Sanctions against Venezuela, and the pledge to remove those sanctions, have both proven ineffective. The West is out of bullets and bait
Venezuela’s election “result” made it a black Sunday for democracy around the world.
It is a predictable victory for the forces of authoritarianism, who were never going to allow Maduro to lose. Vladimir Putin was one of the first leaders to congratulate Maduro, who presided over a 71-per-cent slide in economic output during his time in office and the desperate emigration of nearly eight million citizens, despite sitting on the world’s largest oil deposits.
The problem for the world’s democracies is that they are now out of both carrots and sticks.
Venezuela, long a middle-income country that attracted immigrants rather than spawned refugees, elected Hugo Chavez’s socialist party in 1998. Having voted in a dictatorship, Venezuelans have found it much harder to vote one out.
Disastrous economic policies like import controls were aggravated by international sanctions. Hyperinflation meant salaries paid in Venezuelan bolivars were no longer enough to buy food.
Meanwhile, the Chavez government packed the supreme court, altered the electoral system and made it impossible for a free press to function.
From an international geopolitical view, Maduro’s sponsors — Iran, Russia, China and Cuba — were never going to allow him to lose this election.
Former ambassador Allan Culham
Maduro, Chavez’s successor after his death in 2013 from cancer, went a step further, creating the Special Action Force (FAES) to “fight terrorism.” The UN high commissioner for human rights blamed FAES and other police for 6,800 extrajudicial deaths in one year.
Sanctions were placed on listed individuals, diplomatic ties were cut, and the Lima Group’s members recognized Juan Guaidó, Maduro’s opponent in the 2018 election, as the president of Venezuela.
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine completed Maduro’s rehabilitation, as the U.S. eased restrictions on Venezuelan oil exports, allowing it to ship crude directly to the U.S.
The Biden administration suggested sanctions would be suspended if Maduro lived up to his promise to hold free and fair elections.
Even Canada started exploring the option of reopening its embassy in Caracas, dependent on Maduro’s promise to restore democracy.
Those efforts are, presumably, being hurriedly reassessed, even if Canada’s initial reaction was typically tepid.
That will, of course, never happen because it would reveal Maduro’s duplicity.
Nine Latin American governments have called for an emergency meeting of the Organization of American States, with Argentina President Javier Milei offering the kind of response that should have been forthcoming from all democratic governments.
Perhaps crucially, Brazil and Mexico have been much less strident, merely calling for “impartial verification” of the results.
Allan Culham, Canada’s former ambassador to a number of Latin American countries, including Venezuela, said it “defied logic” to think that Venezuelans have freely re-elected Maduro after the corruption and economic destruction he has inflicted upon the country.
“From an international geopolitical view, Maduro’s sponsors — Iran, Russia, China and Cuba — were never going to allow him to lose this election. He had no choice but to steal the result. It would be naive to think otherwise,” he said.
Maduro banned the candidacy of opposition leader Mariá Corina Machado, who then swung her support behind Gonzalez. Culham said she has finally demonstrated that free and fair elections are simply not possible under Maduro. “This should be a wake-up call to the international community,” he said.
The real question is what, if anything, democratic countries can do to influence events in a dictatorship, where every thin veil of legitimacy has slipped.
Canada and like-minded countries can express concern, but sanctions, and the pledge to remove those sanctions, have both proven ineffective.
The West is out of bullets and bait.
“Maduro’s ‘victory’ is just part of the rise of authoritarianism around the world,” said Culham.
The determination of a totalitarian mafia state to keep itself alive has proven stronger, so far at least, than the desire for self-determination among the majority of Venezuelans.
It is a thoroughly depressing development.
National Post
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