21st century politicians. Like the more successful ones, Perón was — to Peronistas — charismatic, with big teeth and a wide, easy smile. His method was to preach unity while inciting class hatred. In this regard, class includes wealth, race, religion, sex, fill-in-the-blank. The method also requires perpetuating a permanent sense of guilt for events that may have taken place long before the current generation was a twinkle in its parents’ eyes. Guilt weakens a people and also destroys their love for their country. It makes a people more easily manipulated by politicians. The unscrupulous know this. It would behoove the rest of us to know it too.

Have you noticed that this “method”, the inciting of class envy (although it is rarely, if ever, reported as envy), is intensely promoted by Socialist and Communist politicians? Those ideologies cannot survive without an incentive to “get even” or to create discord among a people. That alone ought to warn us to be wary of non-Socialist politicians who labor along the same path.

In the case of Venezuela, as alluded in prior posts, the country’s problems did not begin with Chavez. That gives him too much credit. The issues predated him by generations by men and women who prepared the way for him.

Venezuela was one of the most prosperous South American countries. Refer to the earlier post, Chile vs. Venezuela, for a 2-minute précis on this. She enjoyed great economic freedom, and this, under military dictatorships. I was born under one of those, the Pérez Jimenez regime. I remember in childhood rubbing shoulders with friends from all social and economic strata of society. I do not recall folks fomenting class warfare or envy.

Later in life I came to realize that under the dictatorship, we did not enjoy a free press nor did we have universal suffrage. However, we did enjoy high levels of freedom, including freedom of mobility, freedom of commerce, freedom in society, and, certainly, freedom in our homes. We had nowhere near the restrictions the peoples of Eastern Europe or Mao’s China, both atheistic regimes, were struggling under.

In the first half of the 20th century Venezuela became an economic powerhouse. As the petroleum, and later the iron ore, industries surged, Venezuela ensured it remained in private hands. The dictators understood that the state did not have the expertise to manage such vast, far flung operations; they left them in the hands of the international companies but did charge royalties and obtained other concessions in return. This arrangement ensured increasing prosperity for her people as well as great advances in local technology and culture. This was a period of phenomenal progress in research and discovery. To cite just one example, the diamond knife (or scalpel) was invented in the 1950’s by Venezuelan Humberto Fernández-Morán Villalobos (1924-1999). This “significantly advanced the development of electromagnetic lenses for electron microscopy based on superconductor technology and many other scientific contributions.”

As for state spending, it was mostly focused on the country’s roads, airports, schools, and universities. The Caracas skyline and the country’s expressways became the envy of South America. State-owned companies were few.

Nevertheless, the state began to encroach in the early 50’s, expropriating the telephone and other companies. This was very limited, but the seeds of intervention were sown and when Venezuela became a democracy, the whirlwind began to be reaped. Rómulo Betancourt, Venezuela’s first democratically elected president, one who is revered in Venezuela, was first a Communist who then forsook Communism and became a Socialist, although he spurned that label. Folks do not like to recall that he founded the Communist Party in Costa Rica when in exile there and had a hand in founding the Communist Party in Colombia as well.

We should not be surprised that he immediately proposed, and the legislature approved, price and rent controls, something previously unheard of in Venezuela; a solution seeking for a problem. He worked to create a new constitution which was not friendly to private property.

It’s easy to forget all of that because we had so much more economic and other freedoms back then than what is the case today. But it is necessary to remember that the process began generations ago. Hugo Chavez merely took it to the next level. Speaking philosophically, he was epistemologically consistent, unafraid to take his faith to its logical conclusion.

And his successor, Nicolás Maduro (or his regime’s philosophy) will remain in power so long as his “opponents” refuse to honestly declare their own complicity in what has happened to that stricken land. And an ugly manifestation of that power is the murdering of youth who are resisting what is happening to their homes and country.

A new regime will not arise so long as the opposition refuses to denounce its own love affair with Socialism and its accompanying appeal to envy.

During my last visit to Venezuela, in 2005, I conversed with a taxi driver who expressed satisfaction that the Chavez government had expropriated property that belonged to the Roman Catholic Church. The taxi driver was a protestant and was pleased with Chavez’ denunciation of that Church. I asked him whether Protestants did not care for the Ten Commandments. “Of course we do!” he replied.

“Well, I am also a Protestant. However, theft is wrong, regardless whether the state steals from atheists, or Protestants, or even Roman Catholics. Don’t you agree?”

He, of course, saw the point. But the fact I had to point it out to him, was ominous. Chavez, with a wide smile and ingratiating style, was superb in fomenting envy and class hatred, even among the religious.

The country of my birth needs to re-discover its Christian roots and look beyond politics to the Creator and Redeemer God, to whom all allegiance belongs. She must, once again, see that salvation is not in the State or, heaven forbid(!), in politicians, who, like little Caesars, revel in usurping what belongs to God.

Meanwhile, we are left with the unhappy fact that Venezuelans struggle every single day. “The collapse of Venezuela has been the worst recorded for any nation in nearly 50 years, outside of war.”

Andrés Bello (see blog post “Simón Bolivar III — Influences”), was prescient when he wrote the above quoted citation, circa 1830, decades before the publication of Das Kapital and eighteen years before that of The Communist Manifesto. He understood the human heart and its wickedness and he knew that the politics of envy would never satisfy but rather foment anger and discontent. No ideology will fix man’s heart, which is the source of all human misery.

My heart yearns for and is pained for the land of my birth.

Rómulo Betancourt (center), Venezuela’s first democratically elected president after Marcos Pérez Jimenez, meets with Fidel Castro in 1959, also the first year of Castro’s dictatorship. He later denounced Castro, who, true to form, had betrayed Betancourt by fomenting guerrilla activities in Venezuela. Presciently, Pérez Jimenez, in 1958, had declared, when asked about Castro, “If that gentleman enters our land with his ideas and opprobrium and misery, ideas which can only come from a Communist, you will detain him and you will try him and, if convicted, you will execute him….”

Juan Perón of Argentina (also of Evita Perón “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina” fame).

Andrés Bello as a young man and shortly before his death in 1865. Refer to post, *Simón Bolivar III — Influences*.

El Rosal neighborhood in Caracas, 1950. Venezuela boasted a rapidly growing middle class

Grocery shopping in Caracas, circa 1950. This is not to deny there was very real poverty in areas of the country’s interior. Future posts will address this dichotomy.

Construction of Centro Simón Bolivar (Torres del Silencio) in 1952.

Opened to the public in 1954. Functionalist architecture, suspended in air on stilts allowing the public to travel underneath unhindered.

Chile and Venezuela Contrast

May 24, 2019May 24, 2019 Richard Barnes

Hat Tip to Monica Showalter for this post. Her blog led me to this “video treasure on Twitter,” which was posted by economist Steve Hanke, Johns Hopkins University.

The video is in Spanish but it’s clear enough for non-Spanish speakers to catch the message. The photos and graphics alone are sufficient to explain the narrative of the devastation which once gripped Chile and now overwhelms Venezuela. What did Chile do to overthrow its imminent collapse? In a word, it embraced a free market model. What did Venezuela do to go from an economic powerhouse in 1975 to a basket case today? In a word, see the clip.

It’s a bit over 2 minutes and well worth your time.

https://twitter.com/steve_hanke/status/1129035468945928193

Life in an American Camp

May 18, 2019May 18, 2019 Richard Barnes

In the initial euforia of concessions by the Venezuelan government to American oil and iron ore companies, was any thought given to where these companies’ employees, many of whom would come from countries other than Venezuela, would live?

As it turns out, President Marcos Pérez Jimenez had given it much thought and had requested such companies establish “open cities” wherever possible. Puerto Ordaz, the crown jewel of Ciudad Guayana, whose impetus was The US Steel Company, was one result of the open city policy.

El Pao, where I was born, was more of what most folks think of when they conjure up images of an “American Camp.”

Jimenez understood that not all camps could be open cities. El Pao was deep in the Venezuelan jungle, relatively shut off from potential commercial centers, such as a major river, highway, airport, railway, etc.

On the other hand, the future Puerto Ordaz was situated at the confluence of two major rivers, one of which is the mighty Orinoco, the third or fourth largest in the world, measured by average discharge, meaning the river’s flow rate. I had to look this up and, from a layman’s perspective, this is probably the best illustration: “The volume of an Olympic-size swimming pool is 2,500 cubic meters. So the flow rate at the mouth of the Amazon [the world’s largest] is sufficient to fill more than 83 such pools each second.”

The flow rate at the mouth of the Congo and the Orinoco (second and third largest rivers) would each fill 16 such pools per second.

By the way, of the 10 largest rivers in the world, 5 are in South America.

As for El Pao, this area was explored by the Spanish 5 centuries ago. The Indians told them about a mountain which, when struck by lightning, would give off bright flashes. The Spanish investigated for themselves and confirmed the tales. They named the mountain, El Florero, meaning, Flower Pot, since the flashes looked like flowers on the mountain peak.

Actually, the area was rich in orchids and also an abundance of “purguo”, a tree which yielded very high quality rubber. In fact, the era in which the ore was discovered, was known as “la fiebre del balatá” (the balatá fever). Balatá refers to a natural gum of high quality found in the purguo. Mr. Aturo Vera, whom, years later, my father would often contract to drive us to fishing spots on the Caroní River, explored that area with his own father in the 1920’s. On one such journey, father and son espied a splendid ore specimen and took it with them to their home near the Caroní.

Word spread quickly and a miner, Simón Piñero, accompanied by his boss, entrepreneur Eduardo Boccardo, also explored and contracted an engineer, Frank Paglucci, to stake a claim. Mr. Vera, seeing all the excitement, also staked his claim, and rightfully so.

The ore was analyzed by American laboratories, found to be of extraordinary quality, and the Bethlehem Steel Company assigned their geologist, Earl H. Nixon, to the site.

On June 3, 1944 (3 days before D Day) , The New York Times reported, “The Bethlehem Steel Corporation’s big Venezuelan iron ore development, first disclosed as a prospect a few weeks ago, is now under way. Twenty American engineers and technicians are in charge, with some 600 native Venezuelans, skilled and unskilled, at work on the big project.” This project represented capital investments of $50 million ($1 billion in today’s money) and more in Puerto de Hierro (Iron Port), their deep sea port on the Atlantic.

By July, 1950, the first train load of ore was transported from El Pao to Palúa, the company’s river port on the Orinoco for transshipment to Puerto de Hierro. And in 1951, the seaport yielded its first shipment to the United States. The March 23 New York Times headline read: “First Cargo of Venezuela Iron Ore Arrives for Bethlehem Steel Plant; Sparrows Point Pier in Maryland Is Scene of Significant Ceremony Marking Start of 3,000,000-Ton-a-Year Shipments.” The article’s lead sentence read, “Vessels laden with iron ore have docked here for decades, but special significance attached to the arrival of an ore boat this morning.”

We’ll speak more of life in an American camp in future posts. For now, I’ll end this post by quoting some recent comments by folks who, when children, lived in Puerto de Hierro. This will give an idea of life in an American camp in Venezuela and also the pull of the land.

“That is the place of enchantment and he who has lived or even visited it will remember it for all of life. And I had the fortune of having been born there. Those good years of the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s…. The best …?”

“My! All those wonderful people who worked there are beautiful I tell you! I salute that wonderful and dear place and people!”

“The best town and the most beautiful place in Venezuela; the only beach with a diving board in the ocean. I developed my life there along with my parents and siblings. Eternal memories and the best times of my childhood and my youth. My best friends of my life were from there.”

“My beautiful town. I can never forget you, although all is different now.”

“What wonderful memories of my childhood, of my parents, of my siblings, of my neighbors who once lived and those who still live. I embrace you all!”

“My beautiful town. Now, it is not even the shadow of what it once was. How much sadness it brings me to see the ruin that it is now!”

“My town! I was born there in 1961. How I long to go and run there again. My adored land. Venezuela, how much sadness you bring me now! My dear Lord!”

“I could not have asked for a better childhood.”

Neither could I.