Venezuela September 27, 2019
Following Grayzone exposé, top Venezuelan coup official Ricardo Hausmann is
forced to resign
After The Grayzones Anya Parampil published an exposé of Guaidó appointee
Ricardo Hausmanns opaque and hypocritical financial practices, he was
forced to resign from the Inter-American Development Bank, in the latest
blow to the failing US-led coup attempt in Venezuela.
By Max Blumenthal
Hours before an expected vote at the United Nations General Assembly on the
legitimacy of Venezuelas Maduro-led government amidst a US-led coup, a
senior official of Juan Guaidós coup regime was forced to resign from his
position.
Economist Ricardo Hausmann stepped down from his post at the Inter-American
Development Bank (IDB) following an exposé by The Grayzones Anya Parampil
of his conflicts of interest and opaque financial practices.
While Hausmann worked at the IDB as an ambassador of Guaidós shadow
administration, he was also employed as the Rafik Hariri Professor of the
Practice of Political Economy at Harvard University.
This August, Parampil wrote to Harvard University to inquire about the
ethics of employing someone who claimed to be an active government official.
She also asked Harvard if it would ensure transparency by requiring Ricardo
Hausmann [to] disclose the clients of his private consulting firm, Ricardo
Hausmann Consulting.
While Harvard did not respond to Parampil, her article appears to have
forced Hausmann to choose between his academic position and his role in a
future Guaidó administration.
Hausmanns resignation from the IDB is important because it shows one of
the most senior coup leaders has no faith in Guaidós ability to ever obtain
real power, Parampil commented. He obviously took a hard look at the
situation and bet on his Harvard career over his future as a minister or
ambassador in the Guaidó coup regime.
The resignation was the latest blow to the Trump administrations failing
coup effort in Venezuela, and represents the first departure of a
high-profile official of the shadow administration that was supposed to
replace the elected, UN-recognized Nicolás Maduro government.
As the energy and commodity markets monitor Argus Media put it, Venezuelas
parallel administration headed by opposition leader Juan Guaido has lost its
most prominent figure, former planning minister and Harvard professor
Ricardo Hausmann.
Revealingly, Hausmann addressed his resignation letter not to Guaidó, but to
Leopoldo López Guaidós mentor and the co-founder of the US-funded Popular
Will party.
Hausmann then posted the letter on Twitter, inadvertently undercutting
Guaidós legitimacy as the supposed president of Venezuela. (The letter
was dated September 17, 2017, though it was almost certainly written on that
day in 2019).
Unfortunately, despite the honor and trust that this offer signified to me,
I could not accept it at the moment due to the incompatibilities with my
current obligations at Harvard University, the professor-turned-coup
plotter wrote in the letter.
This is something totally normal
Ricardo Hausmann is the link between younger coup leaders like Guaidó,
López, and Carlos Vecchio and the neoliberal government that preceded the
era of Chavismo.
Hausmann was part of a group which oversaw the implementation of an
economically devastating IMF austerity package during the late 1980s in
Venezuela. The policy hollowed out the countrys already meager social
state, sparking massive social unrest which ultimately set the stage for
Chávezs democratic election in 1998.
The economist returned to politics when he was selected this March by Guaidó
to serve as his representative to the IDB. He replaced an official who had
been appointed by Venezuelas elected government in what was described by
Reuters as a major setback for the Maduro government.
In August, Venezuelas National Assembly appointed Hausmann to a six-person
panel tasked with renegotiating the countrys debt on behalf of the Guaidó
administration.
That month, The Grayzones Anya Parampil reported that Hausmann had raked in
payments from major Wall Street financial institutions, the World Bank, and
repressive and theocratic governments in exchange for speaking engagements
and consulting jobs.
While the professor denounced creditors for doing business with Venezuelas
government, he was accepting lucrative payments from the governments of
Saudi Arabia and Israel two of the worlds most notorious human rights
violators.
At the same time, Hausmann concealed the identities of additional
benefactors behind the veil of his own private consulting firms.
When confronted by Parampil about his opaque and hypocritical financial
practices, Hausmann staged a meltdown on Whatsapp until early in the
morning, ultimately telling the reporter to go to hell.
In attempting to square the ethical contradiction of his work at Harvard and
his participation in a supposedly active government, Hausmann insisted to
Parampil, I exercise no government functions. I do not run an organization,
I am not paid by the Venezuelan government and I do not manage a public
budget.
In his September 17 resignation letter, however, Hausmann appeared desperate
to confer legitimacy on the coup administration he had been forced to depart
from.
This is something totally normal, he said in nominating his successor at
the IDB, and all countries do it every time they change a person in charge
of the economic field.
Max Blumenthal
Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of several
books, including best-selling Republican Gomorrah, Goliath, The Fifty One
Day War, and The Management of Savagery. He has produced print articles for
an array of publications, many video reports, and several documentaries,
including Killing Gaza. Blumenthal founded The Grayzone in 2015 to shine a
journalistic light on Americas state of perpetual war and its dangerous
domestic repercussions.
