Six days ago, the plain-spoken environmental activist Gary Aboud, 60, slapped on his cap and denim jacket, secretly boarded a small Trinidadian boat and did the unthinkable.
Unlike the tens of thousands of refugees who dared the choppy crossing and now eke out a living here, or in neighbouring Guyana and wherever they can, he headed through the white-capped sea, in the opposite direction, for their troubled homeland of Venezuela, its mainland mountains silhouetted in the far distance on a clear, sunny day.
On August 13 last, media house Crónica Uno covered a protest by desperate oil workers struggling to survive on salaries that have become as worthless as the barrows of bolivars they are paid in. Shortages and inflation have soared in a once-great nation that still holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves but now ironically only operates a few refineries, following decades of widespread neglect and mismanagement, and the tightening of sanctions by the United States to force out the long-lasting populist Socialist administration that is supported by the military.