Venezuela: What to do?

By: Ricardo Israel - 16/09/2024

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“Venezuela’s opposition is being crushed” is the headline of The Economist, which adds that “despite its courage in confronting the regime, the situation in the country is desperate.”

The truth is that there is no sign of a fracture in the Armed Forces, either at the top (generals) or at the bottom (troops), nor is there a popular mobilization of the level that would shake the dictatorship. And how much can the democrats rely on international support? The truth is that, given the severity of the repressive violence and the blatant theft of the electoral result, there is no sign of international pressure of the necessary level, and what we have seen is certainly less than the support that Maduro receives from his allies, in addition to the fact that the regime has already been able to survive periods of similar isolation and a greater number of sanctions (without Chevron), as well as a worse economic situation.

However, the regime and Maduro have a big problem, which is the great popularity and legitimacy of María Corina Machado (MCM) and that they would have been defeated, since it was possible to demonstrate to Venezuelans and the world that the democrats had won. Despite this, they are playing to lose support and demoralize the protest, as happened with López and Guaidó.

In this regard, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then, so we must also beat them in this game. Maria Corina has done a lot, now we must help her and hopefully we can act with the same intelligence. I think MCM has always been clear about this, and the time has come to react since the strategy followed needs to get out of a situation of being boxed in. It must avoid mere testimony and recover the initiative and return to the movement. For example, as legitimate winners of the election, nothing should prevent the future government from opening public (and very public) negotiations with China and Russia for what interests them most, that is, the payment of the debt.

The codes of the dictatorship are not political, nor are they even Machiavelli's. They are criminal, of the mafia, of organized crime. I thought some time ago that they were those of the Godfather, but their total lack of scruples shows that they are much worse, since the Godfather never ventured into the drug business, which even cost him an attempted murder. Not even the US understood it when it believed that he was negotiating with them in Barbados, but the Cartel of the Suns had no intention of complying, and since then, they have been doubling down on the bet as what they are, seasoned criminals.

By the way, the International Criminal Court does not help, since it is simply shameful that the Prosecutor does nothing, compared to the speed with which he acted with Putin and Netanyahu, perhaps explainable by the conflict of interest discovered with his sister-in-law who today represents Maduro and who in the past worked on human rights cases with the prosecutor himself.

Einstein said that we should not repeat what has failed, so perhaps the time has come to try something different, something that can have an impact now, in the sense of trying to enforce the Palermo Convention, that is, the United Nations Treaty against Transnational Organized Crime that adequately describes the whole clique that illegitimately holds power in Caracas, which has not been tried before, and which, as the Inter-American Institute for Democracy has shown in a series of seminars and forums, has the wonderful quality that not only States can resort to this instrument, but also non-governmental organizations and even ordinary citizens.

By the way, it doesn't help that the White House has not gone beyond declarations of good manners and, whatever it says, it seems to have tied its fate to AMLO and Lula. Nor is it a solution to believe that the situation looks bad enough to elevate someone like Boric to the altars, criticized by his opposition for limiting himself to mentioning Maduro's theft of votes and not doing what is appropriate, which is to recognize Edmundo González's victory. The difference is that the first is only an opinion, while the second is something different, a decision and, therefore, a government policy that creates obligations. Furthermore, for most of his career Boric was a well-known Chavista, he supported Maduro in the past, and only recently has he changed his mind in the face of the consequences of Caracas' permanent aggressiveness, measurable in the criminal export of the Aragua Train and above all, in the murder of Lieutenant Ojeda who had received political asylum in Chile. In other words, Maduro, Cabello and others have strived, in words and actions, to cause various problems in Chile, which have sunk the popularity of both Boric and his government.

Does this mean that I think there is nothing to be done about repression? No, certainly not. I just think that we urgently need to change gears and play other keys. And quickly. So in the following pages I hope to explain that the key is in the United States, and that what is needed is not to surrender to the fact that the power is in the midst of an electoral campaign, but to use this window as a great stroke of luck that allows us to do what was impossible in the past, such as, for example, introducing the Venezuelan issue as one of those that will decide the future of democracy, at least in the region. And to do so with optimism.

The only bad thing is that this window closes on November 5, so if something is done it must be very conspicuous and at top speed, which requires concentrating resources and uniting wills. If successful, the presidential campaign would produce what does not exist today (not even for Ukraine or Israel): a national agreement for the US to use all its resources other than a military invasion, for the purpose of getting rid of Maduro and the organized crime regime that governs from Caracas.

And the truth is that there is no other country that can do what the US could do today, and with all the respect and admiration I feel for Maria Corina Machado (MCM), there is simply no time for a “global cause.” It is the US or nothing. Let us repeat that it is urgent, not only because of the elections, but because the opportunity offered by the electoral process to establish the Venezuelan issue will not be repeated, so it must be taken advantage of.

Every country has its own characteristics, and the US is unique in that it is unlike any other, and if anything is done, it must be done quickly, very quickly. So, we must look at what those who have spoken out in this electoral process have achieved. Gaza is a better example than Ukraine, since those who were against Israel managed to distance former candidate Biden from his commitment to Israel during the Democratic primaries, stopping nothing less than his military advance, as was public and notorious.

The opportunity for the Venezuelan cause, of course, is not Gaza, but rather observing this and other examples of how a well-publicized position can change the course of the partisan battleships and transform a simple concern into official policy of the power, however surprising the irruption may seem.

Otherwise, there is much to be proud of. If this is possible today and if it wants to, Washington could achieve what Trump could not in 2020, it is because of what María Corina achieved, since she achieved what had not been achieved before, that is, unity, the loss of fear, the masses regaining confidence that the defeat of the dictatorship was possible, that there was a recognized and legitimized leader, that the defeat of the regime could be proven without any doubt anywhere in the world, not even in the Miraflores Palace.

In turn, this scenario was possible because it was agreed to go to an election and, therefore, the regime was defeated at its own game. The result was that the transition to democracy had already begun, and since no two transitions are exactly the same, this is the Venezuelan-style transition, which has not been achieved because the regime remains in absolute denial, but delegitimized and isolated from the reality of Venezuela, and only has the repressive instrument at its disposal.

He refused to negotiate, and all that is needed to bring down the house of cards is a little push, and only the US can give that today.

Will he want to do it? To do so, he must be helped and that is what Venezuelan democrats must do now. They have achieved a lot, they have made a lot of progress, and thanks to that, there is only one final stretch left, which must be covered.

How can this be done? Remembering that they won the election, that they are the legitimately elected government and they must act as such, what is missing is for the defeated to recognize their defeat, and that is what the US must and can do. Fulfilling that role is what is being asked, but the democratic opposition cannot do it, since it does not have the strength or power to force Chavismo, although it could do so in the future, having state power, once it can assume power on January 10.

In the meantime, what it can do is take its victory seriously and act as a legitimate government that does what it can. In this regard, it would have helped a lot if Latin America and the United States had applied the OAS Democratic Charter, which is binding on all countries in the hemisphere.

What cannot be done is to fall into irrelevance, so the task of the present time is to try -with complete confidence- to make the Venezuelan issue part of the electoral process that the US is currently experiencing and that on November 5 there is a position of unity, official in the case of the future government and shared by both candidates in the sense of confronting the government that has usurped power, and that the resources of the power are used so that on January 10 the legitimate president is sworn in.

That is the irreplaceable role that MCM can play at this stage, a figure who can also attract the necessary media coverage to make it news, and for which the demonstration at the National Mall or a similar place is essential. The requirement is that if you decide to do something like the “March on Washington for Venezuela” you should try to make it something spectacular, where the number of attendees does not matter as much as the political impact it has.

Nobody is asking for a military intervention, but the power has a wide range of instruments at its disposal, ranging from the stick to the carrot, which is the only way out for the Caracas bosses of the cartel of the suns, since it is doubtful that they want an exile in Tehran, without even being able to use their credit cards.

What should be done? Precisely because time is running out, we should do what is usually done in the United States, namely, put pressure on and demonstrate. Hopefully we will do what we do on major occasions, namely, go to Washington and call for a demonstration, perhaps on the National Mall, where the symbols of the American republic and democracy are surrounded by large gardens. Go, for example, to the same place where Martin Luther King made his great speech about his dream (“I Have a Dream” on August 28, 1963), and where they also did it for women’s equality. Now it would be for freedom and democracy. There, between Congress and the White House, not far from the Lincoln Memorial.

We must add up. Not only Venezuelans, but these with partners and friends, inviting all groups or assemblies of Latin Americans. Undoubtedly, it would be easier if there were a powerful group that represented all Latinos, but there is not, and Venezuelan success would help their development, to the level of what they already are, that is, the first minority in the country, but which is not yet recognized as such, in the sense that it still does not have much political representation or presence in the media.

We must reproduce what María Corina has already accustomed us to. Not only working on reason, but also on emotion. Few slogans, a small number, but representative. Asking for concrete things, since what the US has done is insufficient, since it has never sent a message at the level of what it did in Chile when, before the plebiscite that Pinochet lost, a pair of poisoned grapes “appeared” in an eastern port. Years later it was recognized that the meaning of the message was that they wanted the vote count to reflect the truth. The warning was received by sectors of its supporters in the business community and the armed forces.

On the contrary, in these Venezuelan elections, the US not only did nothing, but it previously lifted sanctions, allowed the return of Saab and his drug-dealing nephews in exchange for practically nothing, and allowed Mr. Juan González to construct the image that for the White House oil was more important than democracy. Now, President Biden can change that image since he is not in the electoral race, and as part of his legacy leave another image, closer to American history and tradition.

The way the Venezuelan issue is resolved will mark Latin America for decades, and just as the number of dictatorships has increased since Chavez, Lula and the Sao Paulo Forum contributed to the survival of the Cuban dictatorship, with the added curious situation, where the weaker country, Cuba, dominates the richer one, Venezuela, and not the other way around, so that today Cuban intelligence is the greatest power in Venezuela, which not only punishes Washington in this regard, but Iran does as well, and today there are hundreds of terrorist operatives from Hezbollah and other groups who travel the world with Venezuelan passports, not to mention Russia and China. In addition, the dictatorship has contributed to the expansion of jihadism in Latin America, in addition to giving a solid base to Iran, which today also has a growing presence in Bolivia. And as far as drug trafficking is concerned, the responsibility of the Venezuelan dictatorship in the business is unquestionable, and we must not forget that the US is one of those countries where its laws clearly state that it is a matter of national security.

If all goes well, there would finally be a real opportunity for the fall of the Caracas narco-dictatorship, and the winds of freedom would also topple the oldest of the region's dictatorships, the mother of them all, the Castro dictatorship. It would also be the moment for Venezuelan democrats to remove the political veneer from Chavismo and see it only as a drug cartel, since accepting that they are "21st century socialism" allows them to be immediately seen as a political-ideological group, which is not true, since they are only transnational criminals, and given that step, they immediately lose the political support that they have automatically had in sectors of Latin America, Europe (the Borells or the Rodríguez Zapateros), and even in the US itself.

The key is that the US sees them as it should have always seen them and did not, that is, as a serious national security problem, since it completely overlooked not only the occupation of Venezuela by Cuba, but also the fact that it had lost a traditional ally, which was also nothing less than the country with the largest oil reserves in the world. It also coincided with years where the region asked the US to let it solve its security problems alone, without doing much about it. In any case, it is a problem of shared responsibility, since it seems that the US has not yet reacted, since it has not even woken up to the penetration of China-Russia-Iran.

Today, the issue of national security for the United States includes not only adversary countries, but also an explosive cocktail of oil, drugs, mass emigration on the southern border, the Aragua Train, which has also become a household name in the United States, and as a piece of advice, it would be good if there were no leaders who stood in solidarity with them, as occurred in several countries in the region, when in compliance with court sentences, attempts were made to expel those who had committed crimes that included murder.

In conclusion, a pessimistic view of the moment would tell us that Edmund Burke (1729-1797), the conservative philosopher, politician and Irish writer of the Whig party, was right when he said that “For evil to triumph, good men need only do nothing,” but I count myself among the optimists, and as a summary of what I have written, I argue that the US electoral process allows the introduction of the Venezuelan issue. If successful, there could be a change in power, with consequences that would displace its usurpers from power and allow the legitimate winners to assume the government of Venezuela on January 10, 2025.

@israelzipper

Master and Doctor (PhD) in Political Science (University of Essex), Bachelor of Laws (University of Barcelona), Lawyer (University of Chile), Former presidential candidate (Chile, 2013)

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».