Venezuelan Crisis

‘Venezuela…was formed as a social and democratic state’ blared the loudspeakers in Hugo Chavez’s press conference. Chavez was the revolutionary ‘bolivarian’ who first led a coup against the corrupt government of Carlos Perez. After failure, he then went to gain power legally by gradually winning elections. He started clinics for the poor, revamped social programs, started ambitious constructions and reformed the constitution. For all his flaws, Chavez was ‘popular’ (mostly with the poor’) in his time and was one of the few politicians who dared to stand against the advance of Neoliberalism; he did make Venezuela better and transformed it into a prosperous oil economy.

But now post-Chavez Venezuela is a mere contradiction to Chavez’s words; the dead charismatic leader would certainly gurn at Venezuela being cited as ‘one of the most miserable country in the world’ according to some scholars and you can’t really argue with them when Venezuela has inflation at about 284%. In fact its so bad that many people around Caracass are turning to prostitution to survive; a sex worker could make a months wage in Columbia that Columbia has actually permitted work visas for Venezuelan prostitutes. Blackouts are frequent and food in the oil-rich country is either too expensive or scarce; opposition is oppressed and there is no sign of the government easing repression. The heart of all this lies Nicolas Maduro, the successor of Chavez and the apparent founder of a ‘new Venezuela’, albeit more backward.

It’s hard to think to think that 8 million Venezuelans actually voted for a Constituent Assembly; which now give the president wide-reaching new powers. The assembly is an amalgamation of officials who are assigned the task of creating or adopting a new constitution. Sometimes a constituent assembly can be really useful for example in India where it was formed as the result of negotiations between the independence faction and the British Raj. It was responsible for the Indian Constitution and after, slowly morphed into the Provisional Parliament; Indians still celebrate this day as ‘Constitution Day’. In Venezuela’s case; one of its first decrees’ was to "take over functions to legislate on matters directly concerned with ensuring peace, security, sovereignty, the socio-economic and financial systems, state assets and upholding Venezuelans' rights."

Basically its an elaborate way in saying that Mr Maduro has openly seized power from the public. Mr Maduro has filled the assembly’s 545 seats with his goons and has breached democratic rights.. Mr Maduro’s main opposition; the National Assembly has marked this as a ‘coup de etat’ and rightly so. Its more than just a coup, its a blatant attempt to assume full dictatorship by Maduro like his predecessors’ such as Marcos Pérez Jiménez.

Venezuela’s opposition has had the idea to increase street protests; the streets of Caracas are filled with smoke, tear gas and the Bolivarian Armed Forces (which Mr Maduro is in control of) that Amnesty International has confounded the regime and has accused it of committing lethal acts against civilians. Protests will not solve this, only external force can since Mr Maduro’s grasp on the army and other ministries tightens by the day. The US has implemented sanctions on individual participants in the constituent assembly which is a promising start but more sanctions on individuals and negotiations are still needed to quell this crisis.

However, sanctions on the country must be dealt less harshly; such as an American embargo on oil (Venezuela’s major export) because it will hurt the lives of normal citizens whom are at present the only real opposition to Maduro after the opposition led National Assembly was dissolved by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ). Thus, the bulk of the sanctions must apply to individuals and the constituent assembly. Mr Maduro has already showed some signs of irritation on the US by publishing oil prices in the Chinese Yuan rather than the more commonly used American dollar as a reaction to the closure of certain financial dealings by the US.

It’s sad, it really is; a once nearly prosperous oil-exporting country has now become a perilous haphazard administration with unrest to the oppressive rule responded by the blacklisting and jailing of opponents and the acceleration of crimes against innocent and ordinary civilians. A metaphor for this can easily be found in Venezuela as civilian hopes for rapid prosperity and modernization embodied in the construction of ‘post-modern’ buildings such as the ‘Helicoide’ are now neighboring decaying slums and half-hearted housing. The crisis is so bad, neighboring Columbia has actually sent architects and researchers to Syrian refugee camps to prepare for a large exodus of Venezuelans from their motherland. Mr Maduro’s regime is already showing signs of patrimonialism where power is mostly concentrated with the leader (which is essentially oligarchic) and nepotism shown by the favoring of his wife and son in the constituent assembly ; a semblance more in accord with the old Venezuelan dictatorships rather than state socialism.

In conclusion, the crisis has deepened and can only be solved by harsh external intervention; not like the weak start in negotiations between Mr Maduro’s government and the opposition in the Dominican Republic which were mainly just for show and were deemed ‘time-wasting’ by the opposition. Strong US lead sanctions on Venezuelan individuals must lead the way for more sanctions imposed by other countries to emphasize the regime’s unpopularity. If the US continues to sit back and allow the crisis to continue without launching core initiatives, absolute dictatorship maybe within a few weeks’ reach.

#InternationalPolitics