Taiwanese resident relates tense situation in Venezuela after U.S. strikes

Washington, Jan. 4 (CNA) A Taiwanese resident of Venezuela spoke to CNA about the country's long-term decline, the atmosphere after the recent United States military action, and why he still chooses to stay in the country after more than 25 years.

The man, surnamed You (游), declined to make public his full name or exact location -- in a town about 5 hours outside of Caracas by car -- due to fears for his safety, during a telephone interview conducted on Sunday.

But he otherwise spoke freely about his past experiences and hopes for Venezuela's future, just one day after the U.S. launched airstrikes and seized President Nicolás Maduro and his wife early Saturday to face drug trafficking charges in New York.

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You, now 39, came to Venezuela in 1998, when his father was sent by a Taiwan-based company to work there. At the time, he said, the country had a prosperous economy, with a metro system in the capital more advanced than the one in Taipei.

Even as a university student during the administration of President Hugo Chávez -- who used booming profits from the country's oil sector to fund a range of social and welfare programs -- he received government stipends to study pharmacology and later attend graduate school, he said.

You was working in a well-paid position for a foreign company in 2016, when collapsing oil prices, combined with economic mismanagement under Maduro, who took office after Chavez' death in 2013, gave rise to hyperinflation, product shortages, and widespread protests.

U.S. sanctions further squeezed the economy as they were introduced over the next two years.

Amid the turmoil, many Taiwanese businesspeople who did not have well-established businesses or family reasons to stay left the country in 2017 and 2018, according to You.

In his own case, You said that although his father had passed away, he now has a family in Venezuela and a business exporting industrial bearings.

Among the few other Taiwanese who have remained in his area are a man who exports car parts, a woman who runs a cosmetics factory, and another man who owns a restaurant, You said.

Current situation

Being five hours outside of Caracas, You said he only learned about the U.S. strikes and seizure of Maduro after dawn on Saturday, when he woke up to find people celebrating in the street.

After going out to get gas on Sunday, he took a drive through town and was briefly stopped at a checkpoint by police looking for suspicious characters, before being quickly released.

As for Venezuelans' response to the U.S. strikes, You said people fell into three broad categories, including those who support the government, often because they work for or otherwise benefit from it, as well as the opposition, which welcomed the intervention.

In the middle are many people who feel "conflicted" by the events, who hope for a change of government but also view the seizure of Venezuela's head of state as a violation of sovereignty or an "invasion," he said.

To illustrate the "helpless" situation many Venezuelans find themselves in, You gave the example of a friend, a career soldier who, even if he did oppose the government, could not express it without facing immediate and severe consequences.

Among poorer Venezuelans, there are also many who fear having their benefits cut if they speak out against the government, he said.

Staying in Venezuela

After the recent U.S. military buildup in the southern Caribbean, many airlines began cancelling flights in and out of Venezuela in early December, You said.

Currently, all flights are cancelled until mid- or late-January, making it extremely difficult to leave, he said.

As for himself, You said he had put down roots in Venezuela, and that leaving the country was "not an option."

But he expressed hope that the country could someday return to the "golden era" he found when he arrived there in the late 1990s.

"Venezuela has plentiful resources, with larger oil reserves than Saudi Arabia or [the UAE]," You said. "If they could be well-managed, an economic recovery would not be far behind."