The Radicalization of US Policy on Venezuela
January 25, 2019
Not since the Cuban revolution, has the U.S. government played such an
overtly activist role, writes Steve Ellner.
By Steve Ellner
Special to Consortium News
Washingtons recognition of the shadow government headed by Venezuelan
National Assembly president Juan Guaidó is one more demonstration of how the
Trump administration has radicalized foreign policy positions and in doing
so violates international law, including the charter of the Organization of
American States.
On this issue like others, the Obama administration laid the groundwork for
Trumps radicalization, but it was usually more discrete. Obama issued an
executive order calling Venezuela a threat to U.S. national security and
created a list of Venezuelan officials who were sanctioned.
The Trump administrations escalation included financial sanctions against
the Venezuelan government of President Nicolás Maduro and measures against
the nations oil industry, prohibiting the Venezuelan majority-owned
refinery, CITGO, from sending profits back to Venezuela. Until then the
Venezuelan government had been receiving one billion dollars a year from
CITGO.
Juan Guaidó, left, and Nicolás Maduro. (Wikimedia)
The Trump administration is now threatening a total oil embargo on Venezuela
and is leaving the military option open.
Throughout Region
In addition, top administration officials have played an openly activist
role by traveling throughout the continent to promote the campaign to
isolate Venezuela.
The first signal that the pro-U.S. international community would recognize
the Guaidó government came from Washington along with its most right-wing
ally, the Jair Bolsonaro government of Brazil. As of last year, Great
Britain had intended to not recognize Maduro after he took office for his
second term on January 10, but it intended to maintain diplomatic relations.
Washington pushed for a more radical position, that of not only not
recognizing Maduro but establishing diplomatic relations with a shadow
government.
The activist approach to diplomacy was put in evidence the day after the
January 23 opposition protests, when U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo offered
$20 million of humanitarian assistance to the Venezuelan population. Many
Venezuelans see this as humiliating and nothing short of a bribe designed to
pressure the country into submission.
Further Polarization
Ellner spoke Friday morning about Venezuela on Democracy Now!
N0t since the Cuban revolution, has the U.S. government played such an
overtly activist role throughout the continent in favor of the isolation of
a government that is not to its liking. In the process it has further
polarized Venezuela and the continent as a whole. The moderates in the
Venezuelan opposition, including two former presidential candidates of the
two main traditional parties, Claudio Fermín and Eduardo Fernández, have
favored electoral participation and recognition of the legitimacy of the
Maduro government. Washingtons actions pull the rug from under the
moderates and strengthen the hands of the extremists in the opposition.
Opposition parties have contradicted themselves, first accepting in August
2017 a National Constituent Assemblys (ANC) call for gubernatorial
elections in October of that year and then refusing to participate in the
May 2018 presidential elections, also called by the Assembly, on the grounds
that the Assembly itself was illegitimate. Hence most of those same parties
refuse to recognize the Maduro government.
The Trump administration has promoted a similar radicalization throughout
the hemisphere. Most of the countries that have recognized Guaidó are on the
right (as opposed to the center). But the rightist presidents of Chile
(Sebasián Piñera), Argentina (Mauricio Macri) and Brazil (Michel Temer)
rejected the statement by OAS secretary general Luis Almagro that military
intervention in Venezuela should be considered. Trump, Bolsonaro and
recently elected Colombian president Iván Duque have pushed these rightist
presidents to an even more extreme position on Venezuela.
But just as there are moderates in the Venezuelan opposition who support
dialogue, which the mainstream media have pretty much ignored, there are
moderates in the international community who are also in favor of dialogue.
These figures include Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Pope
Francis, UN secretary general Antonio Guterres, and the UNsHigh
Commissioner for Human Rights and ex-president of Chile Michelle Bachelet.
What they are proposing represents the best hope for this battered nation.
Steve Ellner is associate managing editor of Latin American Perspectives
and is the editor of The Pink Tide Experiences: Breakthroughs and
Shortcomings in Twenty-First Century Latin America (2019).
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