Venezuela, A Failing State

The medical student told me to use his name.

医学生告诉我用他的名字。

He said he didn’t care.

他说他不在乎。

“Maduro is a donkey,” he said.

“马杜罗是一头驴，”他说。

“An asshole.” He meant Nicolás Maduro, the President of Venezuela.

“一个混蛋。”他指的是委内瑞拉总统尼古拉斯·马杜罗。

We were passing through the wards of a large public hospital in Valencia, a city of roughly a million people, a hundred miles west of Caracas.

我们当时正经过瓦伦西亚一家大型公立医院的病房，这座城市约有一百万人，位于加拉加斯以西一百英里处。

The hallways were dim and stifling, thick with a frightening stench.

走廊里昏暗而闷热，充满了令人恐惧的恶臭。

Some were full of patients waiting silently in long lines outside exam rooms.

有些检查室外挤满了病人，排着长队默默等待。

Others were dark and deserted, with the overhead lighting ripped out.

其他地方一片漆黑，荒无人烟，头顶的灯光也被灭了。

The medical student, lithe and light-haired, kept us moving, peering through swinging doors, conferring with colleagues in blue scrubs.

这位身材轻盈、浅色头发的医科学生让我们不断前行，透过旋转门向外张望，并与穿着蓝色工作服的同事进行交流。

We ducked into a room stuffed with rusted bed frames and dirty plastic barrels, where in a corner a thin young man was propped on a bed without sheets.

我们躲进一个房间，里面塞满了生锈的床架和肮脏的塑料桶，角落里一个瘦小的年轻人靠在一张没有床单的床上。

He watched us weakly.

他无力地看着我们。

A young woman in a pink T-shirt stood beside him, rigid with surprise.

一名身穿粉红色T恤的年轻女子站在他身边，表情因惊讶而僵硬。

The medical student gently asked if they would answer my questions.

医学生温和地问他们是否愿意回答我的问题。

The young man nodded.

年轻人点点头。

His name was Nestor.

他的名字叫内斯特。

He was twenty-one.

他二十一岁。

This was his wife, Grace.

这是他的妻子格蕾丝。

Three weeks earlier, he had been ambushed on his motorbike and shot three times, in the chest and the left arm.

三周前，他在摩托车上遭到伏击，胸部和左臂中了三枪。

“They were going to shoot me again, but one of the malandros ”—bad guys—“said I was already dead.

“他们打算再次向我开枪，但其中一个坏人”说我已经死了。

They took my motorbike.” Nestor spoke slowly, his voice uninflected.

他们拿走了我的摩托车。”内斯特缓慢地说着，声音没有任何变化。

His skin was waxy.

他的皮肤蜡质。

The wounds to his arm and chest were uncovered, half healed, dark with dried blood.

他手臂和胸口的伤口都裸露着，已经愈合了一半，黑色的血迹已经干了。

There was a saline drip in his right arm and, at the foot of his bed, an improvised contraption, made from twine and an old one-litre plastic bottle, whose purpose I couldn’t figure out.

他的右臂上有一个盐水滴管，在他的床脚处有一个用麻线和一个旧的一升塑料瓶制成的简易装置，我不知道它的用途。

No. Grace brought it.

不，格蕾丝带来的。

She also brought food, water, and, when she could find them, bandages, pain medication, antibiotics.

她还带来了食物、水，如果能找到，还带来了绷带、止痛药和抗生素。

These things were available only on the black market, at high prices, and Grace’s job, in a warehouse, paid less than a dollar a day.

这些东西只能在黑市上买到，价格很高，而格蕾丝在仓库里的工作每天工资不到一美元。

“The hospital doesn’t even give water,” the medical student said.

“医院连水都不给，”这位医科学生说。

He was watching the hallway.

他正在观察走廊。

He studied Nestor briefly.

他简短地审视了内斯特。

“The lungs fill with liquid after someone is shot in the thorax,” he told me.

“胸部中弹后，肺部充满液体，”他告诉我。

“We usually take the bullet out if we can.

“如果可以的话，我们通常会把子弹取出来。

But, either way, the wounds need to be drained.”

但无论如何，伤口都需要引流。”

Nestor looked down.

内斯特低下头。

The naïveté of the question left it beneath reply.

这个问题太天真了，无法回答。

Venezuela has, by various measures, the world’s highest violent-crime rate.

从各种衡量标准来看，委内瑞拉的暴力犯罪率是世界上最高的。

Less than two per cent of reported crimes are prosecuted.

被举报的犯罪行为中只有不到百分之二受到起诉。

We had to go, the medical student said.

“我们得走了，”医科学生说。

Grace and Nestor thanked us, though we had done nothing for them.

格蕾丝和内斯特感谢我们，尽管我们没有为他们做任何事情。

The medical student was worried about what he called “spies.” He had smuggled me into the hospital through a broken back door.

这位医科学生担心他所谓的“间谍”。他通过破损的后门将我偷偷带进了医院。

The regular entrances to the hospital were all manned by uniformed personnel with rifles—National Guard, mostly, but also police, both local and national, and other, less identifiable militia.

医院的常规入口处都由手持步枪的穿制服的人员把守——大部分是国民警卫队，但也有当地和国家的警察，以及其他不太容易辨认的民兵。

Hospitals in Caracas were even more tightly secured.

加拉加斯的医院戒备更加严密。

Why were hospitals so heavily guarded?

为什么医院戒备森严？

Nobody threatened to invade them.

没有人威胁要入侵他们。

The guards had orders, it was said, to keep out journalists.

据说，警卫接到命令不准记者进入。

Exposés had embarrassed the government.

曝光使政府难堪。

Most of the elevators were out of order, so we took the stairs.

大部分电梯都坏了，所以我们走楼梯。

At night, the medical student said, these stairwells were dangerous—unlit and prowled by muggers.

这位医科学生说，到了晚上，这些楼梯间很危险——没有灯光，而且有抢劫犯出没。

But how could muggers get past the guards?

但抢劫犯怎么能躲过警卫呢？

“They work together,” he said.

“他们一起工作，”他说。

“They share.” He took me down a grimy corridor to a heavy door, which he cracked open.

“他们分享。”他带我穿过肮脏的走廊，来到一扇沉重的门前，将门打开。

Beyond it, I could see a gleaming, brightly lit hallway with freshly painted light-blue walls and a polished white tile floor.

越过它，我可以看到一条闪闪发光、灯火通明的走廊，墙壁粉刷一新，浅蓝色的墙壁和抛光的白色瓷砖地板。

“This is the area they show visitors,” he whispered.

“这是他们向游客展示的区域，”他低声说道。

He peered at me to make sure I understood.

他凝视着我，以确保我明白。

Got it: Potemkin General.

明白了：波将金将军。

We hurried away.

我们赶紧走了。

I was introduced to a surgeon, who took me outside to speak.

我被介绍给一位外科医生，他带我到外面去演讲。

We stood under a tin roof, near piles of garbage and a deserted loading dock.

我们站在铁皮屋顶下，靠近成堆的垃圾和一个废弃的装卸码头。

The surgeon was bearded, heavyset, nervous.

外科医生留着胡须，身材魁梧，神情紧张。

He looked exhausted.

他看起来很疲惫。

He did not want me to know his name, let alone use it.

他不想让我知道他的名字，更不用说使用它了。

“We have no basic trauma tools,” he said.

“我们没有基本的创伤工具，”他说。

“Sutures, gloves, pins, plates.” He ran down a list of unavailable medications, including ciprofloxacin, an all-purpose antibiotic, and clindamycin, a cheap antibiotic.

“缝线、手套、别针、盘子。”他列出了一份无法使用的药物清单，包括环丙沙星（一种通用抗生素）和克林霉素（一种廉价抗生素）。

The doctors lost surgical patients because they had no adrenaline.

医生失去了手术病人，因为他们没有肾上腺素。

They could still do some types of blood tests, but they could no longer test for hepatitis or H.I.V./ AIDS .

他们仍然可以进行某些类型的血液检测，但不能再检测肝炎或艾滋病毒/艾滋病。

The electricity supply was a problem.

电力供应是一个问题。

At one stage, the operating room had been closed for a week.

手术室曾一度关闭一周。

The waiting list for surgery was now three months.

手术等待名单现在已经三个月了。

In Maracaibo, a major city farther west, surgeons had been reduced to operating by cell-phone flashlight.

在更西边的大城市马拉开波，外科医生只能靠手机手电筒进行手术。

The surgeon headed back inside.

外科医生回到里面。

Doctors had been fired, I knew, for talking to reporters, even for simply filing complaints about hospital conditions.

我知道，医生因为与记者交谈，甚至只是对医院条件提出投诉而被解雇。

The government did not want to know.

政府不想知道。

There were private clinics to which high officials and Venezuelans with dollars took themselves and their families.

高级官员和持有美元的委内瑞拉人带着自己和家人前往私人诊所。

Those who could went abroad.

那些能出国的人。

“I’ve seen public hospitals in Chile and Argentina,” the medical student said.

“我看过智利和阿根廷的公立医院，”这位医学生说。

“They’re clean, fine, efficient, like they used to be here.

“他们干净、精致、高效，就像以前在这里一样。

We’re going backward.

我们正在倒退。

All because of this government!”

这一切都是因为这个政府！”

Public health in Venezuela is, in fact, getting rapidly worse.

事实上，委内瑞拉的公共卫生状况正在迅速恶化。

In 1961, Venezuela was the first country declared free of malaria.

1961年，委内瑞拉成为第一个宣布消除疟疾的国家。

Now its robust malaria-­prevention program has collapsed, and there are more than a hundred thousand cases of malaria yearly.

现在，其强有力的疟疾预防计划已经崩溃，每年有超过十万例疟疾病例。

Other diseases and ailments long vanquished have also returned—malnutrition, diphtheria, plague.

其他早已被消灭的疾病也卷土重来——营养不良、白喉、鼠疫。

The government releases few statistics, but it is estimated that one out of every three patients admitted to a public hospital today dies there.

政府发布的统计数据很少，但据估计，目前公立医院收治的病人中有三分之一死于该院。

State mental hospitals, lacking both food and medications, have been reduced to putting emaciated, untreated patients out on the streets.

州立精神病院缺乏食物和药物，只能将瘦弱、未经治疗的病人流落街头。

We circled the hospital grounds, following a tin-roofed walkway.

我们沿着一条铁皮屋顶的走道绕过医院场地。

It was a dim, greasy day, raining lightly.

那天天气昏暗，油腻腻的，还下着小雨。

We came upon a long, narrow encampment: families who had strung hammocks between the posts of the walkway or laid mattresses on the concrete, out of the rain.

我们来到了一个又长又窄的营地：一些家庭在人行道的柱子之间串起吊床，或者在水泥地上铺上床垫，以避雨。

There were bags, baskets, baby strollers.

有袋子、篮子、婴儿车。

People seemed to be camped long term.

人们似乎长期扎营。

A dark-skinned man in a hammock said that he had been there for three months.

一名躺在吊床上的黑皮肤男子说，他已经在那里呆了三个月了。

His four-year-old son was in the hospital with a low blood-platelet count.

他四岁的儿子因血小板计数低而住院。

“Viral infection,” the medical student told me.

“病毒感染，”医学生告诉我。

“Maybe Zika, or dengue.

“也许是寨卡病毒，或者登革热病毒。

If he gets the right meds, he’ll survive.” He asked the man, whose name was José, about blood tests.

如果他得到正确的药物，他就能活下来。”他向这名名叫何塞的男子询问血液检查的情况。

José said that he had raised the forty dollars for the tests, partly by begging on buses, after losing his job.

何塞说，他失业后通过在公交车上乞讨，筹集了四十美元用于检查。

Now he needed money for medicines, none of which the pharmacies had in stock.

现在他需要钱买药，而药店没有库存。

“We must buy from the mafia,” he said.

“我们必须从黑手党那里购买，”他说。

He meant the black market, but not just the ubiquitous profiteers known as bacha­queros .

他指的是黑市，但不仅仅是无处不在的奸商。

The medical student understood.

医学生明白了。

Some of the security forces that were deployed, or self-­deployed, to the hospital were in the medical-­supply business.

部署或自行部署到医院的一些安全部队从事医疗用品业务。

The overstaffed entrances—all the military and police uniforms and firepower—began to make more sense.

人满为患的入口——所有的军警制服和火力——开始变得更有意义。

Cops and soldiers, militares , were notoriously underpaid.

警察、士兵、军队的工资是出了名的低。

There was money to be made here.

这里有钱可赚。

We talked to other families camped on the walkway, and on concrete benches under an awning closer to the hospital buildings.

我们与在人行道上以及靠近医院大楼的遮阳篷下的混凝土长凳上露营的其他家庭进行了交谈。

Some people were surprisingly outspoken.

有些人的直言不讳令人惊讶。

They denounced the prices charged for examinations (in a system of supposedly free health care), the corruption, the intimidation, the outrageous prices for sterile gauze, saline, food (when there was food), and medications.

他们谴责检查收费（在所谓的免费医疗保健体系中）、腐败、恐吓、无菌纱布、生理盐水、食物（如果有食物的话）和药物的高得离谱的价格。

Some militares had the nerve to accuse the families of profiteering, and to seize their hard-won supplies when they tried to enter the hospital.

一些军人竟然厚颜无耻地指责家属牟取暴利，并在他们试图进入医院时没收他们来之不易的物资。

These were items that, often, they had bought from other militares , who had looted them from pharmacies, or from shipments meant for hospitals.

这些物品通常是他们从其他军队那里购买的，这些物品是从药房或运往医院的货物中抢劫的。

The worst actors were the colectivos , gangs of barrio toughs armed by the government and deputized as “defenders of the revolution.” Their main activity, as runaway inflation and food rationing gripped the country, was shaking down and monitoring their neighborhoods, but they found opportunities around hospitals and seemingly answered to no one.

最糟糕的行为者是由政府武装并被称为“革命捍卫者”的社区暴徒团伙。随着失控的通货膨胀和食品配给席卷全国，他们的主要活动是镇压和监控他们的社区，但他们在医院周围找到了机会，而且似乎没有对任何人做出回应。

(Some colectivos could trace their descent to urban guerrillas from the sixties who had never disarmed.)

（一些集体主义者可以将他们的血统追溯到六十年代从未解除武装的城市游击队。）

A young woman in a wheelchair had been shot in the leg in a robbery, and was unable to get the pain reliever she needed.

一名坐在轮椅上的年轻女子在一次抢劫中腿部中弹，无法获得所需的止痛药。

But that wasn’t why she was out here.

但这不是她来这里的原因。

She was looking after her mother, who was in the hospital.

她正在照顾住院的母亲。

The young woman taught primary school, and her students came to school hungry, and she had some choice things to say about President Maduro.

这位年轻女子在小学任教，她的学生饿着肚子来到学校，她对马杜罗总统有一些选择性的话要说。

Use my name, she said.

用我的名字吧，她说。

She wasn’t afraid.

她并不害怕。

But I didn’t want to put more than her first name in my notes.

但我不想在笔记中写下她的名字以外的内容。

If guards or the colectivos saw my notebooks, they might be seized.

如果警卫或集体人员看到我的笔记本，他们可能会被没收。

The revolution being defended is usually known, in Venezuela, as Chavismo, for its chief protagonist, Hugo Chávez, who was the country’s President from 1999 until his death, in 2013.

在委内瑞拉，这场被捍卫的革命通常被称为“查韦斯主义”，因为它的主要主角乌戈·查韦斯 (Hugo Chávez) 从 1999 年担任该国总统直至 2013 年去世。

For decades, the country had been ruled by two centrist parties that took turns winning elections but were increasingly out of touch with voters.

几十年来，这个国家一直由两个中间派政党统治，这两个政党轮流赢得选举，但与选民越来越脱节。

A move to impose fiscal austerity was rejected, in 1989, with a mass revolt and countrywide looting—a paroxysm known as the Caracazo—which was put down by the Army at a cost of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives.

1989 年，一项实施财政紧缩的举措遭到拒绝，引发了大规模起义和全国性的抢劫（这种突发事件被称为“卡拉卡索”），军队镇压了这场骚乱，造成了数百甚至数千人的生命损失。

Chávez was an Army lieutenant colonel, from a humble background—his parents were village schoolteachers.

查韦斯是一名陆军中校，出身卑微——他的父母都是乡村学校的老师。

He crashed the national stage in 1992, by leading a military-coup attempt.

1992年，他因领导一场军事政变而登上了国家舞台。

The coup failed, and Chávez went to jail, but his televised declarations of noble intent caught the imaginations of many Venezuelans.

政变失败，查韦斯锒铛入狱，但他在电视上宣示的崇高意图引起了许多委内瑞拉人的想象。

He offered a charismatic alternative to the corrupt, sclerotic status quo.

他为腐败、僵化的现状提供了一种具有超凡魅力的替代方案。

After his release, he headed a small leftist party and easily won the Presidency.

出狱后，他领导了一个小型左翼政党，并轻松赢得了总统职位。

He soon rewrote the constitution, concentrating power in the executive.

他很快重写了宪法，将权力集中到行政部门。

Like his hero, Simón Bolívar, the Venezuelan leader who drove the Spanish out of South America, he had regional ambitions.

和他心目中的英雄、将西班牙人赶出南美的委内瑞拉领导人西蒙·玻利瓦尔一样，他也有地区野心。

He used Venezuela’s oil wealth, which is vast, to help cement a close alliance with Cuba and then with a number of other neighbors in South America, Central America, and the Caribbean, creating a strategic and economic bloc to counter the traditional hegemony of the United States.

他利用委内瑞拉巨大的石油财富帮助巩固与古巴的紧密联盟，然后与南美洲、中美洲和加勒比地区的其他一些邻国建立了一个战略和经济集团，以对抗美国的传统霸权。

Chávez was a telegenic populist with a gift for electioneering.

查韦斯是一位上镜的民粹主义者，具有竞选天赋。

He mesmerized the country with his Sunday TV show, “Hello, President!,” on which he railed for hours on end against his opponents, particularly the country’s traditional business élites and imperialist Washington, told jokes and stories, sang, extolled the achievements of his Bolivarian Revolution, and issued decrees, some of them consequential—the expropriation of a factory, the consignment of ten military battalions to the Colombian border.

他用周日的电视节目“你好，总统！”迷住了整个国家，在节目中，他连续几个小时痛斥他的对手，特别是该国的传统商业精英和帝国主义华盛顿，讲笑话和故事，唱歌，赞扬他的玻利瓦尔革命的成就，并发布法令，其中一些是后果严重的——征用一家工厂，向哥伦比亚边境派遣十个军事营。

He even took to TV to order the jailing of a judge who had released a hated enemy.

他甚至在电视上下令监禁一名释放了仇敌的法官。

(In the case of the judge, the enemy was a banker who had been in jail awaiting trial for three years, which was longer than the law allowed, and the judge herself then spent three and a half years in jail—where her lawyer says she was raped—and under house arrest.

（就法官而言，敌人是一名银行家，她已在监狱等待审判三年，这比法律允许的时间要长，而法官本人则在监狱中度过了三年半的时光——她的律师说她在监狱中被强奸了——并被软禁。

Although she has never been tried, she is still forbidden to speak to the press or leave Venezuela.)

尽管她从未受过审判，但她仍然被禁止接受媒体采访或离开委内瑞拉。）

Chávez propped up the Cuban economy with cheap oil, and in return the Cubans sent thousands of doctors, to help start a network of health clinics.

查韦斯用廉价石油支撑了古巴经济，作为回报，古巴人派遣了数千名医生，帮助建立医疗诊所网络。

After Chávez barely survived a 2002 coup attempt, the Cubans also sent teams of military and intelligence advisers who taught their Venezuelan counterparts how to surveil and disrupt the political opposition Cuban-style, with close monitoring, harassment, and strategic arrests.

查韦斯在 2002 年的政变中勉强幸存后，古巴还派遣了军事和情报顾问小组，教委内瑞拉同行如何通过密切监视、骚扰和战略逮捕来监视和瓦解古巴式的政治反对派。

The Bolivarian Revolution is not the Cuban Revolution.

玻利瓦尔革命不是古巴革命。

The “twenty-­first-century socialism” that Chavismo seeks to build has relied on electoral democracy; opinion polling and elections qualify as national obsessions.

查韦斯主义寻求建立的“二十一世纪社会主义”依赖于选举民主；民意调查和选举堪称全国关注的焦点。

Chávez ruled in permanent campaign mode—there was always a referendum, a parliamentary election, a Presidential contest looming.

查韦斯以永久竞选模式统治——公投、议会选举、总统竞选总是迫在眉睫。

These campaigns, lively and technically “free and fair,” were not without risk for participants.

这些活动生动活泼，技术上“自由公平”，但对参与者来说并非没有风险。

In 2003, when three million voters signed a petition calling for a Presidential recall—using a mechanism included in the 1999 constitution—their names and national-­identity numbers were recorded and used to create a blacklist.

2003 年，当 300 万选民签署了一份请愿书，要求利用 1999 年宪法中包含的机制罢免总统时，他们的姓名和国民身份号码被记录下来并用于创建黑名单。

Those who had signed were fired from government jobs, denied loans and contracts, and otherwise penalized.

那些签署的人会被政府解雇，贷款和合同被拒绝，并受到其他处罚。

During an oil-price boom that began in 2004, the distribution of state largesse to key constituencies went into overdrive.

在 2004 年开始的石油价格繁荣期间，国家向关键选区的慷慨分配变得过度。

Chávez won nearly every important election held over fifteen years, including the recall effort.

查韦斯几乎赢得了十五年来举行的每一次重要选举，包括罢免行动。

Nicolás Maduro, a onetime bus driver and Chávez’s Vice-President, lacks the magic voter touch.

尼古拉斯·马杜罗（Nicolás Maduro）曾经是一名公交车司机，也是查韦斯的副总统，缺乏神奇的选民影响力。

He squeaked into office in a special election held in April, 2013, six weeks after Chávez died.

查韦斯去世六周后，他在 2013 年 4 月举行的特别选举中勉强就职。

Maduro has a mystical streak, and has told the nation that a little bird speaks to him, bringing news of Chávez from the afterlife.

马杜罗有一种神秘的气质，他告诉全国，一只小鸟对他说话，带来了查韦斯来自来世的消息。

He calls himself “the son of Chávez,” and he and his government justify, at least to their fellow-­ chavistas , much of what they do by insisting that it represents the will of the late leader.

他称自己为“查韦斯之子”，他和他的政府至少对他们的查韦斯同胞来说，通过坚持认为这代表了已故领导人的意愿来证明他们所做的大部分事情是合理的。

In parliamentary elections in December, 2015, antichavista parties won two-thirds of the seats in the National Assembly.

在2015年12月的议会选举中，反查韦斯政党赢得了国民议会三分之二的席位。

From that base, an opposition alliance has been demanding a referendum to recall Maduro, whose poll numbers have dropped steadily.

从这个基础出发，反对派联盟一直要求举行全民公投以罢免马杜罗，而马杜罗的民调支持率稳步下降。

The Maduro government is stalling, throwing up procedural roadblocks through institutions it still controls, notably the Supreme Court and the National Election Commission.

马杜罗政府正在拖延，通过其仍然控制的机构设置程序障碍，特别是最高法院和国家选举委员会。

If a vote is held, Maduro will very likely lose.

如果举行投票，马杜罗很可能会失败。

“Dear Diary: So I texted Julie and I told her that just because I’m hanging out with Linda a lot it doesn’t mean I’m not her friend anymore and she said she knows that but she just feels weird because she thinks that Linda doesn’t like her and because she thinks Linda and I have more in common, so I told her to stop worrying about what Linda thinks and she said fine but I could tell she was upset so I talked to Linda about it and she said she does like Julie and was trying really hard to be nice to her and when I told Julie what Linda had said she said she felt bad because she had been saying a lot of mean things about Linda.

“亲爱的日记：所以我给朱莉发短信，我告诉她，仅仅因为我经常和琳达一起出去玩，并不意味着我不再是她的朋友，她说她知道这一点，但她只是感觉很奇怪，因为她认为琳达不喜欢她，因为她认为琳达和我有更多共同点，所以我告诉她不要担心琳达的想法，她说很好，但我可以看出她很沮丧，所以我和琳达谈论了这件事，她说她确实喜欢朱莉我非常努力地对她好，当我告诉朱莉琳达所说的话时，她说她感觉很糟糕，因为她说了很多关于琳达的刻薄话。

Anyway, I had a day off so I decided to go to the aquarium .

不管怎样，我休息了一天，所以我决定去水族馆。

.

。

.” Link copied

”。链接已复制

The eyes of Chávez are everywhere.

查韦斯的目光无处不在。

It’s a stylized graphic, just a few heavy black lines, depicting eyes and brows, and you see it on billboards, T-shirts, flags, and the left sleeve of a polo shirt on a man sitting across the airplane aisle.

这是一个风格化的图形，只有几条粗黑线，描绘了眼睛和眉毛，你可以在广告牌、T 恤、旗帜以及坐在飞机过道对面的男人的 Polo 衫左袖上看到它。

The eyes are the first thing I see each morning when I open the curtains in my Caracas hotel room—they’re painted huge, on the building opposite.

每天早上，当我打开加拉加斯酒店房间的窗帘时，我首先看到的就是眼睛——它们被漆成巨大的，位于对面的建筑上。

Evidently, many people find them inspiring, or comforting: El Comandante continues to watch over us.

显然，许多人觉得它们鼓舞人心或令人安慰：指挥官继续关注着我们。

True believers still abound.

真正的信徒仍然很多。

I sat with Carmen Ruiz, a trim grandmother with merry eyes, in a breezy passage between shops in a small town near Caracas called El Hatillo.

我和卡门·鲁伊斯（Carmen Ruiz）坐在加拉加斯附近一个名叫埃尔·哈蒂洛（El Hatillo）的小镇上，她是一位身材匀称、眼神愉快的祖母，坐在商店之间微风徐徐的通道里。

“My life has improved,” she said.

“我的生活有所改善，”她说。

Ruiz grew up in poverty, in a hillside barrio called El Calvario, just above the old town of El Hatillo.

鲁伊斯（Ruiz）在贫困中长大，在一个名为埃尔卡尔瓦里奥（El Calvario）的山坡社区里长大，就在埃尔哈蒂洛（El Hatillo）老城区的上方。

She worked as a seamstress and a cook, and learned accounting, while raising four kids.

她当过裁缝和厨师，并学习会计，同时抚养四个孩子。

The living wasn’t easy.

生活并不轻松。

She mentioned the terror of the Caracazo.

她提到了卡拉卡索的恐怖。

“We first heard of Chávez in 1992, when he attempted the coup,” she said.

“我们第一次听说查韦斯是在 1992 年，当时他试图发动政变，”她说。

“My husband and I started studying his words.

“我和丈夫开始研究他的话。

From jail, he was sending out strategic lines, about Venezuela’s whole situation—historical, economic, national, international.

在监狱里，他就委内瑞拉的整个局势——历史、经济、国家、国际——发出了战略方针。

It was a complete analysis, from 1811, more than twenty constitutions.

这是对 1811 年以来二十多部宪法的完整分析。

He was very wise.

他非常聪明。

And we were convinced: This is the man.

我们确信：就是这个人。

He was a campesino, very simple.

他是一个农民，非常简单。

Everybody would be equal.

每个人都是平等的。

We started working for his release.”

我们开始努力争取他的释放。”

For the poor, everything got better under the revolution, Ruiz said.

鲁伊斯说，对于穷人来说，革命后一切都变得更好了。

Health care, education, housing, transportation: “Many shacks in El Calvario got new roofs.

医疗保健、教育、住房、交通：“埃尔卡尔瓦里奥的许多棚屋都换了新屋顶。

My mother, who always had the intelligence, finally learned to read, in her seventies.” In 2005, Ruiz became a member of the communal assembly—a neighborhood council meant to counter the power of mayors.

我的母亲一向聪明，七十多岁的时候终于学会了读书。” 2005 年，鲁伊斯成为社区议会的成员，这是一个旨在对抗市长权力的社区委员会。

She described herself, smiling shyly, as “a soldier of the revolution.” She went to work for the ministry of culture and began to study, among other things, local history.

她羞涩地微笑着，形容自己是“革命战士”。她到文化部工作，并开始研究当地历史等。

She was carrying two bags filled with books and papers, and told me that she was writing a history of El Hatillo.

她背着两个袋子，里面装满了书籍和文件，并告诉我她正在写一部哈蒂洛的历史。

Her family had lived here for eight generations, “and I really want to document the history of the place.

她的家族已经在这里生活了八代，“我真的很想记录这个地方的历史。

I don’t want it to be lost.”

我不想让它丢失。”

Her ancestors, who were black and indigenous, were cafeteros —small coffee farmers—in the neighboring countryside.

她的祖先是黑人和土著，是邻近乡村的咖啡馆（小咖啡农）。

“But my great-grandfather had a big hacienda, and eighteen children, with the women who worked for him.

“但我的曾祖父有一个大庄园，有十八个孩子，还有为他工作的女人们。

My grandpa inherited one-eighteenth of the hacienda, and he lived well as a cafetero .

我的爷爷继承了庄园的十八分之一，他在咖啡馆里过着很好的生活。

Then modernity came.

然后现代性到来了。

The family who had the first radio used to put it on the corner for everybody to hear news and music.

拥有第一台收音机的家庭过去常常把它放在角落里，以便每个人都能听到新闻和音乐。

The government built roads to Caracas, and rich people built big houses here.

政府修建了通往加拉加斯的道路，富人在这里建造了大房子。

The cafeteros dwindled away.

自助餐厅越来越少了。

But the militares who governed us were always trying to advance their own interests.

但统治我们的军队总是试图推进自己的利益。

They didn’t care about anyone else.”

他们不关心其他人。”

I asked about the current food shortages and failing hospitals.

我询问了当前的粮食短缺和医院衰败的情况。

“It is an economic war totally orchestrated by fascistic factions on the right,” Ruiz explained.

“这是一场完全由右翼法西斯派别策划的经济战争，”鲁伊斯解释道。

“In every country, you have an oligarchy, a bourgeoisie, working to prevent other groups from gaining power.

“在每个国家，都有寡头政治、资产阶级，致力于阻止其他群体获得权力。

Our economic situation is imposed by outside powers, by transnational companies like Polar.”

我们的经济状况是由外部势力、由像 Polar 这样的跨国公司强加的。”

The government constantly cites this “economic war,” secretly directed from Washington, to explain the gutted economy.

政府不断引用这场由华盛顿秘密指挥的“经济战争”来解释经济崩溃的原因。

Polar is Empresas Polar, Venezuela’s leading manufacturer of food and beer.

Polar 是 Empresas Polar，委内瑞拉领先的食品和啤酒制造商。

Polar has been threatened with expropriation, and is harassed and vilified by the government as a treacherous bastion of capital, but it has become indispensable to feeding the country.

Polar 曾受到征用的威胁，并被政府骚扰和诽谤为奸诈的资本堡垒，但它已成为养活国家不可或缺的一部分。

Ruiz explained that Polar is responsible for shortages because it has reduced production.

鲁伊斯解释说，Polar 应对短缺负责，因为它减少了产量。

Polar’s management contends that it cannot import essential ingredients, because the government, which controls all foreign exchange, declines to provide the dollars necessary.

Polar 管理层辩称，它无法进口必需原料，因为控制所有外汇的政府拒绝提供必要的美元。

These claims are false, according to Ruiz.

鲁伊斯表示，这些说法都是错误的。

“They have enough.”

“他们已经够了。”

I had an unsettling experience in El Hatillo.

我在 El Hatillo 经历了一次令人不安的经历。

It was a sunny Saturday afternoon and the old plaza, which is planted with venerable shade trees and surrounded by small, brightly painted, tile-roofed houses and a pink and white colonial-era church, was packed with families.

那是一个阳光明媚的周六下午，古老的广场上种满了古老的遮荫树，周围是色彩鲜艳的瓦顶小房子和粉白色殖民时代的教堂，广场上挤满了家庭。

I had just found a seat on a bench when a gunfight broke out, pop pop pop .

我刚在长凳上找到座位，枪战就爆发了，噗噗噗噗。

People started running, screaming, snatching up kids.

人们开始奔跑、尖叫、抓起孩子。

I ran with them, away from the gunfire.

我和他们一起跑，远离枪声。

There were ten, fifteen shots.

枪响了十、十五声。

I ended up dodging into a pizzeria on a side street just before the owner slammed the door shut.

最后我躲进了一条小街上的一家披萨店，就在店主关上门之前。

People were shouting, whimpering, praying.

人们在呼喊、哭泣、祈祷。

“This never happens here,” a pizzeria worker told me.

“这种事在这里从来没有发生过，”一位比萨店工人告诉我。

I must have looked skeptical.

我一定看起来很怀疑。

“ Secuestro, sí ,” he said.

“Secuestro，sí，”他说。

Kidnapping, yes.

绑架，是的。

“That’s what happens in El Hatillo.”

“这就是埃尔哈蒂洛发生的事情。”

The shoot-out had taken place across the plaza, near the entrance to a modern shopping mall.

枪战发生在广场对面，靠近一家现代化购物中心的入口处。

By the time I got there, the municipal police had control of the scene.

当我到达那里时，市警察已经控制了现场。

The casualties were one killed, one wounded, according to a bystander.

据一名旁观者称，伤亡情况为一人死亡、一人受伤。

There were cars parked at odd angles with bullet holes through the windshields.

有些汽车以奇怪的角度停着，挡风玻璃上有弹孔。

The dead and the injured had been removed.

死者和伤者已被转移。

But the police seemed jumpy.

但警察似乎很紧张。

When I got too close, a young officer in a black vest and a green shirt lifted a shotgun, pointing the barrel at my chest.

当我靠得太近时，一名身穿黑色背心和绿色衬衫的年轻军官举起一把猎枪，将枪管对准我的胸口。

I retreated, heart in mouth.

我心都提到了嗓子眼，后退了一步。

Then the cops rushed a black man standing next to me who was taking a photograph with his phone.

然后警察冲进了我旁边一个正在用手机拍照的黑人。

They bundled him into a van.

他们把他塞进一辆货车。

Did they think he was press?

他们认为他是媒体吗？

A mafia staff photographer?

黑手党摄影师？

As I pieced the story together, their jumpiness became more understandable.

当我把这个故事拼凑起来时，他们的神经质就变得更容易理解了。

The gunfire had started when two malandros on a motorbike had tried to rob an off-duty policeman.

当两名骑摩托车的马兰德试图抢劫一名下班的警察时，枪声开始了。

The officer turned out to have a pistol in the waistband of his jeans.

这名警官的牛仔裤腰带里藏着一把手枪。

After a struggle, he had shot both assailants.

经过一番搏斗，他射杀了两名袭击者。

Now the officer was sitting on the sidewalk, his back against a wall, his girlfriend beside him, their shopping bags lined up on the curb.

现在，这名警官坐在人行道上，背靠墙，女友坐在他身边，他们的购物袋在路边排成一排。

He had a scraped elbow, and he quietly vomited in the gutter once or twice.

他的手肘擦伤了，他悄悄地在阴沟里吐了一两次。

Otherwise, they seemed fine.

除此之外，他们看起来还不错。

It was an unusual, almost corny vignette: bad guys pick the wrong dude to mug, get blown away.

这是一个不寻常的、几乎是老生常谈的小插曲：坏人选错了人来抢劫，结果被炸飞了。

But that wasn’t right.

但那是不对的。

As I learned afterward, in a café overlooking the crime scene, the muggers knew that their target was a cop.

后来我了解到，在一家俯瞰犯罪现场的咖啡馆里，抢劫犯知道他们的目标是一名警察。

They often attacked police officers, hoping to steal their weapons.

他们经常袭击警察，希望窃取他们的武器。

Robbing, disarming, even killing a cop—these were highly regarded feats in criminal circles.

抢劫、解除武装，甚至杀死一名警察——这些都是犯罪界备受推崇的壮举。

It was one of the many reasons that being a cop sucked.

这是当警察很糟糕的众多原因之一。

A hipster bartender, tattooed and ponytailed, said that the café’s patrons had hit the floor when the gunfire erupted.

一名纹身、扎着马尾辫的时髦调酒师说，枪声爆发时，咖啡馆的顾客都倒在了地板上。

Once it stopped, though, people were enraged.

然而，一旦停止，人们就被激怒了。

They wanted to go into the street and lynch the malandros .

他们想要到街上用私刑处死马兰德罗斯。

Looking around the café, I found that scenario impossible to picture.

环视咖啡馆，我发现那种场景根本无法想象。

People had returned to their meals, their WhatsApp chats, their conversations.

人们又回到了吃饭、WhatsApp 聊天和对话中。

I had read about an epidemic of lynchings in Venezuela, seen the gory images of crowds beating accused thieves and rapists, even burning suspects alive.

我读到过有关委内瑞拉私刑盛行的报道，看到了人群殴打被指控的小偷和强奸犯，甚至活活烧死嫌疑人的血腥画面。

But surely those things happened only in desperate shantytowns, not in leafy, funky, elegant El Hatillo.

但可以肯定的是，这些事情只发生在绝望的棚户区，而不是绿树成荫、时髦而优雅的哈蒂洛。

But I later looked online and found images of men stripped, beaten, and left for dead in broad daylight by mobs in Chacao, the upscale Caracas area where my hotel was.

但后来我上网查了一下，发现在我住的酒店所在的加拉加斯高档区 Chacao，光天化日之下，一些人被暴徒剥光衣服、殴打，然后丢在一边等死。

“The school wants all the mothers who come to pick up in tights and crazy boots to dress better.” Link copied

“学校希望所有穿着紧身衣和疯狂靴子来接孩子的妈妈们穿得更好。”链接已复制

The mayor of El Hatillo, David Smolansky, said that violent crime—what everyone in Venezuela calls la inseguridad —is deliberate policy.

哈蒂洛市长戴维·斯莫兰斯基 (David Smolansky) 表示，暴力犯罪（委内瑞拉人都称之为“不安全”）是蓄意的政策。

“It’s part of the plan,” he said.

“这是计划的一部分，”他说。

“This anarchy.” We were talking in the conference room of a small clinic, because it wasn’t safe, that day, for the Mayor to be in his office.

“这种无政府状态。”我们在一家小诊所的会议室里谈话，因为那天市长在他的办公室里并不安全。

The government was jailing opposition leaders in advance of a planned protest march, and Smolansky had calculated, probably rightly, that he might be next.

政府在计划的抗议游行之前监禁了反对派领导人，斯莫兰斯基已经计算出，他可能是下一个，这可能是正确的。

He is a hulking thirty-one-year-old, with a full beard and watchful eyes.

他三十一岁，身材魁梧，蓄着浓密的胡须，眼神警惕。

Impunity, he said, made it difficult to fight crime even on the local level.

他说，有罪不罚使得即使在地方一级打击犯罪也变得困难。

In the first seven months of the year, he said, his municipal police had arrested a hundred and eleven suspects.

他说，今年前 7 个月，市警察逮捕了 111 名嫌疑人。

Eighty-eight of them had been released without charges by corrupt judges.

其中八十八人被腐败的法官未经指控而释放。

“The government knows it’s probably going to need those gangs to maintain power.” He had fired dozens of cops for corruption and misbehavior.

“政府知道可能需要这些帮派来维持权力。”他因腐败和行为不当而解雇了数十名警察。

A house robbery had been caught on video surveillance.

视频监控拍到了一起入室抢劫案。

They were able to positively identify six robbers.

他们确认了六名劫匪的身份。

All six were cops, and not one of them was in jail today.

六人都是警察，今天没有一人入狱。

Smolansky was at least proud to say that kidnapping was down.

斯莫兰斯基至少可以自豪地说绑架事件已经减少。

Of course, he admitted, he was talking only about reported kidnappings.

当然，他承认，他只是在谈论报道的绑架事件。

Most were never reported; it was safer to try to settle them privately, with a negotiated ransom.

大多数从未被报道过；尝试私下解决问题并通过谈判支付赎金更为安全。

La inseguridad , he said gloomily, “puts everybody in their houses by 6 or 7 P.M.

他郁闷地说，“La inseguridad”“让每个人在下午 6 点或 7 点之前都呆在自己的房子里”。

Just like the dictator wants.”

正如独裁者所希望的那样。”

It’s understandable that angry Venezuelans talk about “the dictatorship.” Their rights are under siege.

愤怒的委内瑞拉人谈论“独裁统治”是可以理解的。他们的权利受到围攻。

But real dictatorships impose order.

但真正的独裁政权会强加秩序。

Hugo Chávez worshipped at the feet of Fidel, who would not tolerate one-tenth of the disorder, street crime, and gun violence that plague Venezuela.

乌戈·查韦斯崇拜菲德尔，他不会容忍困扰委内瑞拉的骚乱、街头犯罪和枪支暴力的十分之一。

To be fair, crime was already rampant when Chávez came to power, and people hoped that, as a military man, he would be able to rein in the malandros .

平心而论，查韦斯上台时犯罪已经猖獗，人们希望他作为一名军人能够遏制犯罪行为。

But Chávez showed little interest in law enforcement.

但查韦斯对执法不感兴趣。

He even objected to the idea of a professional police force.

他甚至反对专业警察部队的想法。

That would be a “police of the bourgeois state.” Crime was a result of poverty, inequality, and capitalism.

那将是“资产阶级国家的警察”。犯罪是贫困、不平等和资本主义的结果​​。

Today, researchers estimate that the annual number of homicides is as high as ninety per hundred thousand people.

如今，研究人员估计每年的凶杀案数量高达十万分之九十。

The government says it is only fifty-eight per hundred thousand.

政府称这一比例仅为十万分之五十八。

Whatever.

任何。

In 1984, the number was between eight and ten.

1984年，这个数字在8到10之间。

“ Avanza, avanza .” Forward, forward.

“阿万扎，阿万扎。”前进，前进。

An old woman picks up her plastic chair.

一位老妇人拿起她的塑料椅子。

Another woman, Mar­ibel Guzmán, hoists her bags.

另一位女士玛丽贝尔·古兹曼 (Maribel Guzmán) 正在提起她的行李。

Everybody shuffles a few yards.

每个人都拖着脚步走了几码。

They’re waiting on a food line for a supermarket in the La Trinidad neighborhood of Caracas.

他们正在加拉加斯拉特立尼达附近的一家超市排队等候食品。

The supermarket is not in sight.

超市不见踪影。

It’s around the corner, up a hill, around another corner, on a different street.

它就在拐角处，在一座小山上，在另一个拐角处，在另一条街上。

Guzmán is from Mona­gas, in eastern Venezuela.

古兹曼来自委内瑞拉东部的莫纳加斯。

“I came to Caracas to find food,” she says.

“我来加拉加斯寻找食物，”她说。

She is forty-­one.

她四十一岁了。

She left her family in Monagas and found a job here, in the capital, as a housekeeper.

她离开了莫纳加斯的家人，在首都找到了一份管家的工作。

She has an agreement with her employer—she works an extra half day each week in exchange for the day she needs to stand in la cola to buy food.

她与雇主达成协议——她每周多工作半天，以换取每天需要站在可乐里买食物的时间。

Her family back home depends on her: “Last Wednesday, I got only toilet paper, and I thought, Oh, my God, what am I going to send home?

她家乡的家人依赖她：“上周三，我只有卫生纸，我想，哦，天哪，我要寄什么回家呢？

They need food.” Today, she’s hoping for two kilograms of flour and two hundred grams of butter.

他们需要食物。”今天，她希望得到两公斤面粉和两百克黄油。

She’s been in line all day.

她一整天都在排队。

It’s now late afternoon.

现在已经是下午晚些时候了。

She is still several hundred yards from the supermarket’s door.

她距离超市门口还有几百码。

You’re allowed to queue up for price-controlled items only on certain days of the week, and those days are determined by the last digit on your cédula —your national-identity card.

您只能在一周中的某些日子排队购买价格管制商品，这些日子由您的 cédula（您的国民身份证）上的最后一位数字决定。

Several people show me their cédulas .

有几个人向我展示了他们的 cédulas。

They all have numbers that end in 3—that’s today.

他们都有以 3 结尾的数字——那就是今天。

A woman with a parasol says that last week she waited from 8 A.M.

一位撑着阳伞的女士说，上周她从早上 8 点就开始等待。

to 5 P.M.

至下午 5 点

and went home with nothing.

然后什么也没带就回家了。

Today, she’s hoping for flour and toothpaste.

今天，她希望得到面粉和牙膏。

A television repairman says that he arrived at 3 A.M.

一位电视修理工说他凌晨 3 点到达。

but decided that it was too dangerous at that hour and left.

但认为当时太危险并离开了。

“The National Guard usually arrives around five-thirty, and security improves after that.

“国民警卫队通常在五点三十分左右到达，此后安全状况就会有所改善。

The store opens at seven or seven-thirty.” There are often robberies in food lines—“They’ll even take your glasses,” the TV repairman says—and, of course, fights.

商店七点或七点三十分开门。”排队买食物的地方经常发生抢劫——“他们甚至会抢走你的眼镜，”电视修理工说——当然，还有打架斗殴事件。

Full-scale food riots break out sometimes.

有时会爆发全面的粮食骚乱。

Many supermarkets have been sacked.

许多超市都被洗劫一空。

The National Guard can itself be dangerous, though not in this neighborhood.

国民警卫队本身就可能很危险，但不是在这个街区。

Venders sell orangeade, single cigarettes, and cheap Popsicles to the people on line.

小贩在网上向人们出售橙汁、单支香烟和廉价冰棒。

A sallow bank clerk waits with his dreadlocked sixteen-year-old son.

一位脸色蜡黄的银行职员和他留着辫子的十六岁儿子正在等待。

I ask him about his work.

我询问他的工作情况。

“Computer security,” he says.

“计算机安全，”他说。

His wife is a hairdresser, now working out of their apartment.

他的妻子是一名美发师，现在在他们的公寓里工作。

She has started asking her clients to pay her with food.

她开始要求她的客户付钱给她食物。

This is their youngest child.

这是他们最小的孩子。

The older ones are still at home, too.

年长的人也还留在家里。

Young people can’t afford rent.

年轻人买不起房租。

I ask why.

我问为什么。

The clerk studies me.

店员研究了我。

He seems immensely tired and sad.

他看起来非常疲倦和悲伤。

“Inflation,” he says.

“通货膨胀，”他说。

“Lack of production.

“生产不足。

The government needs to invest.

政府需要投资。

The factories in this area all closed.

该地区的工厂全部关闭。

Chávez closed them in 2000.”

查韦斯于 2000 年关闭了它们。”

Other people join in: “Rice, pasta, sugar, cooking oil, bread, coffee.

其他人也加入进来：“米、面食、糖、食用油、面包、咖啡。

We produce these things.

我们生产这些东西。

Or we used to.

或者我们曾经这样。

Now they all require lines.” Polar is mentioned.

现在他们都需要排队。”提到了极地。

Without Polar, there would be no arepas—corn cakes, the Venezuelan national dish.

没有 Polar，就不会有玉米饼——委内瑞拉的国菜玉米饼。

President Maduro, in his rambling, belligerent speeches on radio and TV, frequently accuses Polar’s owner, Lorenzo Mendoza, of waging economic war on Venezuela and on his government by deliberately creating shortages.

马杜罗总统在广播和电视上杂乱无章、充满挑衅性的演讲中，经常指责 Polar 的所有者洛伦佐·门多萨 (Lorenzo Mendoza) 通过故意制造短缺，对委内瑞拉及其政府发动经济战。

He has called Mendoza a thief, a coward, a hypocrite, a traitor, a bandit, an oligarch, and a long-haired devil.

他称门多萨是小偷、胆小鬼、伪君子、叛徒、强盗、寡头和长发恶魔。

He seems particularly offended by Mendoza’s hair style—how it falls to one side, just so.

他似乎对门多萨的发型特别恼火——它如何垂到一侧，就是这样。

But the real source of Maduro’s obsession, according to a former Presidential aide, is his belief, expressed often in private meetings, that Mendoza wants his job.

但据一位前总统助手称，马杜罗痴迷的真正根源在于他经常在私人会议上表达的信念：门多萨想要他的工作。

Mendoza denies having political ambitions.

门多萨否认有政治野心。

And Polar, which was founded by his grandfather, as a beer company, in 1941, actually stands out among big Venezuelan enterprises for its record of careful abstention from politics.

他的祖父于 1941 年创立的 Polar 是一家啤酒公司，实际上因其谨慎地回避政治的记录而在委内瑞拉大型企业中脱颖而出。

But having survived seventeen years of Chavismo—and innumerable threats of expropriation, as the government seized more than a thousand factories and farms—is itself a potent political statement.

但是，经历了十七年的查韦斯主义统治——以及无数的征用威胁，政府没收了一千多家工厂和农场——本身就是一个强有力的政治声明。

Mendoza, who is fifty-one, studied engineering at Fordham and management at M.I.T. Forbes estimates his net worth to be $1.5 billion.

门多萨现年 51 岁，曾在福特汉姆大学学习工程学，在麻省理工学院学习管理学。福布斯估计他的净资产为 15 亿美元。

He rarely gives interviews, or speaks publicly, but when he does defend himself or his company he can be trenchant.

他很少接受采访或公开讲话，但当他为自己或他的公司辩护时，他会表现得尖锐。

After Maduro accused Polar of failing to produce enough corn flour, Mendoza publicly offered to lease from the government some of the corn-flour plants it had seized from other companies.

在马杜罗指责 Polar 未能生产足够的玉米粉后，门多萨公开提出向政府租赁从其他公司夺取的一些玉米粉工厂。

Polar could produce far more than the state did, he said.

他说，Polar 的产量远远超过该州的产量。

Nobody seemed to doubt that assertion.

似乎没有人怀疑这个说法。

“He’s so logical,” an admirer told me.

“他很有逻辑，”一位崇拜者告诉我。

“That’s what bothers the chavistas the most.” Maduro did not acknowledge the corn-flour offer.

“这是查维斯塔最困扰的事情。”马杜罗没有承认玉米粉的提议。

Polar employs about thirty thousand workers (it is the country’s largest private employer) and is responsible for more than three per cent of Venezuela’s non-oil gross domestic product.

Polar 雇用了约三万名工人（它是该国最大的私营雇主），占委内瑞拉非石油国内生产总值的 3% 以上。

Besides corn flour and the country’s top-selling beer, Polar produces pasta, rice, tuna fish, wine, ice cream, yogurt, margarine, ketchup, mayonnaise, and detergent.

除了玉米粉和该国最畅销的啤酒外，Polar 还生产意大利面、大米、金枪鱼、葡萄酒、冰淇淋、酸奶、人造黄油、番茄酱、蛋黄酱和洗涤剂。

Yet it operates in an atmosphere of continual uncertainty, its planners and logistics mavens never sure what roadblock or subterfuge the government will toss up next.

然而，它在持续不确定的气氛中运作，其规划者和物流专家永远不确定政府下一步会设置什么障碍或诡计。

“You’re holding a lot of homophobia in your lower back.” Link copied

“你的下背部有很多同性恋恐惧症。”链接已复制

I stopped in at Polar headquarters, in Caracas.

我在加拉加斯的 Polar 总部停下来。

The press officer seemed happy to show me around, although he insisted that I not quote employees.

新闻官员似乎很乐意带我四处参观，尽管他坚持要求我不要引用员工的话。

The government jumped on every stray comment from Polar.

政府对 Polar 的每一条零星评论都表示欢迎。

Suffice it, then, to say that people seemed thrilled to be working there, and beleaguered by official obstructionism and shortages, and determined to fight institutional decapitation.

那么，我只想说，人们似乎对在那里工作感到兴奋，并受到官方的阻挠和短缺的困扰，并决心与制度性的斩首作斗争。

Every single delivery of goods required a permit.

每一次货物交付都需要许可证。

Last year, inspection teams descended on Polar facilities around the country thirteen hundred times.

去年，检查组对全国各地的极地设施进行了 1300 次突击检查。

They disrupted work, and often carried off both files and personnel.

他们扰乱工作，经常带走文件和人员。

Managers and workers were arrested, accused of hoarding or price gouging or, in many cases, of offenses yet to be determined.

经理和工人被逮捕，被指控囤积居奇或哄抬物价，或者在许多情况下，其罪行尚未确定。

Amid red tape, harassment, shortages of nearly everything, and the chronic lack of hard currency, few plants were operating at full capacity.

由于繁文缛节、骚扰、几乎所有东西都短缺以及长期缺乏硬通货，很少有工厂能够满负荷运转。

Some were idle.

有些人闲着。

I visited a Polar brewery in San Joaquín, west of Caracas.

我参观了加拉加斯西部圣华金的一家极地啤酒厂。

It was an enormous place, built in the seventies.

这是一个巨大的地方，建于七十年代。

Its eighteen towering yellow silos, topped by a neon sign with the company’s polar-­bear logo, were visible from miles away.

它有 18 个高耸的黄色筒仓，顶部有一个带有公司北极熊标志的霓虹灯，从几英里外就可以看到。

SEBIN , the national intelligence service, had staged a raid in July and arrested the manager.

国家情报部门 SEBIN 在 7 月份发动了一次突袭并逮捕了这名经理。

The factory was producing at only sixty per cent of capacity.

工厂的生产能力仅为百分之六十。

Still, when I saw the giant silver fermentation chambers, different vats for different malts and Pilsners, immaculate labs, conveyor belts, forklifts, and trucks loaded with product, that seemed like a huge amount.

尽管如此，当我看到巨大的银色发酵室、存放不同麦芽和比尔森啤酒的不同大桶、完美无瑕的实验室、传送带、叉车和装载产品的卡车时，这似乎是一个巨大的数量。

It was a glimpse of an alternative Venezuela.

这是另一个委内瑞拉的一瞥。

From the factory, one could see the hulking, rusting slabs of an unfinished high-speed railway.

从工厂里，人们可以看到一条未完工的高铁的笨重、生锈的板坯。

It was part of a mega-project that predated Chávez, a rail network intended to knit together Venezuela’s ports, cities, and industrial centers.

它是查韦斯之前的一个大型项目的一部分，该项目是一个旨在将委内瑞拉的港口、城市和工业中心连接在一起的铁路网络。

Only a few miles had been completed.

只完成了几英里。

This section, meant to connect a distant inland town to a port in the north, had been abandoned five years earlier.

这条路原本是为了连接一个遥远的内陆城镇和北部的一个港口，但五年前就被废弃了。

Some of the migrant construction workers left unemployed, I was told, had stayed in the area and formed a gang known as the Aragua Train—Aragua was the next state east—which preyed on local residents, businesses, and travellers on the national highway.

有人告诉我，一些失业的建筑工人留在了该地区，并组成了一个名为“阿拉瓜火车”的团伙（阿拉瓜是东部的下一个州），该团伙在国道上掠夺当地居民、企业和旅客。

The gang is part of a criminal network that’s headquartered in a federal prison at Tocorón, just across a lake from the Polar factory.

该团伙是犯罪网络的一部分，该犯罪网络的总部位于托科隆联邦监狱，与极地工厂隔湖相望。

Tocorón is famous for many things.

托科隆因许多事情而闻名。

Ransoms for the return of kidnapping victims or stolen vehicles can reportedly be paid in cash at the prison’s front gates.

据报道，赎回绑架受害者或被盗车辆的赎金可以在监狱前门以现金支付。

The crime bosses in Tocorón have built a disco thought to be the best in Venezuela.

托科隆的犯罪头目建造了一个被认为是委内瑞拉最好的迪斯科舞厅。

They live in detached houses on the grounds beside manicured playing fields.

他们住在修剪整齐的运动场旁边的独立房屋中。

They’ve even built a swimming pool.

他们甚至建了一个游泳池。

I didn’t believe the swimming-pool story until I checked it out on Google Earth.

直到我在谷歌地球上查看后，我才相信这个游泳池的故事。

Venezuela has, by some measures, the world’s worst-performing economy.

从某些标准来看，委内瑞拉是世界上表现最差的经济体。

It suffers from the world’s highest inflation rate—nearly a hundred and eighty per cent last year, with projections for this year as high as seven hundred per cent, according to the International Monetary Fund.

据国际货币基金组织称，该国的通货膨胀率是世界上最高的，去年接近百分之一百八十，今年的通货膨胀率预计高达百分之七百。

Meanwhile, the economy as a whole shrank by nearly six per cent last year, and is expected to shrink by between eight and ten per cent this year.

与此同时，去年整个经济萎缩了近6%，预计今年将萎缩8%至10%。

Price controls on staple goods, meant to keep those goods affordable and constrain inflation, have instead helped cause critical shortages.

对主要商品的价格控制旨在使这些商品保持可负担性并抑制通货膨胀，但却导致了严重的短缺。

Currency controls—established by Chávez in 2003, in an effort to stop capital flight—fix the exchange rate of the bolivar, which is accepted nowhere outside Venezuela, and create a roaring black market for dollars.

查韦斯于 2003 年建立货币管制，旨在阻止资本外逃，固定了玻利瓦尔的汇率，玻利瓦尔在委内瑞拉以外的任何地方都不被接受，并创造了一个蓬勃发展的美元黑市。

A dollar is worth about sixteen hundred bolivares at the moment.

目前一美元大约值一千六百玻利瓦尔。

The official exchange rate for importing essential goods is ten.

进口必需品的官方汇率是十。

Between those two figures, the space for financial mischief is effectively immeasurable.

在这两个数字之间，金融灾难的空间实际上是无法估量的。

The government just keeps printing money, with no relationship to production, helping to fuel ruinous inflation.

政府只是不断印钞，与生产无关，助长了毁灭性的通货膨胀。

It has been reported that high-denomination bills will be issued in December, but for now the largest Venezuelan note is still a hundred bolivares.

有消息称，大面额纸币将于12月发行，但目前最大面额的委内瑞拉纸币仍为100玻利瓦尔。

That’s six cents.

那是六美分。

To pay cash for a night in a hotel requires a suitcase stuffed with bills.

要支付现金在酒店住宿一晚，需要一个装满钞票的手提箱。

The standard explanation for this fiasco turns on the price of oil.

对这一惨败的标准解释是石油价格。

The truth is more discouraging.

事实更令人沮丧。

Venezuela sits on the world’s largest proven oil reserves.

委内瑞拉拥有世界上最大的已探明石油储量。

Oil accounts for ninety-six per cent of the country’s export earnings.

石油占该国出口收入的百分之九十六。

When the oil price plunged two years ago, it sparked the present economic dis­aster.

两年前油价暴跌引发了当前的经济灾难。

But the price has since rebounded, and oil now trades in a middling range, and the Venezuelan economy continues to crater.

但此后价格已经反弹，石油现在的交易价格处于中等区间，而委内瑞拉经济继续陷入困境。

The government’s foreign reserves are around a third of what they were in 2009, which forces difficult choices.

政府的外汇储备约为 2009 年的三分之一，这迫使人们做出艰难的选择。

Will the limited dollars go to pay the government’s creditors or to feed schoolchildren?

有限的资金会用来支付政府债权人还是用来养活学童？

Venezuela’s largest creditor is China, which takes most of its payments in oil.

委内瑞拉最大的债权人是中国，其大部分付款都是石油。

The government has managed to stave off default so far, at the expense of its citizens.

到目前为止，政府已经设法避免了违约，但代价是公民的利益。

In the late nineteen-seventies, Venezuela was the richest country per capita in South America.

十九世纪七十年代末，委内瑞拉是南美洲人均最富有的国家。

The Concorde was flying weekly from Paris to Caracas.

协和式飞机每周都有从巴黎飞往加拉加斯的航班。

But the “resource curse” that afflicts many mineral-rich, particularly oil-rich, nations—reducing incentives to develop other industries, exacerbating inequality as élites hog oil rents and fail to build a strong individual-income-­tax base—began to hit Venezuela hard in the eighties and nineties.

但困扰许多矿产资源丰富、尤其是石油资源丰富的国家的“资源诅咒”——减少了发展其他产业的动力，加剧了精英阶层攫取石油租金和未能建立强大的个人所得税基础的不平等——在上世纪八十年代和九十年代开始对委内瑞拉造成沉重打击。

The economic collapse, that is, had started long before Chávez came to power—indeed, the country’s growing desperation led to the embrace of Chávez.

也就是说，经济崩溃早在查韦斯上台之前就已经开始了——事实上，该国日益增长的绝望导致了查韦斯的拥抱。

Oil had been nationalized in 1976, and displaced foreign owners had been compensated.

石油于 1976 年被国有化，流离失所的外国所有者得到了补偿。

Crony capitalism, irresponsible policies, and long-term looting of the country’s wealth were gathering steam.

裙带资本主义、不负责任的政策以及对国家财富的长期掠夺正在愈演愈烈。

Chávez promised to stop the looting, and he did eventually direct a much higher percentage of oil rents to housing, education, and health care for the poor.

查韦斯承诺停止抢劫，他最终将更高比例的石油租金用于穷人的住房、教育和医疗保健。

He cut the poverty rate, which was spiking before he took office, nearly in half.

他将上任前飙升的贫困率降低了近一半。

Like many of his predecessors, Chávez understood the need for reducing the country’s dependence on oil, and yet the opposite occurred.

和他的许多前任一样，查韦斯明白需要减少国家对石油的依赖，但事实却恰恰相反。

He deepened the state’s control of the oil industry and seized private businesses, factories, and large commercial farms.

他加深了国家对石油工业的控制，并夺取了私营企业、工厂和大型商业农场。

The new management of these enterprises was rarely able to keep them alive.

这些企业的新管理层很少能够维持它们的生存。

Overgrown fields, shuttered factories, empty warehouses, and abandoned infrastructure projects litter the landscape today.

如今，杂草丛生的田野、关闭的工厂、空荡荡的仓库和废弃的基础设施项目随处可见。

Non-oil exports fell steadily as the productive economy hollowed out.

随着生产性经济的空心化，非石油出口稳步下降。

In 2008, when the global financial crisis battered the oil price, Venezuela got a foretaste of the current crisis.

2008年，当全球金融危机重创石油价格时，委内瑞拉就尝到了当前危机的滋味。

The Army was put in charge of food distribution.

军队负责食品分配。

Soldiers are not trained to understand the global supply chain.

士兵们没有接受过了解全球供应链的训练。

Supermarkets emptied, people went hungry, and food ended up on the black market.

超市空空如也，人们挨饿，食物最终流入黑市。

Later, a hundred thousand tons of food was found rotting in warehouses at the ports.

后来，在港口仓库里发现了十万吨食物腐烂。

Today, there is a brigadier general in charge of cooking oil; another is assigned to laundry soap, body soap, shampoo, toothpaste, and deodorant.

今天，有一个准将负责食用油；另一个分配给洗衣皂、沐浴露、洗发水、牙膏和除臭剂。

Over the years, senior officers discovered that import-export was a lucrative field.

多年来，高级官员发现进出口是一个利润丰厚的领域。

Chávez and his military had a warm relationship with the main guerrilla army in neighboring Colombia, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia ( FARC ), which was involved in narco-trafficking.

查韦斯和他的军队与邻国哥伦比亚的主要游击队哥伦比亚革命武装力量（FARC）关系密切，该部队参与毒品贩运。

Venezuela had long been a main transshipment route for cocaine going north.

委内瑞拉长期以来一直是可卡因向北运输的主要转运路线。

Venezuelan generals ran the Cartel of the Suns, referring to a military insignia.

委内瑞拉将军们经营着“太阳卡特尔”，指的是军事徽章。

Chávez and Maduro came to preside over a kleptocracy.

查韦斯和马杜罗开始执掌盗贼统治。

State contracts were awarded without competitive bidding to companies connected to the leadership.

国家合同是在没有竞标的情况下授予与领导层有联系的公司的。

Huge amounts of money have simply disappeared.

巨额资金就这么消失了。

Few airlines fly to Caracas today.

今天很少有航空公司飞往加拉加斯。

Paying bills owed to foreign air carriers is not a government priority.

支付外国航空公司的账单并不是政府的首要任务。

Lufthansa left in June, swallowing a loss of more than a hundred million dollars.

汉莎航空于6月离开，损失超过一亿美元。

American Airlines wrote off more than half a billion dollars in Venezuela earlier this year.

美国航空公司今年早些时候在委内瑞拉注销了超过 5 亿美元。

At the Caracas airport, unwary travellers are robbed, and worse, by taxi-drivers.

在加拉加斯机场，粗心的旅客遭到抢劫，更糟糕的是，遭到出租车司机的抢劫。

The sensation of being monitored—by suspicious officialdom, by scammers, by predators—is thick in the airport.

机场里弥漫着被可疑官员、骗子、掠夺者监视的感觉。

But a mood of grief is thicker still.

但悲伤的情绪却更浓了。

People sob in check-in lines, on the way to security.

在前往安检的路上，人们在办理登机手续的队伍中抽泣。

Parents watch grown children shuffle toward flights to afuera —the outside, the world beyond Venezuela—as if they might never see them again.

父母们看着成年的孩子拖着脚步走向飞往 afuera（外面的世界，委内瑞拉以外的世界）的航班，仿佛他们可能再也见不到他们了。

It’s a mass emigration: perhaps two million already gone, many of them young.

这是一场大规模移民：大约有两百万人已经离开，其中许多人是年轻人。

They go to Spain, Colombia, Panama, the United States, the Dominican Republic, Argentina, Chile, Mexico—wherever their passports will take them.

他们前往西班牙、哥伦比亚、巴拿马、美国、多米尼加共和国、阿根廷、智利、墨西哥——无论他们的护照能带他们去哪里。

In Caracas, “For Sale” signs (“ Se Vende ”) on houses and shops are common.

在加拉加斯，房屋和商店上的“出售”标志（“Se Vende”）很常见。

But the signs often lack basic contact information.

但这些标牌往往缺乏基本的联系信息。

That’s because, I was told, it’s dangerous to advertise your phone number.

那是因为，有人告诉我，公布你的电话号码是危险的。

Criminals, knowing that you own property, may call with extortion demands and kidnapping threats.

犯罪分子知道您拥有财产，可能会打电话提出勒索要求和绑架威胁。

Better to let potential buyers ask around the neighborhood, where their faces can be seen.

最好让潜在买家在附近询问，哪里可以看到他们的脸。

Esther Romera, who is fifty-three and was born in Caracas, had some distant roots in Spain, so that was where she and her family would go.

埃丝特·罗梅拉 (Esther Romera) 现年 53 岁，出生于加拉加斯，在西班牙有着遥远的根源，所以她和家人会去那里。

Romera owned a sweetshop in El Hatillo, known for its golfeados —sticky buns with cinnamon and cane sugar.

罗梅拉在埃尔哈蒂洛拥有一家糖果店，以其golfeados（肉桂和蔗糖的粘面包）而闻名。

The first time I stopped there, she apologized.

我第一次停在那里时，她道歉了。

There was no flour, therefore no golfeados .

没有面粉，因此没有高尔夫球。

The bachaquero wanted eighty dollars for a bag of flour, and she couldn’t afford that.

巴查克罗想要八十美元一袋面粉，但她买不起。

She had other sources, though.

不过，她还有其他来源。

Maybe Saturday.

也许是星期六。

Romera used to be a schoolteacher.

罗梅拉曾经是一名教师。

She raised two kids, and opened her first shop, on the plaza in El Hatillo, ten years ago.

十年前，她抚养了两个孩子，并在 El Hatillo 的广场上开设了第一家商店。

It flourished, and she expanded, serving many types of coffee and golfeados .

它蓬勃发展，她也不断扩张，提供多种类型的咖啡和高尔夫球。

El Hatillo had good restaurants, which drew families from central Caracas, and also foreign tourists.

El Hatillo 拥有不错的餐厅，吸引了来自加拉加斯市中心的家庭以及外国游客。

“French, Italian, American,” she said.

“法国的、意大利的、美国的，”她说。

“Then la inseguridad got worse, and they stopped coming.

“然后，不安全感变得更糟，他们不再来了。

The Chinese, who work with the government, kept coming, but six months ago even they stopped.”

与政府合作的中国人不断前来，但六个月前他们就停止了。”

Romera had to downsize, moving to a smaller place, off the plaza.

罗梅拉不得不缩小规模，搬到广场外一个更小的地方。

Her menu was on the wall, with the price list papered over and new prices scribbled in.

她的菜单挂在墙上，价格表用纸糊住了，新的价格潦草地写在上面。

Every restaurant did that.

每个餐厅都这样做。

Inflation sent costs up too fast to do anything else.

通货膨胀导致成本上涨得太快，无能为力。

“One golfeado used to be fifteen bolivares,” she said.

“过去，一个高尔夫球相当于十五个玻利瓦尔，”她说。

“Now it’s nine hundred and fifty.

“现在是九百五十了。

In the past, a family of five would come in and buy five golfeados .

过去，一个五口之家会进来购买五辆高尔夫球。

Now, if I have golfeados , a family of five will come in and buy one and divide it into five parts.”

现在，如果我有高尔夫球，一家五口就会进来买一把，然后分成五份。”

Romera’s mother was doddering around the shop.

罗梅拉的母亲在店里步履蹒跚。

She was quite old, and had a timid, worried smile.

她年纪已经很大了，脸上挂着羞怯而忧心忡忡的笑容。

“Here’s how things have changed,” Romera said.

“事情发生了这样的变化，”罗梅拉说。

“When I got married, my husband and I both worked and we waited eight years to have kids.

“当我结婚时，我和丈夫都工作，我们等了八年才生孩子。

By then, we had a house and a car.

那时我们已经有了房子、有了车子。

We sent our children to private schools, to university.

我们把孩子送到私立学校、大学。

Now my daughter, who is twenty-six, can’t buy a car or afford an apartment.” The three of them were leaving for Spain in November.

现在我二十六岁的女儿买不起汽车，也买不起公寓。”他们三人将于十一月动身前往西班牙。

I nodded toward her mother.

我向她妈妈点点头。

Romera shook her head, very slowly.

罗梅拉摇摇头，动作非常缓慢。

They would not be taking her.

他们不会带走她。

Tomorrow morning, Romera said, she and her neighbors would be out on the Santa Fe autopista , marching.

罗梅拉说，明天早上，她和邻居们将在圣达菲自动广场上游行。

The opposition was planning a major protest, calling it the Toma de Caracas—the Taking of Caracas—and the government was doing its best to scare people away.

反对派正在计划一场大规模抗议活动，称之为“Toma de Caracas”（夺取加拉加斯），而政府则竭尽全力吓跑人们。

Highways into Caracas had been blocked.

通往加拉加斯的高速公路已被封锁。

There were soldiers everywhere in the city, checkpoints at major intersections, machine-­gun nests by bridges and tunnels.

城里到处都是士兵，主要路口都有检查站，桥梁和隧道旁都有机关枪掩体。

It would be dangerous.

这会很危险。

I was surprised that Romera was marching, considering that she was about to move to Spain.

考虑到罗梅拉即将搬到西班牙，我对她的游行感到惊讶。

“We got the signatures,” Romera said indignantly.

“我们得到了签名，”罗梅拉愤怒地说。

She meant that the opposition had collected close to two million signatures, far more than legally required, to force a referendum on Maduro’s Presidency.

她的意思是，反对派已经收集了近200万个签名，远远超过了法律要求，以迫使对马杜罗的总统职位进行全民公投。

“They have to hold the referendum.

“他们必须举行公投。

The march is a form of social pressure on the government to hold the recall.”

这次游行是对政府施加社会压力，要求其暂停召回的一种形式。”

“ Sí, hay futuro.

“是的，干草未来。

” Yes, there is a future.

是的，有未来。

This plaintive battle cry is ubiquitous in Venezuela: on billboards, placards, T-shirts.

这种哀伤的战斗口号在委内瑞拉随处可见：广告牌、标语牌、T 恤上。

It’s the opposition’s slogan, but it’s everybody’s nagging worry.

这是反对派的口号，但却是每个人挥之不去的担忧。

Is there, really, a future?

真的有未来吗？

“The opposition” is a blanket term for many parties that have formed an antichavista coalition called the Democratic Unity Roundtable ( MUD ).

“反对派”是对许多政党的总称，这些政党组成了一个名为民主团结圆桌会议（MUD）的反查韦斯联盟。

The government routinely describes the MUD as “rightists,” although few, if any, of the coalition’s parties can be described as right wing, as we understand the term.

政府经常将团结民主联盟描述为“右派”，尽管联盟党派中很少有（如果有的话）可以被描述为我们所理解的右翼。

The bigger parties in the coalition are mostly social-democratic.

联合政府中较大的政党大多是社会民主党。

There are far-left members.

其中也有极左翼成员。

The most conservative elements of the MUD are Christian Democratic and neoliberal.

MUD 中最保守的成分是基督教民主党和新自由主义。

It’s a broad coalition, which is its main problem as it vies for power—it has no leader, no single figure to coalesce around.

这是一个广泛的联盟，这是它争夺权力时的主要问题——它没有领导者，也没有一个可以团结起来的人物。

Before the march, which was scheduled for September 1st, I stopped at the offices of El Nacional to see how the independent press planned to cover it.

在定于 9 月 1 日举行的游行之前，我在《国家报》的办公室停下来，看看独立媒体计划如何报道这次游行。

A deputy editor, Elías Pino Iturrieta, said that the hottest item would be the photographs.

副编辑埃利亚斯·皮诺·伊图列塔 (Elías Pino Iturrieta) 表示，最热门的内容是照片。

The organizers were talking about putting a million people in the streets.

组织者正在讨论让一百万人走上街头。

The government, determined to prevent aerial shots of a big crowd, had banned drones and private airplanes over Caracas.

政府决心防止对一大群人进行空中射击，禁止无人机和私人飞机飞越加拉加斯上空。

“We’re looking for roofs and the penthouses of tall buildings now, getting permission,” Pino Iturrieta said.

“我们现在正在寻找高层建筑的屋顶和顶层公寓，并获得许可，”皮诺·伊图列塔说。

“The colectivos will be out, attacking anybody with a camera, anybody writing anything down.

“集体主义者将会出来，攻击任何拿着相机的人，任何写下任何东西的人。

You can be standing on the corner painting the mountains, they’ll attack you.

你可以站在角落里画山，他们会攻击你。

And the police will stand and watch.

警察将站在那里观看。

They attacked us yesterday morning.”

他们昨天早上袭击了我们。”

I had seen, on my way into the building, a crew cleaning its front windows.

在进入大楼的路上，我看到一名工作人员在清洁前窗。

The glass had been pelted with bags of excrement.

玻璃上沾满了一袋袋排泄物。

“There were two Molotov cocktails that didn’t explode,” Pino Iturrieta said.

“有两枚燃烧弹没有爆炸，”皮诺·伊图列塔说。

“And pamphlets that called us a fascist newspaper.

“还有称我们为法西斯报纸的小册子。

It was the third attack this year.

这是今年的第三次袭击。

The police will do nothing.

警察不会采取任何行动。

No investigation.

没有调查。

They have no interest in the security of employees here.”

他们对这里员工的安全不感兴趣。”

After years of government assault on the press, El Nacional is one of the last independent national dailies still standing.

经过多年政府对媒体的攻击，《国民报》是最后仍然存在的独立全国性日报之一。

National television and radio stations were closed when their licenses came up for renewal.

国家电视台和广播电台在执照更新时被关闭。

Three years ago, a state company took control of paper distribution, and it refused to sell to El Nacional .

三年前，一家国有公司控制了纸张分销业务，但拒绝将其出售给《国民报》。

The daily began buying from papers in Colombia, Peru, and Puerto Rico.

该日报开始从哥伦比亚、秘鲁和波多黎各的报纸上购买。

“But we’ve had to go from six sections down to two,” Pino Iturrieta said.

“但我们必须从六个部分减少到两个，”皮诺·伊图列塔说。

“Thank God for the Web.” El Nacional has the most visited Web news site in Venezuela, but advertising has become a problem: “Companies feel pressured not to advertise in El Nacional .” I could also see how the local Holiday Inn managers might think twice about having their ads appear alongside carefully reported accounts of torture.

“感谢上帝赐予了网络。” 《国家报》拥有委内瑞拉访问量最大的新闻网站，但广告已成为一个问题：“公司感到压力，不愿在《国家报》上做广告。”我还可以看到当地的假日酒店经理在将他们的广告与仔细报道的酷刑描述放在一起时会三思而后行。

“Yes, it’s a golden age—or would be, if we weren’t all swarming with lice.” Link copied

“是的，这是一个黄金时代——或者说将会是一个黄金时代，如果我们不是都长满了虱子的话。”链接已复制

On the eve of the march, the MUD held a mass meeting in an old union hall in downtown Caracas.

游行前夕，MUD在加拉加斯市中心的一个旧工会大厅举行了群众集会。

The hall was jammed and smelled of sweat.

大厅里挤满了人，散发着汗味。

These were working people, most of them not young.

这些人都是劳动人民，其中大多数已经不年轻了。

A parade of speakers fired up the group.

一连串的演讲者激发了大家的热情。

A congressman from Caracas, who had been jailed for three months and then released without charges, shouted, “We’re going to take Miraflores!” People roared.

一位来自加拉加斯的国会议员被判入狱三个月，随后无罪释放，他喊道：“我们要拿下米拉弗洛雷斯！”人们怒吼起来。

I was startled: Miraflores Palace is the White House of Venezuela.

我吓了一跳：米拉弗洛雷斯宫就是委内瑞拉的白宫。

The Maduro government regularly accuses the MUD of planning a coup, and the MUD always denies such intentions.

马杜罗政府经常指责 MUD 策划政变，但 MUD 始终否认这种意图。

Was the plan really to march on Miraflores?

计划真的是向米拉弗洛雷斯进军吗？

That was the plan when nineteen people died in a march in 2002.

这就是 2002 年 19 人在一次游行中死亡时的计划。

Caracas is laid out east to west, nestled in a long, lush mountain valley parallel to the Caribbean coast.

加拉加斯呈东西向布局，坐落在与加勒比海岸平行的漫长而郁郁葱葱的山谷中。

The old downtown, El Silencio, houses the seat of government power—Miraflores, the National Assembly, the Supreme Court—and is near the west end of the city.

老城区 El Silencio 是政府权力所在地——米拉弗洛雷斯、国民议会、最高法院，位于城市西端附近。

The march was organized to have seven starting points, most of them miles east of El Silencio, with a plan to converge at some great junction.

游行有七个起点，其中大多数位于埃尔锡伦西奥以东数英里处，计划在某个重要的路口汇合。

But where would it go from there?

但从那里它会去哪里呢？

The protest would be peaceful, the organizers said, but they always said that.

组织者表示，抗议活动将是和平的，但他们总是这么说。

The government was planning a countermarch, convening thousands of loyal chavistas near Miraflores.

政府正计划进行反游行，在米拉弗洛雷斯附近召集数千名忠诚的查韦斯主义者。

The headliner at the union hall was Henry Ramos Allup, the leader of the National Assembly and the head of the Democratic Action Party.

工会大厅的头条人物是国民议会领袖兼民主行动党领袖亨利·拉莫斯·阿勒普。

A slight, wiry man in his seventies, with big eyeglasses and a gray brush cut, he is a throwback to the pre-Chávez era.

他七十多岁，身材瘦长，身材魁梧，戴着大眼镜，留着灰色的短发，是查韦斯之前时代的倒退者。

Democratic Action was one of the two parties that had traded the Presidency back and forth for nearly forty years, into the nineteen-nineties.

进入十九世纪九十年代，民主行动党是在总统职位上来来回回近四十年的两个政党之一。

Unlike the screamers and fist-shakers who preceded him, Ramos Allup was calm, worldly, almost professorial.

与他之前的那些尖叫和挥舞拳头的人不同，拉莫斯·阿勒普冷静、世俗，几乎是教授式的。

He talked about the support that the opposition had from other countries in Latin America—and you knew that he had been speaking to their leaders.

他谈到了反对派从拉丁美洲其他国家获得的支持——你知道他一直在与这些国家的领导人交谈。

He urged people to be nice during the march, including to bus drivers.

他敦促人们在游行期间保持友善，包括对公交车司机。

His comic timing was good.

他的喜剧时机很好。

Chávez, he said, was psychotic.

他说查韦斯患有精神病。

The country was now suffering the terrible fallout from his fantasies and obsessions.

这个国家现在正遭受着他的幻想和痴迷带来的可怕后果。

But Ramos Allup’s body language was unaggressive, his hands limp, sometimes raised as if to protect himself.

但拉莫斯·阿勒普的肢体语言并不具有攻击性，他的双手无力，有时会举起，仿佛是为了保护自己。

In recent opinion polls, Ramos Allup was the public’s first choice for President, far ahead of Maduro.

在最近的民意调查中，拉莫斯·阿卢普是公众首选的总统候选人，远远领先于马杜罗。

Now I could see why.

现在我明白为什么了。

People were nostalgic for the era of bourgeois democracy, for a Venezuela that worked.

人们怀念资产阶级民主时代，怀念一个运转良好的委内瑞拉。

Not a soldier, not a raving messiah in a red beret, but a mensch in a baggy business suit who knew how to run a government.

他不是士兵，也不是戴着红色贝雷帽的狂妄救世主，而是穿着宽松西装、知道如何管理政府的绅士。

In truth, Ramos Allup can be fierce, and he has a long history to live down—his political enemies might not all agree that he’s a mensch—but the crowd that night adored him.

事实上，拉莫斯·阿勒普可能很凶猛，而且他有着悠久的历史——他的政敌可能并不都同意他是一个正人君子——但那天晚上的人群很崇拜他。

On the morning of September 1st, it was difficult to tell how many marchers had turned out for the protest.

9月1日上午，很难统计有多少游行者参加了抗议活动。

I wanted to follow the stream that would be the spear point if the marchers headed for El Silencio.

我想顺着小溪走，如果游行者前往埃尔锡伦西奥，那条小溪将成为矛头。

But on the previous evening the original gathering place for that stream had been filled by tanks and soldiers, so people massed about a half mile northeast, outside the headquarters of the Democratic Action Party.

但前一天晚上，这条溪流原来的聚集地已经挤满了坦克和士兵，因此人们聚集在民主行动党总部外东北约半英里处。

The narrow streets were packed in every direction.

狭窄的街道四面八方都挤满了人。

The protesters wore white—the opposition’s color—and sang, “It’s going to fall!

抗议者穿着白色——反对派的颜色——并唱道：“它要倒下了！

It’s going to fall!

它要掉下来了！

The government is going to fall!” Everybody was in sneakers, prepared to walk or, if necessary, run.

政府要倒台了！”每个人都穿着运动鞋，准备走路，或者必要时跑步。

A drone appeared overhead, twirling between trees and telephone wires, red video light blinking, and marchers laughed and screamed and waved.

一架无人机出现在头顶上，在树木和电话线之间盘旋，红色视频灯闪烁，游行者笑着、尖叫着、挥手致意。

Henry Ramos Allup emerged from his party’s building, in a scrum of bodyguards, and the crowd set off south, toward Avenida Libertador, a main east-west thoroughfare.

亨利·拉莫斯·阿勒普 (Henry Ramos Allup) 在一群保镖的簇拥下从党的大楼里走出来，人群向南出发，前往东西向主干道解放大道 (Avenida Libertador)。

People thrust “ HAY FUTURO ” and “ YO TE REVOCO ” (“I recall you”) placards skyward, and danced in place when forward movement stalled.

人们将“HAY FUTURO”和“YO TE REVOCO”（“我记得你”）标语牌举向天空，并在前进停滞时原地跳舞。

The critical question was which direction this large, loud stream of marchers would go when it reached the Avenida Libertador, which had been closed to traffic.

关键问题是，当这群喧闹的游行队伍到达已经禁止通行的解放者大道时，他们会朝哪个方向走。

The march went east, toward other streams of marchers coming from that direction.

游行队伍向东行进，朝着从那个方向而来的其他游行队伍行进。

Spirits, which were already buoyant, seemed to soar.

本来就兴高采烈的精神，似乎都高涨起来。

There would be no bloody confrontation near Mira­flores.

米拉弗洛雷斯附近不会发生流血冲突。

National Guard soldiers, in riot gear, began to appear in ranks, but they stayed at the margins of the wide, sunny avenue.

身穿防暴装备的国民警卫队士兵开始列队出现，但他们留在宽阔、阳光明媚的大道边缘。

The march passed between red brick high-rises—public housing built by Chávez.

游行队伍穿过红砖高楼——查韦斯建造的公共住房。

Red flags and red shirts hung from some apartment windows: signals, middle fingers, from loyal chavistas .

一些公寓的窗户上挂着红旗和红衬衫：忠诚的查韦斯主义者发出的信号、中指。

White shirts and white bedsheets streamed from other windows: support for the opposition.

白衬衫和白色床单从其他窗户涌出：支持反对派。

The marchers shook their fists in solidarity and shouted, “The government is going to fall!”

游行者们团结一致地挥舞着拳头，高呼“政府要倒台了！”

Caracas was not taken that day.

那天加拉加斯没有被占领。

The government succeeded in channelling the multiple streams of the opposition march into different routes that never converged, and the stream I was in petered out around noon, with a few speeches in front of a Burger King.

政府成功地将反对派游行的多股人流引导到从未汇合的不同路线，而我所在的人流在中午左右逐渐消失，只在汉堡王前发表了几场演讲。

But the government did not succeed at preventing aerial (or penthouse) photographs, which showed an enormous, city-filling turnout.

但政府并没有成功阻止航拍（或顶层公寓）照片，这些照片显示了巨大的、充满城市的投票率。

The street fighting started in the afternoon.

巷战从下午开始。

I first saw a car set alight on a freeway in Chacao, and then armed officers firing tear gas and chasing scattered groups of demonstrators down a shopping street.

我首先看到一辆汽车在查考的高速公路上被点燃，然后武装警察发射催泪瓦斯，并沿着购物街追赶分散的示威者。

The demonstrators seemed much younger than most of the people who had marched that morning, and, once the tear gas began, many wore vinegar-soaked bandannas pulled up over their mouths and noses.

示威者看起来比那天早上游行的大多数人年轻得多，催泪瓦斯开始后，许多人都用浸过醋的头巾拉起来遮住嘴和鼻子。

Others wore gas masks.

其他人戴着防毒面具。

A bookstall vender frantically tried to close up shop before a wave of sooty tear gas engulfed him and his kiosk.

一名书摊小贩疯狂地试图关门，随后一波乌黑的催泪瓦斯吞没了他和他的书亭。

If he ran for it without locking up, his stock would be stolen by looters.

如果他不锁仓就跑，他的股票就会被抢劫者偷走。

He and his bookstall disappeared into a toxic smoke cloud while the rest of us rushed away from the advancing police.

他和他的书摊消失在有毒的烟雾中，而我们其他人则逃离了逼近的警察。

Although the opposition has been growing in recent months, independents are still a major group.

尽管近几个月来反对派不断壮大，但独立人士仍然是一个主要群体。

“Thirty-three per cent,” a local pollster told me.

“百分之三十三，”当地民意调查专家告诉我。

“They oppose Maduro but don’t support the opposition.”

“他们反对马杜罗，但不支持反对派。”

“How much do we have to leave to avoid a social-media incident?” Link copied

“为了避免社交媒体事件，我们需要留出多少空间？”链接已复制

Hermogenes José Liendo and Yolly Zambrano live outside, or alongside, the political binary that seems, at a glance, to define Venezuela.

Hermogenes José Liendo 和 Yolly Zambrano 生活在政治二元体系之外，或者说与之并存，乍一看，这种二元体系似乎定义了委内瑞拉。

Like most of their countrymen, they have cam­pesino family roots but were born and raised in the city.

和大多数同胞一样，他们有农民家庭血统，但在城市出生和长大。

They grew up together in Petare, a sprawling hillside barrio in east Caracas, where they were high-school sweethearts.

他们在佩塔雷一起长大，这是加拉加斯东部一个广阔的山坡社区，他们是高中时的情侣。

They’ve been married for thirty-five years.

他们结婚已有三十五年了。

She is a nurse; he owns and drives a Land Cruiser taxi on the steep and narrow streets of upper Petare.

她是一名护士；他拥有一辆陆地巡洋舰出租车，并在上佩塔雷陡峭狭窄的街道上行驶。

He showed me his taxi rig one sunny morning.

一个阳光明媚的早晨，他向我展示了他的出租车设备。

It’s a heavy-duty beast, built in 1980, now painted sky blue, with seating for ten on facing benches (two more up front) and, stencilled across the windshield, “ PANCRACIO ,” for the patron saint of the young.

这是一辆重型猛兽，建于 1980 年，现在漆成天蓝色，面对面的长凳上可容纳 10 人（前面还有两个），挡风玻璃上印有“PANCRACIO”字样，代表年轻人的守护神。

Liendo drives two routes, both of them absurdly steep, with switchback turns and clearances best measured in millimetres.

利恩多行驶两条路线，两条路线都极其陡峭，之字形转弯和间隙最好以毫米为单位。

Riding with him is a master class in pothole dodging and neighbor greeting.

与他一起骑行是躲避坑洼和问候邻居的大师班。

“ Hola, guapo!

“喂，瓜婆！

” “ Hey, Jesús!

” “嘿，耶稣！

” “ Hey, Coyote!

” “嘿，土狼！

” The cries come from inside houses, from balconies and motorbikes.

” 哭声来自屋内、阳台和摩托车。

Petare is an astounding maze of improvised brick cliff dwellings, many of them multistory, all of them beyond the dull comprehension of building codes.

佩塔雷是一座令人惊叹的迷宫，由临时搭建的砖砌悬崖住宅组成，其中许多是多层住宅，所有这些都超出了建筑规范的枯燥理解范围。

Liendo charges forty-five bolivares a trip—less than a nickel.

Liendo 每趟收费 45 玻利瓦尔，不到 5 分钱。

He belongs to an association of twenty-four jeep drivers.

他属于一个由二十四名吉普车司机组成的协会。

“We used to work till 11 P.M.

“我们过去常常工作到晚上 11 点。

, but now we knock off at eight or nine, because of the delincuencia ,” he said.

，但现在我们八点或九点下班，因为有失职行为，”他说。

He has never been robbed or attacked—the malandros have a special interest in his well-­being.

他从未被抢劫或袭击过——马兰德罗斯对他的福祉特别感兴趣。

He ferries wounded fighters down the mountain to hospitals from places where no ambulance would come to get them.

他把受伤的战士从没有救护车来接的地方运送到山下的医院。

“Petare was all chavista ,” Liendo, who is soft-spoken and solidly built, told me.

“佩塔雷完全是查韦斯主义者，”说话轻声细语、身材魁梧的利恩多告诉我。

Zambrano agreed.

赞布拉诺同意了。

He remembered clearly the brief, electrifying appearance of Chávez on TV after the failure of his coup in 1992.

他清楚地记得 1992 年查韦斯政变失败后，查韦斯在电视上短暂而激动人心的亮相。

Liendo had grown up in a Democratic Action home.

利恩多在民主行动的家庭中长大。

He broke with the old party and voted for Chávez in 1998.

1998年，他与旧党决裂，投票支持查韦斯。

So did Zambrano.

赞布拉诺也是如此。

Her mother, who read three newspapers a day, was devoted to the Social Christian Party, the other major party at the time, and she had been appalled when her daughter bolted, in the early nineteen-nineties, to a far-left party.

她的母亲每天读三份报纸，热衷于当时的另一个主要政党社会基督教党，当她的女儿在十九世纪九十年代初加入极左政党时，她感到震惊。

Zambrano, a handsome woman of fifty-one, gave me a nod.

赞布拉诺，一位五十一岁的漂亮女人，向我点了点头。

Yes, she had been an ultra-leftist in her day.

是的，她当时是个极左分子。

Chávez built schools and health-care clinics in Petare.

查韦斯在佩塔雷建造了学校和医疗诊所。

The clinics were staffed by Cuban doctors, and were open seven days a week, even at night.

这些诊所由古巴医生组成，每周开放 7 天，甚至在晚上。

But corruption and bad management began to take their toll, and by 2008 Petare had an opposition mayor.

但腐败和管理不善开始造成损失，到 2008 年，佩塔雷有了一位反对派市长。

The clinics are now either abandoned or rarely open, with few medicines.

这些诊所现在要么被废弃，要么很少营业，药品也很少。

Garbage lies uncollected, unlicensed venders jam the barrio’s narrow streets and stairways, and crime gets ever worse.

垃圾无人收集，无证商贩挤满了街区狭窄的街道和楼梯，犯罪活动变得越来越严重。

“I don’t like any politician right now,” Zambrano said.

“我现在不喜欢任何政客，”赞布拉诺说。

She works at two hospitals.

她在两家医院工作。

Her specialty is surgical preparation, but there are fewer surgeries being performed now, owing to a lack of basic supplies.

她的专长是手术准备，但由于缺乏基本物资，现在进行的手术较少。

“I don’t know why the government won’t accept international help,” Liendo said.

“我不知道政府为什么不接受国际援助，”利恩多说。

“People are dying while the government worries about its pride.”

“人们正在死去，而政府则担心自己的尊严。”

In January, the National Assembly declared a humanitarian emergency, and in May it passed a law allowing Venezuela to accept international aid.

一月份，国民议会宣布进入人道主义紧急状态，并于五月份通过了一项法律，允许委内瑞拉接受国际援助。

President Maduro scorned the idea, saying on national television, “I doubt that anywhere in the world, except in Cuba, there exists a better health system.” Instead of accepting aid, Ma­duro declared a state of emergency that allows him to rule by decree.

马杜罗总统对这个想法嗤之以鼻，他在国家电视台上表示，“我怀疑除了古巴之外，世界上任何地方都没有更好的卫生系统。”马杜罗没有接受援助，而是宣布进入紧急状态，允许他通过法令进行统治。

“ ¡Gringo, respeta!

“¡外国佬，请原谅！

” is a popular chavista graffito, and the slogan expresses historical grievances that are deep and wide throughout Latin America.

“”是流行的查维斯塔涂鸦，这句口号表达了整个拉丁美洲深刻而广泛的历史恩怨。

It’s true that the Maduro government’s cruel and obtuse denial of its people’s suffering is often ascribed to chavista pride, but it’s more than that.

确实，马杜罗政府残酷而迟钝地否认其人民的苦难常常被归咎于查韦斯主义的骄傲，但事实还不止于此。

The crisis has a small but crucial constituency, starting with the generals and other high government officials who are thriving financially, mainly through smuggling, graft, and import fraud.

这场危机有一小部分但至关重要的支持者，首先是将军和其他高级政府官员，他们主要通过走私、贪污和进口欺诈而致富。

Then there are the boliburgueses , a new-money business élite riding high on government contracts, cronyism, and money laundering.

然后是玻利布尔格人，他们是一群依靠政府合同、任人唯亲和洗钱而得意的新金融商业精英。

A stampede of foreign do-gooders and international financial auditors into Venezuela would probably mean trouble for them.

外国行善者和国际金融审计师涌入委内瑞拉可能会给他们带来麻烦。

A Maduro-recall referendum would be even worse.

马杜罗罢免公投的情况会更糟。

“He would lose, and where could these guys go?” a local analyst asked me.

“他会输，那些家伙能去哪里？”一位当地分析师问我。

“What country would even take them?

“哪个国家会接收他们？

They won’t have a very comfortable exile in Kazakhstan.” Repression increased markedly after the death of Chávez, an escalation often attributed to a consolidation of power by hard-liners in the government.

他们在哈萨克斯坦不会有一个非常舒适的流亡生活。”查韦斯去世后，镇压明显加剧，这种升级通常归因于政府强硬派的权力巩固。

The circus-tent populism of Chávez gave way to an even less accountable, charmless tropical Leninism.

查韦斯的马戏团民粹主义让位于更不负责任、毫无魅力的热带列宁主义。

And yet ideology seems increasingly irrelevant to a true description of power in Venezuela.

然而，意识形态似乎与委内瑞拉权力的真实描述越来越无关。

The regime seems to be in survival mode.

该政权似乎处于生存模式。

In late October, Maduro and his allies on the election commission, recognizing that elections have become unwinnable, suspended the recall process indefinitely.

10月下旬，马杜罗和他在选举委员会的盟友认识到选举已经无法获胜，无限期暂停了罢免程序。

The opposition staged angry protests throughout the country, and called for a general strike.

反对派在全国各地举行愤怒的抗议活动，并呼吁举行总罢工。

The government threatened to expropriate businesses and factories that closed in support of the strike, and underlined the threat by surrounding Polar’s headquarters in Caracas and the home of Lorenzo Mendoza and his family with heavily armed SEBIN agents.

政府威胁要没收为支持罢工而关闭的企业和工厂，并用全副武装的 SEBIN 特工包围了 Polar 位于加拉加斯的总部以及洛伦佐·门多萨及其家人的家，突显了这一威胁。

The strike fizzled.

罢工失败了。

But the political crisis continues, and the Vatican has sent an envoy to convene a “dialogue” between the government and the opposition.

但政治危机仍在继续，梵蒂冈已派出特使召开政府与反对派之间的“对话”。

This gambit effectively split the MUD .

这一策略有效地分裂了MUD。

One of its main partners, the Popular Will Party, whose leader, a former Caracas mayor named Leopoldo López, has been jailed since 2014, declined to join the discussion.

其主要合作伙伴之一人民意志党(Popular Will Party)拒绝参加讨论，该党的领导人、加拉加斯前市长莱奥波尔多·洛佩斯(Leopoldo López)自2014年以来一直被监禁。

It is, to be sure, difficult to see what there is to discuss.

诚然，很难看出有什么可讨论的。

Maduro and the chavistas are determined not to relinquish power, and seem willing to flout the law, denying Venezuelans the right to choose their leaders.

马杜罗和查维斯塔决心不放弃权力，并且似乎愿意藐视法律，剥夺委内瑞拉人选择领导人的权利。

The military is the wild card in every scenario.

军队在任何情况下都是未知数。

For much of Venezuela’s history, the military has had a hand in ruling the country.

在委内瑞拉历史的大部分时间里，军队都参与了国家的统治。

Today, ordinary soldiers are clearly suffering from the same food scarcity as all poor Venezuelans.

如今，普通士兵显然和所有贫穷的委内瑞拉人一样面临着粮食短缺的问题。

Liendo, who was once a conscript, told me, “The military loses respect when you see soldiers selling potatoes and onions at the side of the road.” One hears persistent talk about how Maduro is besmirching the military’s dignity with his economic failures.

曾经是一名应征入伍者的利恩多告诉我，“当你看到士兵在路边卖土豆和洋葱时，军队就会失去尊重。”人们不断听到人们谈论马杜罗如何通过经济失败玷污军队的尊严。

The subtext is a wan hope that the military will step in, perhaps by forcing Maduro to follow the law and hold the recall election.

潜台词是希望军方介入，或许可以迫使马杜罗遵守法律并举行罢免选举。

No one says this in public.

没有人在公开场合这么说。

Understanding Venezuela’s failing state as just another failure of socialism, and of statism generally, is ahistorical.

将委内瑞拉的失败国家理解为社会主义和国家主义的又一次失败是不符合历史的。

Venezuela before Chávez was often extravagantly statist.

查韦斯之前的委内瑞拉常常是极端的国家主义。

Corruption has been a major problem in every era.

腐败在每个时代都是一个主要问题。

Even dire food shortages are not new.

甚至严重的粮食短缺也不是新鲜事。

These things happened under capitalism, too, as did intense political repression.

这些事情在资本主义下也发生过，激烈的政治镇压也是如此。

Today’s crisis is for most people the worst in memory, but it is not all about socialism.

今天的危机对大多数人来说是记忆中最严重的一次，但这不仅仅与社会主义有关。

The predatory state, the extreme insecurity, the sheer weakness of the rule of law—these are problems more profound, at this stage, than a traditional left-right analysis can clarify, let alone begin to solve.

掠夺性国家、极度不安全、法治的薄弱——在现阶段，这些问题比传统的左右分析所能阐明的更为深刻，更不用说开始解决了。

The story of the oil bonanza is inscribed on the land around Lake Maracaibo, and on the lake itself.

石油富矿的故事铭刻在马拉开波湖周围的土地上，也铭刻在马拉开波湖本身上。

It’s an enormous shallow estuary, five thousand square miles, in the hot, dry, northwest corner of Venezuela.

这是一个巨大的浅河口，面积五千平方英里，位于委内瑞拉炎热、干燥的西北角。

Forty-three billion barrels of oil have been pumped from the Mara­caibo Basin since 1914.

自 1914 年以来，马拉开波盆地已开采了 430 亿桶石油。

Rusting tank farms line the shores of the lake.

湖岸边排列着生锈的罐区。

Petrochemical complexes glitter in the brushlands at night.

晚上，石化工厂在灌木丛中闪闪发光。

Oil platforms, many of them abandoned, stud the lake’s surface.

湖面上散布着许多石油平台，其中许多已废弃。

Snaking across the lake’s bottom are fifteen thousand miles of pipeline.

蜿蜒穿过湖底的是一万五千英里的管道。

The water is dense with sulfates, fluoride, nitrogen, detergent, fecal coliform.

水中富含硫酸盐、氟化物、氮、洗涤剂、粪大肠菌群。

Huge blooms of noxious duckweed look, from above, like pea-green wigs spread out in the sun.

从上方看，有毒浮萍的巨大花朵就像在阳光下展开的豌豆绿假发。

Oil leaks from the pipelines shine in gassy, muted rainbows.

管道泄漏的石油发出柔和的气体彩虹。

The leaks have reportedly multiplied since Chávez nationalized seventy-six oil-services companies, in 2009.

据报道，自 2009 年查韦斯将 76 家石油服务公司国有化以来，泄漏事件成倍增加。

The government blames the leaks on “sabotage.” Far more likely, they stem from lack of maintenance and from the depredations of thieves, who work the lake in boats.

政府将泄密归咎于“破坏”。更有可能的是，它们源于缺乏维护和在湖中乘船作业的小偷的掠夺。

A long-­running turf war between rival mafias was reportedly settled in recent years by dividing the lake down the middle.

据报道，近年来，敌对黑手党之间长期存在的地盘争夺战是通过将湖水从中间一分为二来解决的。

La Familia Leal runs the western shore, which includes the city of Maracaibo, Venezuela’s second largest, with a population of two million.

La Familia Leal 位于西海岸，其中包括委内瑞拉第二大城市马拉开波市，拥有 200 万人口。

La Familia Meleán runs the eastern shore, which has more oil facilities.

La Familia Meleán 经营东海岸，那里有更多的石油设施。

The bulk of investment in Venezuelan oil has shifted in recent years to new fields in the east, in a region called the Orinoco Belt, where the proven reserves are immense.

近年来，委内瑞拉石油的大部分投资已转向东部的新油田，即奥里诺科带地区，该地区已探明储量巨大。

There are still nineteen billion barrels of proven reserves in the Maracaibo Basin, though.

不过，马拉开波盆地仍有 190 亿桶探明储量。

That’s more oil than Mexico and Norway combined have.

这比墨西哥和挪威的石油总和还要多。

And yet Venezuelan oil production is steadily falling.

然而委内瑞拉的石油产量却在稳步下降。

Since 1998, it has declined by thirty per cent—by nearly a million barrels a day.

自 1998 年以来，产量已下降了 30%，即每天下降近 100 万桶。

Corruption and lack of maintenance are the culprits most often cited.

腐败和缺乏维护是最常被提及的罪魁祸首。

Crime gangs also exact a heavy tax.

犯罪团伙还征收重税。

The state-owned oil and gas monopoly, Petróleos de Venezuela (P.D.V.S.A.), was Chávez’s piggy bank.

国有石油和天然气垄断企业委内瑞拉石油公司（P.D.V.S.A.）是查韦斯的存钱罐。

Between 2001 and 2015, it poured perhaps a hundred billion dollars into his favored programs.

2001 年至 2015 年间，政府向他青睐的项目投入了大约 1000 亿美元。

Today, the piggy bank is nearly empty.

今天，存钱罐几乎空了。

Two-thirds of oil-export revenues go to paying the Chinese and other creditors.

三分之二的石油出口收入用于支付中国和其他债权人。

Until recently, the monopoly was able to use Citgo, its American refining unit, to obtain loans in international credit markets, but the government has destroyed its credit rating, and it is no longer able to borrow on international markets.

直到最近，该垄断企业还能够利用其美国炼油部门 Citgo 在国际信贷市场上获得贷款，但政府已经破坏了其信用评级，它不再能够在国际市场上借款。

With the recent collapse of the oil price, it is scrambling just to service its debts.

随着最近油价暴跌，它正忙着偿还债务。

The oil won’t simply stop flowing.

石油不会简单地停止流动。

In the city of Maracaibo, it’s clear that there’s still plenty of money around.

在马拉开波市，显然仍然有很多钱。

Fancy new high-rises line the lakefront on the north side of town.

城镇北侧的湖畔矗立着精美的新高楼大厦。

Massive banks with blue glass walls loom downtown.

带有蓝色玻璃墙的大型银行在市中心若隐若现。

José Feliciano is coming to play in the convention center.

何塞·费利西亚诺 (José Feliciano) 即将来会议中心演出。

I asked my driver, a local woman, about the lakefront high-rises.

我向司机（一位当地妇女）询问了湖边高楼的情况。

“Money laundering,” she said cheerfully.

“洗钱，”她高兴地说。

The apartments were investments, she said, owned by mafiosos, militares , narco­traffickers from Colombia, corrupt officials.

她说，这些公寓是投资，归黑手党、军队、来自哥伦比亚的毒贩和腐败官员所有。

The buildings were dark at night.

夜晚，建筑物一片漆黑。

Almost nobody actually lived there.

几乎没有人真正住在那里。

Maracaibo is only two hours from the Colombian border.

马拉开波距哥伦比亚边境仅两小时路程。

Colombian products, presumably smuggled, fill the supermarkets.

超市里充斥着哥伦比亚产品，大概是走私的。

I saw a bachaquero set up at a table in front of his house, in broad daylight, and stopped to inspect his goods.

我看到一个巴查克罗在光天化日之下坐在他家门前的一张桌子旁，停下来检查他的货物。

He was selling Polar precooked corn flour, at eight times the price on the label, but he also had Colombian flour.

他以标签上价格八倍的价格出售 Polar 预煮玉米粉，但他也有哥伦比亚面粉。

On the eastern shore of Lake Maracaibo, in the territory of La Familia Meleán, I turned off the highway at a Halliburton oil-treatment plant.

在马拉开波湖东岸，梅兰家族境内，我在哈里伯顿石油处理厂拐出了高速公路。

It looked deserted.

看上去很荒凉。

Huge tanks and towers, connected by catwalks, baked in the heat.

巨大的储罐和塔楼，通过过道相连，在高温下烘烤。

A roof panel had blown loose from one of the tanks and now hung, bent like a giant brown tropical leaf, halfway to the ground.

其中一个水箱的一块屋顶板被吹松了，现在像一片巨大的棕色热带树叶一样弯曲，半垂到地面。

Even after all the nationalizations, P.D.V.S.A.

即使在所有国有化之后，P.D.V.S.A.

depends heavily on foreign oil-services companies like Halliburton and Schlum­berger to get the drilling done.

钻探工作严重依赖哈里伯顿（Halliburton）和斯伦贝谢（Schlumberger）等外国石油服务公司来完成。

But Schlumberger recently closed four platforms on Lake Maracaibo, because its bills weren’t being paid.

但斯伦贝谢最近关闭了马拉开波湖上的四个平台，因为其账单没有得到支付。

Argentine and Peruvian oil companies recently did the same, for the same reason, except that they closed thirty-six platforms.

阿根廷和秘鲁石油公司最近出于同样的原因也做了同样的事情，只不过他们关闭了 36 个平台。

Halliburton was also cutting back.

哈里伯顿也在削减开支。

This was how production dwindled.

产量就是这样减少的。

Maybe it was for the best, I thought, on the lakeshore, behind the Halliburton plant.

我想，也许这是最好的选择，在湖岸上，哈里伯顿工厂后面。

Tar-soaked sandbags, tar-soaked palm fronds, tar-soaked trees and trash littered the water’s edge.

水边散落着被焦油浸透的沙袋、被焦油浸透的棕榈叶、被焦油浸透的树木和垃圾。

The smell was heady and rank.

气味令人陶醉且恶臭。

It’s not as if oil were the fuel of the future.

石油并不是未来的燃料。

An old pickup truck was backed down to the shore, in the shade of some scrawny trees.

一辆旧皮卡车停在岸边，在一些瘦骨嶙峋的树荫下。

A middle-aged couple were sitting quietly in plastic chairs in the bed of the truck, a cooler resting between them.

一对中年夫妇安静地坐在卡车车厢的塑料椅子上，他们之间放着一个冷藏箱。

They were drinking beer, having a picnic.

他们一边喝啤酒，一边野餐。

They studied me as I approached.

当我走近时，他们打量着我。

Hola .

你好。

Yes, it was much nicer in the shade.

是的，在树荫下感觉好多了。

There was even a little breeze off the lake, every now and then.

湖边甚至时不时有微风吹过。

This was a good spot, the man said, because the only road to it was the oil-company road, which had a surveillance camera on it.

那人说，这是一个好地方，因为通往那里的唯一道路是石油公司的道路，上面有监控摄像头。

Yes, they lived in Maracaibo.

是的，他们住在马拉开波。

They had been married forever—kids, grandkids.

他们已经永远结婚了——有孩子，有孙子。

He worked in air-conditioner maintenance.

他从事空调维修工作。

“She waits in lines,” he said.

“她排队等候，”他说。

It was a joke, but not really.

这是一个玩笑，但不是真的。

The couple wearily denounced Maduro.

这对夫妇疲倦地谴责马杜罗。

“All these lines and bachaqueros are his fault,” she said.

“所有这些台词和酒神都是他的错，”她说。

If they got the chance, they would both gladly vote him out.

如果有机会，他们都会很乐意投票让他下台。

I was being bitten by tiny insects.

我被小虫子咬了。

I asked if they ever went swimming here.

我问他们是否曾经在这里游泳过。

The woman laughed.

女人笑了。

“Yes,” she said.

“是的，”她说。

“Sometimes.

“有时候。

It’s nice to cool off.

凉爽一下真好。

But there’s too much oil.

但油太多了。

We come out looking like Dalmatians.”  ♦

我们看起来就像斑点狗。”  ♦

William Finnegan has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1987.

威廉·芬尼根 (William Finnegan) 自 1987 年以来一直担任《纽约客》的特约撰稿人。

His book “ Barbarian Days ” won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for biography.

其著作《野蛮人的日子》荣获2016年普利策传记奖。

More: Corruption Crime Economy Hugo Chávez News Protests Revolutions Venezuela This Week’s Issue Never miss a big New Yorker story again.

更多内容：腐败犯罪经济乌戈·查韦斯新闻抗议革命委内瑞拉本周一号再也不会错过《纽约客》的重大报道。

Sign up for This Week’s Issue and get an e-mail every week with the stories you have to read.

订阅本周的期刊，每周都会收到一封电子邮件，其中包含您必须阅读的故事。

Letter from Caracas Slumlord What has Hugo Chávez wrought in Venezuela?

加拉加斯贫民窟领主的来信 乌戈·查韦斯在委内瑞拉做了什么？

By Jon Lee Anderson

乔恩·李·安德森

a-reporter-at-large Iphigenia in Forest Hills Anatomy of a murder trial.

福里斯特希尔斯的一名无任所记者伊菲革涅亚谋杀案审判的解剖。

By Janet Malcolm

珍妮特·马尔科姆

annals-of-history The Day L.B.J.

历史编年史 L.B.J. 的那一天

Took Charge Lyndon Johnson and the events in Dallas.

负责林登·约翰逊和达拉斯的事件。

By Robert A.

作者：罗伯特·A.

Caro

卡罗