Maduro Tweets About Salsa While Venezuelans Starve Waiting for U.S. Aid on Border

Maduro launched the initiative amid widespread protests in 2017 demanding an end to the socialist system that had left the country with minimal food and a totally depleted medicine supply. Maduro, who rose to power after the death of late dictator Hugo Chávez in 2013, spent much of his early tenure imprisoning, torturing, and killing protesters who demanded free and fair elections to replace Chávez. As hunger and illness escalated, Maduro turned to investing in distracting initiatives like the salsa program in an attempt to placate national anger, much of which is concentrated in universities and youth culture.

Three months before the “Salsa Heart” initiative launched, Maduro also debuted a radio show called “Salsa Time,” which featured the dictator playing and dancing to his favorite songs. Maduro claimed that the show was necessary to show “the soul of our people that the oligarchy will never understand.” The dictator spent much of 2017 broadcasting footage of himself dancing salsa and ordering the country to learn to dance, proclaiming on one occasion, “the youth of the Revolution must know how to sing, love, and dance to construct a peaceful and happy Revolution.”

At the time, food had become so scarce that 15 percent of Venezuelans were eating garbage to survive. Maduro placed full control of the food supply in the hands of the military, whose officials proceeded to demand bribes from civilians to access the food. Looting became a widespread alternative, so popular that police were arresting fellow officers for looting to survive.

The situation has since dramatically worsened. Under President Juan Guaidó, however, the government of Venezuela acknowledges the humanitarian disaster that Maduro has created; Guaidó’s first act as president was to request food and medicine for the Venezuelan people.

While Guaidó is the nation’s legitimate president, recognized by nearly 50 countries around the world, Maduro still inhabits the presidential palace and controls the military. This week, he ordered the military to blockade the road that connects Venezuela to Colombia to prevent American humanitarian aid from reaching the Venezuelan people. Maduro insisted in a speech that the aid is a trap intended to allow American soldiers to enter and invade the country.