AMNA NAWAZ: Now to Venezuela and the ongoing struggle for power amid a growing humanitarian
crisis.
Next week, a new Parliament is set to be sworn in, after members of the opposition boycotted
elections earlier this month.
That leaves opposition leader Juan Guaido in an even more precarious position and the
country with an uncertain future.
Special correspondent Marcia Biggs reports.
MARCIA BIGGS: They are lines that seem to go on forever, all across Venezuela, hungry
children waiting to receive a meal.
Last winter, we visited this community kitchen in a poor barrio of Caracas, where volunteers
from the foundation Alimenta La Solidaridad providing food for members of the community
to prepare for their neighbors.
We met the head of the organization, Roberto Patino.
He told us that, in 240 community kitchens throughout Venezuela, his team was serving
around 25,000 people.
Early this month, we learned that their office was raided, their bank account frozen, and
Patino was wanted for arrest on charges of terrorism and corruption.
Why do you think that they're going after you?
ROBERTO PATINO, Director, Alimenta La Solidaridad: I'm not sure what their intentions are.
They are very paranoid.
And they see conspiracies all over.
They think that everything that is being done on the community level might have the purpose
of overthrowing them.
And we're trying to make them see that this is a big mistake, that they're not hurting
me.
They're not hurting the opposition, which doesn't own this program.
We are open for everyone.
MARCIA BIGGS: Patino told me they never ask anyone whom they support, President Nicolas
Maduro or the opposition.
But politics permeates everything in Venezuela and can determine whether you support Maduro
and eat or go hungry.
In early December's parliamentary elections, Maduro's ruling party was widely denounced
for promising food for votes.
It was the latest turn in a years-long political crisis that has left the country in chaos
and with two presidents, Maduro, whose election in 2018 was declared illegitimate by the opposition-led
Parliament, and Juan Guaido, the former speaker of Parliament who in 2018 was constitutionally
first in line to the presidency.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Mr. President.
MARCIA BIGGS: For the almost two years since, and despite being recognized as the true president
by the U.S. and more than 50 countries, Guaido has not been able to win the support of the
military, and therefore hasn't taken control of the country.
We were there almost one year ago when National Guard troops barred him from entering Parliament.
Maduro's party essentially ran unopposed in this month's election.
Only one-third of registered voters actually showed up.
LEOPOLDO LOPEZ, Venezuela Opposition Activist: We did not boycott the election.
This was not an election.
This was a fraud.
We want elections.
MARCIA BIGGS: Leopoldo Lopez was once the face of the opposition, until his imprisonment
in 2014.
In 2017, he was released on house arrest, under the condition of silence.
His protege and fellow activist Juan Guaido took up the mantle.
And, together, they made a failed attempt to oust Maduro from power 18 months ago.
In October, Lopez made headlines when he escaped the country and fled to Spain, where he was
able to reunite with his family.
LEOPOLDO LOPEZ: I was increasingly more isolated.
And I needed to contribute from the outside.
Repression in Venezuela has increased a great deal.
For example, President Guaido does not sleep in the same place every night.
He needs to move every night in order to be safe.
MARCIA BIGGS: In response to what he calls a fraud, Lopez recently joined members of
the opposition from exile in staging its own referendum, with six million Venezuelans both
in country and abroad demanding new elections.
For its part, the government has responded to this by saying those voters look like zombies
and the results have no bearing on reality.
How do you go forward with these two dueling realities?
This strategy has not seemed to work so far.
LEOPOLDO LOPEZ: We have been many times in a moment with huge enthusiasm, with tens of
thousands of people in the streets pushing protests and pushing and rallying support,
and then we fall into a period of demobilization and loss of hope.
And then we need to regain and we need to continue to push forward into a new upside
cycle.
MARCIA BIGGS: But, meanwhile, the Venezuelan people suffer.
U.S. sanctions hammered a country already facing economic collapse and humanitarian
crisis.
The COVID pandemic dealt a further blow to a crumbling health care system and a country
already starving.
Patino says, as his organization is shut down, the neighbors have come together, each contributing
a little something to the kitchens.
But, with supplies dwindling, the kitchens may be forced to close, a prospect too much
for some to bear.
This single mother broke down in tears.
"This kitchen is helping me and my daughter so much," she says.
"There are so many children that are hungry."
Patino worries that the current opposition strategy focuses too much on international
efforts to change the political system, and not enough on the people suffering at home.
ROBERTO PATINO: If you put yourselves in the shoes of the average Venezuelan, you have
to consider how the struggle for democracy relates to this person, how this person can
see it has a -- there's a connection between her or his immediate needs and the aspiration
of a democratic outcome.
I think that's the big question that all of us who want democracy in Venezuela need to
struggle with.
MARCIA BIGGS: Leopoldo Lopez agrees that the Venezuelan people are at the center of this
fight, but says they must continue fighting to see real change.
LEOPOLDO LOPEZ: The only way in which there will be a change in the humanitarian situation
for the Venezuelan people is if there is political change.
We have been top.
We have been in the bottom.
And -- but, at the end, we will win the final battle.
MARCIA BIGGS: But for those still on the ground in Venezuela, it seems the wait for that day
never ends.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Marcia Biggs.
AMNA NAWAZ: And just yesterday, Roberto Patino received word that his arrest warrant has
been revoked, but his accounts remain frozen.