February 21, 2019

Western imperialism deepens Venezuela crisis

located:	Venezuela
editor:	Yair Oded

Last month, Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself the country’s legitimate interim president, and was swiftly recognised by the U.S. as well as some Latin American and most European governments. In the weeks since, Venezuela — a country already suffering from governmental instability and a deepening humanitarian crisis — has been thrown into unprecedented levels of political obscurity, with one president who enjoys international recognition and another, Nicolas Maduro, who refuses to cede power while continuing to enjoy the support of the military and security forces.

Protests organised by the opposition (as well as by supporters of Maduro) have resulted in a rising number of civilian casualties and an exacerbation of what has become one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with dwindling supplies of food accessible to Venezuelans. Furthermore, the refusal of Maduro to step down and his reluctance to accept foreign donations of humanitarian aid resulted in increasing sanctions by the U.S. and other Western governments — sanctions that have already crippled Venezuela’s economy over the past decades. 

While the outcry of the Venezuelan people against Maduro’s corrupt regime is legitimate, it is crucial to critically examine the West’s eagerness to facilitate a regime change and intervene in the affairs of a country that just happens to possess the world’s richest oil reserves.

The United States’ desire to get its hands on Venezuelan oil dates decades back decades, and since the ascent of Hugo Chavez to the presidency in 1999 — which greatly limited America's access to the country’s oil reserves — the American government has slapped harsh sanctions on the Bolivarian Republic (including the freezing of Venezuelan assets and limiting the government’s ability to issue bonds and access foreign equity markets) in order to bring it to its knees and open its market to Western investors. The role of the sanctions, which according to estimates currently costs the country $30 million a day, therefore plays a critical role in exacerbating the sheer poverty and hunger afflicted on the Venezuelan people.

Many Western governments justify their opposition to Maduro by questioning the integrity of the 2018 elections in Venezuela, mentioning that it was boycotted by the majority of the opposition (which prevented a great number of Venezuelans from voting) and that the opposition leader, Leopoldo López, was under house arrest. What they fail to mention, however, is that López’s imprisonment came following his incitement to violence (as opposed to dialogue) and that the reasoning behind the opposition's boycott may have been their realisation that they weren’t likely to win.

This is not to detract from Maduro’s shady practices and his suppression of dissent; yet, it is important to recognise the hypocrisy of Western leaders, and particularly of a demagogue like Trump, who are selective in which international crises they choose to intervene, and who hold autocrats accountable to different standards depending how pliant and willing they are to allow the West to dominate their markets and natural reserves. By way of example, dictators such as Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed Bin Salman and Congo’s Joseph Kabila have enjoyed the continued support of the West given their readiness to grant its governments and businesses virtually unlimited access to their country's resources and allow them to engage in the mispricing of the riches they mine.

One of the greatest absurdities is that the West claims that it supports Guaido for humanitarian reasons and in order to secure the prosperity of the Venezuelan people, claims that are so bluntly and transparently dishonest. If it truly were the well-being of Venezuelans that they were concerned with, Western governments would not have engaged in deliberate crippling of the country’s economy for decades, through sanctions they knew came at the expense of ordinary Venezuelan citizens. The price Venezuelans had to pay was deemed worthy by the Western elite, as long as it served a financially strategic purpose. 

What we face in Venezuela is a dangerous situation that reflects a global ill: a people’s genuine humanitarian and political distress is being capitalised on and exacerbated by powerful governments and wealthy lobbyists who are concerned with nothing but profit. They violate international standards of sovereignty and engage in downright looting of countries’ goods under the guise of acting as democracy’s watch-dogs.  

Photo: OEA - OAS/flickr