- Venezuela in the LRB Archived Message
Posted by scrabb
on February 15, 2019, 3:17 pm
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Part of article on Venezuela in London Review of Books. Seems to give an accurate and fair view of events thus far. At stake here is the fate not just of Maduro, but of the whole Bolivarian model. It’s no accident that this comes at a moment when the right is flexing its muscles across Latin America; the eagerness with which forces outside Venezuela are seeking to put paid to chavismo is all too apparent. The pressure on Maduro has been ratcheted up by the Lima Group, established in August 2017 specifically to work with the Venezuelan opposition to find a ‘solution’ to the crisis. It consists of 12 countries, all of them in the Western hemisphere and predominantly governed by parties of the right. That any self-appointed outside body should have a say in a given country’s affairs is bad enough; but this ad hoc junta’s credentials for pronouncing on democracy in Venezuela are pitiful. In the short time since it was founded, two of its member states have been governed by unelected presidents (Brazil and Peru); one of them has a president who was re-elected by a rigged vote in 2017 (Honduras); one is under UN investigation for corruption (Guatemala); one has been investigated by the DEA for laundering drug money (Paraguay); and there’s no forgetting Colombia, where paramilitary groups routinely murder trade unionists and where, according to 2018’s figures from the UNHCR, there are nearly eight million internally displaced people. (To its credit Mexico, though among the founders of the Lima Group under President Peña Nieto, has distanced itself since López Obrador came to power.) In its founding statement, the Lima Group declared its full support for Venezuela’s National Assembly. On 4 January this year, it upped the ante, stating that if Maduro assumed office for a second term the following week it would consider him a usurper – not coincidentally using the same terminology as the Venezuelan opposition. Two days later, the general secretary of the Organisation of American States, Luis Almagro, effectively started the clock on regime change, citing Guaidó’s ‘important constitutional responsibility to initiate Venezuela’s urgent transition to democracy’. It was the Trump administration, however, that really accelerated the pace of events. Regime change in Venezuela has been on Washington’s agenda since the early 2000s, but the failed coup against Chávez in 2002, and the boost he got through successive electoral victories and high oil prices, made it impracticable for several years. Venezuela’s economic troubles, and the rolling crisis of legitimacy that has marked Maduro’s presidency, have moved it to the front burner. In May 2017, Trump imposed new sanctions on Venezuelan state companies and officials, the first in a series of noose-tightening measures: there were more in August 2017, in March, May, August and November 2018, and on 10 and 28 January 2019. In August 2018, Trump apparently asked aides why the US couldn’t just invade. But until last month, the White House’s preferred scenario was for the Venezuelan army to get rid of Maduro on its behalf. In February 2018 the then secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, casually speculated about the possibility of a military coup, and in September the New York Times reported that the US had been holding secret discussions for the past year with members of the Venezuelan top brass to persuade them to topple their president. These evidently didn’t go as planned. On 10 January, Mike Pompeo publicly called on the Venezuelan armed forces to remove Maduro but the Trump administration was already betting on Guaidó. A White House official described him to the Washington Post as ‘the piece we needed for our strategy to be coherent and complete’. The same day, Pompeo called Guaidó and assured him that if he declared himself interim president he would have America’s backing; Mike Pence did the same on 22 January, the day before Guaidó’s proclamation. Trump, Pompeo and Marco Rubio were the first to recognise Guaidó; the Lima Group quickly rubber-stamping the power-grab they themselves had helped bring about. On 4 February European countries followed suit, recognising Guaidó after the expiry of a tough but pointless ultimatum (they had given Maduro eight days to commit to holding new elections). Link to full article: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n04/tony-wood/the-battle-for-venezuela?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4104&utm_content=ukrw_subs |
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