Venezuela might not be a “shithole country,” but it’s certainly a basket case — so much so that it’s making Zimbabwe look like a paragon of political stability and economic sustainability.
Five years ago, there were 4000 white-owned farms in Zimbabwe; today, there are only 400 (mostly unproductive) farms left. Five years ago, Zimbabwe was the breadbasket of sub-Saharan Africa; today, it is a basket case of starving people.
(“Zimbabweans Pray for Liberation from their Liberator – Robert Mugabe,” The iPINIONS Journal, March 29, 2005)
I have written many commentaries presaging (and bemoaning) the descent of both countries into political and economic bankruptcy. This is why I hasten to assert here that former President Hugo Chávez is as responsible for Venezuela’s current mess as former President Robert Mugabe is for Zimbabwe’s.
The following excerpt is from “Chávez’s Chavismo: More a Robbing Hoodlum than Robin Hood,” August 12, 2015. It gives an overview of the primrose path he led Venezuela down to arrive at this purgatory.
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My socialist affinities are such that I used to be a big fan of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. … However, it did not take long before I began denouncing him as just another tin-pot dictator betraying the very socialist causes he championed. I did so in commentaries like ‘Bolivia’s Woes Expose Chávez’s Socialist Counter-Revolution as Little more than a One-Man, Three-Ring Circus,’ September 7, 2006. …
It was hardly surprising that poor Venezuelans were protesting against chronic privation within a year of his death in March 2013. …
Few Venezuelans appreciated that Chávez was a bigger crook than any drug lord who ever menaced South America. Yet he earned his rightful place in the rogue’s gallery of dead kleptomaniacs, which includes everyone from François ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier of Haiti to Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire/DR Congo, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Crime bosses like Al Capone and drug lords like Pablo Escobar had nothing on political dictators like these. …
His family and cronies have nothing to fear, so long as the man to whom he bequeathed the presidency, his crony in chief Nicolás Maduro, remains in office. But all bets are off – with respect to their ill-gotten fortunes, and even their freedom – the minute any opposition leader assumes power.
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Apropos of President Maduro remaining in office, I argued – in “Venezuela’s Death Spiral of Recession, Protest, and Repression,” April 24, 2017 – that there’s no way he can win a free and fair election. Further, that his fate depends on the military supporting his dictatorship the way it supported Chávez’s.
More the point, I advised – in “Venezuela Finally Awakens from Chavismo Nightmare,” December 9, 2015 – that he would be wise to negotiate blanket immunity (for himself and his family) in exchange for his immediate resignation. Further, that he should let Chávez’s family and cronies suffer come what may.
But Maduro seems determined to emulate not just Chavez’s 11 years in power, but Mugabe’s 37. He threw this into tragic relief just last week. That’s when he ordered security forces to gun down fugitive coup leader Oscar Pérez (36).
Fittingly, the young Pérez livestreamed their siege, hence the world saw him pleading to no avail for them to allow him to surrender. When all the pleading and shooting was done, Justice Minister Néstor Reverol announced that security forces had killed Pérez and seven other “terrorists.”
Pérez, a police officer, had been on the run since June. That’s when he commandeered a helicopter and used it to drop grenades on government buildings in Caracas. Reports are that he was only trying to rally anti-government protesters, not kill government officials.
Before launching his helicopter attack … he called on the military, the police and civilians to rise up against … President Nicolás Maduro’s ‘tyranny’ and his ‘narco-dictatorship.’ …
‘Together, let’s retake our beloved Venezuela … re-establish the constitutional order in Venezuela … return the power to the people.’
(BBC, January 16, 2018)
Sure enough, nobody was harmed. But there’s no denying the recklessness of behavior.
On the other hand, there’s also no denying that Maduro wanted Pérez killed, not least to prevent him emulating Chávez. Recall that Chávez first captured (and forever held) the imagination of the Venezuelan people after he led a failed coup in 1992 against then-President Carlos Andrés Peréz. That landed him in prison. Yet he was elected president just six years later.
Except that Pérez struck most Venezuelans, including anti-government protesters, as more Rambo wannabe than revolutionary.
Even in Miami, where most members of the Venezuelan community have ceased to believe that Maduro would ever concede losing at the polls, opposition leaders expressed doubts about the legitimacy of the Pérez movement.
(Miami Herald, January 23, 2018)
Alas, his lack of popular support did not matter.
Besides, Maduro could be forgiven for thinking he would suffer no consequences, despite the viral nature of this extrajudicial killing. Because he could look to the way the president of Iran got off scot-free after the equally viral killing of Neda Agha-Soltan in 2009 – amidst similar anti-government protests.
Meanwhile, Maduro has been stringing opposition leaders along for years with talks of compromise. They convened their latest rounds last September in the Dominican Republic, where an international group of politicians were acting as mediators.
Mind you, Maduro needs support from opposition leaders, primarily, to
- lobby the United States to lift the nail-in-the-coffin sanctions Trump imposed
- renegotiate Venezuela’s crippling foreign debt.
In exchange, they are demanding, among other things, that he
- allow distribution of international humanitarian aid
- release political prisoners
- recognize their duly-elected National Assembly
- provide guarantees that this year’s presidential will be free and fair.
But nobody who knows anything about the nature of Maduro’s rule believes he will ever accede to their democratic demands. This, notwithstanding the obvious fact that, without their support, Venezuela’s economic death spiral will continue.
The political turmoil comes against the backdrop of a worsening economic crisis. Despite having the largest proven oil reserves in the world, Venezuela is fast running out of cash, and its people have struggled for years with food and medical shortages, coupled with skyrocketing prices.
(CNN, April 20, 2017)
Remarkably, Maduro created a new “constituent assembly” against this backdrop. Its mission was to rewrite the constitution to “bring peace to the nation.”
However, all indications are that he created this “legislative superbody” merely to serve as his rubberstamp alternative to the democratically elected National Assembly. Forebodingly, he vested it with “total power” to enact his dictatorial decrees, dissolve state institutions (including the National Assembly), and rig his re-election.
Accordingly, Maduro made clear on Tuesday his abiding contempt not just for these opposition leaders but also for the US and European leaders who are imposing the crippling sanctions at issue. Specifically, he made quite a show of announcing his intent to stand for re-election.
Despite national turmoil and international outcry, he insisted that Venezuelans will go to the polls before the end of April. And, sure enough, hapless opposition leaders seem inclined to accede to his dictatorial whim.
The opposition plans to hold primaries to choose a candidate, but the hasty presidential vote may make that tricky.
Its most popular leaders are almost all sidelined from politics – jailed, in exile, or barred from holding office.
(Reuters, January 23, 2018)
Mexico led the international chorus of those denouncing his announcement as a poison pill, rendering talks with opposition leaders pointless. Duh.
But I cannot overstate how much Maduro needs their support. Therefore, one wonders why he engages in such plainly counterproductive maneuvers?
The only explanation is that, like Mugabe, Maduro is content to continue his iron-fisted rule — even if it’s over a Venezuela that is a complete basket case. Nothing betrays this quite like him betting on a cryptocurrency (like Bitcoin) as a panacea for his country’s woes:
Maduro announced the nation would create its own ‘petrocurrency,’ backed by reserves in oil, gas, gold and diamonds. It will enable Venezuela ‘to advance in monetary sovereignty, carry out its financial transactions to overcome the financial blockade,’ Maduro said.
(Bloomberg, December 3, 2017)
Not to mention that Venezuela’s currency lost 96 percent of its value last year, while inflation soared above 4000 percent.
Interestingly enough, Maduro is aping Trump by maintaining that reports about Venezuela’s economic death spiral are fake news. To be fair, at the bottom of its economic death spiral (in November 2008), Zimbabwe’s inflation rate reached an unfathomable 89.7 sextillion percent. Therefore, Maduro can argue that Venezuela is faring relatively well.
Still, no matter his sham talks, rigged election, or Trumpian delusion, Maduro must know his days are numbered. After all, his fate rests upon the favor of Venezuela’s military leaders.
Except that they remained so loyal to Chávez because he rose from among their ranks. Maduro did not. Indeed, they probably see him as nothing more than a leftist “militant dreamer” – who is to Chavismo what Steve Bannon is to Trumpism (Got that?).
More to the point, though, these military leaders must also know that, as long as Maduro remains in office, Venezuela’s economic death spiral will continue. He clearly enjoys ruling over a basket case. I doubt they enjoy serving in one.
Therefore, instead of continuing feckless talks with him, opposition leaders should appeal to their nationalist/Chavismo pride to get them to ensure a free and fair presidential election, which would surely see Maduro ousted in a landslide.
By the same token, instead of gambling with Venezuela’s fate, Maduro would do well to secure his own.
We cry for you, Venezuela
The truth is, he never loved you
Despite Chavismo
His revolution,
He broke his promise
Come to your senses.
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