Latin America and the Biden-Harris Administration: Venezuela

The Latin American policy of the Biden-Harris Administration has mainly been a focus in US news in the context of immigration and refugees with Mexico and Central America.

I recently visited Mexikoplatz (Plaza de México) in Vienna, dedicated to Mexico in 1956 for the reason explained on this monument there in Spanish:

My translation: "In March of 1938, Mexico was the only country that officially protested to the League of Nations against the violent annexation of Austria to National Socialist [Nazi] Germany. In homage to this act, the City of Vienna bestowed the name of Mexico on this park."

At the close of la intervención estadounidense en México (Mexican-American War in the US) with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 1848, Mexico lost more than half of its territory to an Anschluss by its hostile neighbor to the North. At the time of the Austrian Anschluss, that was 90 years in the past. By comparison, 90 years ago was the midst of the Great Depression in the US, of which a few Americans alive today have personal memories, and many more have parents or grandparents who had adult memories of the time.

Mexico and other countries in Latin America know very well that American actions in their region are not always well-intentioned. And don't always respect their national sovereignty or promote democracy and the rule of law. To name only one of many additional examples, there was the process by which the former Colombian state of Panama became a separate country with the support of the Teddy Roosevelt Administration that wanted to have the US build and control the Panama Canal.

Recent elections in Chile, Peru, Bolivia, and Mexico have opened some new possibilities and risks for Latin America, and I plan to post more on this. In this post, I'll focus on Venezuela.

Venezuela

I won't try to recount here what a clown show the Trump Administration coup attempt against Venezuela's government of President Nicolas Maduro has been. And continues to be, because the Biden-Harris Administration hasn't backed off from it or the aggressive economic sanctions that accompany it.

Not everything is foreign policy about oil. But for the US and 'Venezuela, almost everything is about oil. Because Venezuela is a petrostate. In fact, "Venezuela, home to the world’s largest oil reserves, is a case study in the perils of petrostatehood." (Amelia Cheatham and Rocio Cara Labrador, Venezuela: The Rise and Fall of a Petrostate 01/22/2021) That one sentence from the website of the stereotypically Establishment Council on Foreign Relations, is an excellent brief statement of what always needs to be at the center of awareness when discussing US-Venezuela policy and of Venezuelan politics.

Being a petrostate is a blessing when oil prices are strong. It's a curse when they drop, which is what has happened in recent years. An oil industry as big as Venezuela's drains labor power from other sectors, which is a huge reason that agriculture in Venezeula is chronically deficient despite excellent land and resources for it.

Maduro is now making publicly conciliatory moves to Biden's government. And is offering favorable deals to foreign oil giants on very favorable terms. Erik Schatzker et al describe the current government initiatives as expressed by Maduro in a long interview with Bloomberg in Venezuela’s Maduro Pleads for Foreign Capital, Biden Deal in Caracas Interview Bloomberg News 06/18/2021

Full Interview With Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro Bloomberg Politics 06/18/2021 (in Spanish with English subtitles):

The hawkish Eli Lake (Maduro Has Only Himself to Blame for Venezuela’s Plight Bloomberg News 06/18/2021) describes the latest gestures this way, in a passage far too typical of the poor coverage of Venezuelan affairs in the US press:

“If Venezuela can’t produce oil and sell it, can’t produce and sell its gold, can’t produce and sell its bauxite, can’t produce iron, etcetera, and can’t earn revenue in the international market, how is it supposed to pay the holders of Venezuelan bonds?” he said. “This world has to change. This situation has to change.”

It’s tempting to concede his point. Trump’s policies — imposing sanctions, attempting to get humanitarian aid directly to Venezuelan citizens and recognizing the head of Venezuela’s legislature as its interim president — have not produced free and fair elections.

At the same time, it’s important to remember that Venezuela’s economy was in free fall before the U.S. imposed sanctions. Indeed, the hyperinflation and collapse of the oil sector has more to do with the socialist policies and corruption of the Maduro regime than with the economic penalties imposed on it for stealing the 2018 election.

While corruption (a chronic problem around the oil sector with petrostates) and government policy (as on longterm investment in oil infrastructure) played a role, we still need to keep the central point in mind: "Venezuela, home to the world’s largest oil reserves, is a case study in the perils of petrostatehood."

Refugees leaving Venezuela constitute a serious humanitarian crisis, which is inevitably worsened by US sanctions. The US press and public seems to take economic sanctions as a peaceful alternative to war, which they can be. But many of the economic sanctions the US imposes does hurt the well-being of ordinary people, with the aim of creating popular pressure on the government being sanctioned. Americans need to be very realistic about this.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) currently describes the situation this way:

People continue to leave Venezuela to escape violence, insecurity and threats as well as lack of food, medicine and essential services. With over 5 million Venezuelans now living abroad, the vast majority in countries within Latin America and the Caribbean, this has become one of the largest displacement crisis in the world.

Ongoing political, human rights and socio-economic developments in Venezuela compel growing numbers of children, women and men to leave for neighbouring countries and beyond. Many arrive scared, tired and in dire need of assistance. [emphasis in original]

Weird mini-analysis of the Bolivian coup by a New York Times reporter

Anatoly Kurmanaev is a "New York Times reporter in Caracas. Previously with Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Interfax in Russia & LatAm," accordig to his Twitter bio.

This doesn't make any sense.

Does he mean that the smart play is to have a bad economy because that will make the army loyal? But promoting economic prosperity makes you a LOSER who deserves to be overthrown in a military coup?

This lends credibility to Ryam Grim's caution:

What's happening in Bolivia is layered and complicated but a good rule of thumb is don't confuse yourself by reading the New York Times on South American politics. There are exceptions to that rule but it's generally a safe bet.

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) November 11, 2019

Venezuelan refugees in Colombia

Bloomberg Businessweek has a report on immigration, How Governments Use Immigration to Boost Their Economies 10/30/2019, that includes a section on refugees from Venezuela to Colombia:

Colombia, which shares a 1,400-mile border with Venezuela, has been hit hardest by the refugee crisis, receiving 1.6 million Venezuelan migrants, who now make up about 3% of the population, up from virtually none five years ago.

The Colombian government estimates it’s paid $1.5 billion - a figure equal to 0.5% of gross domestic product - to care for the exiles. A refugee fund set up by the World Bank, the United Nations, and the Islamic Development Bank approved a $31.5 million grant for Colombia in April. Meanwhile, international donors have pledged $340 million in humanitarian aid to help Venezuelan migrants in Colombia and elsewhere. However, those figures pale next to the more than $23 billion that countries and multilateral organizations committed to help Syrians fleeing their war-torn country in the first five years of the exodus, according to UN data. [my emphasis]

A significant number of refugees from Venezuela to Colombia are Colombians who had gone to live in Venezuela in more prosperous times when oil prices were high and boosting Venezuela's petrostate economy. But they are nevertheless part of a large influx of people who hadn't been living in Venezuela.

The Trump Administration is willing to impose sanctions to hammer the Venezuelan economy and undermine the current government of Nicolás Maduro, which it currently doesn't even recognize as the official government, although the "government" it does recognize there is largely a PR stunt.

But providing adequate assistance to Colombia to deal with the refugee problem to which the US has significantly contributed doesn't seem to be on the political radar screen of either party in the US.

But then, the Trump policy toward refugees in the US is appalling in so many ways, even criminally brutal.

It's also an important and valid criticism of the Obama Administration as well as Trump's that they were willing to take only a limited number of Syrian refugees from the Syrian civil war and also African refugees, many of which are now trying to make their way on the dangerousl refugee track to Europe after the destruction of the Libyan government by the US-French-British military intervention in 2011.

And thanks to the EU' own unwillingness to develop a realistic common policy for ansorbing refugees, refugee issues are now a growing contrast on EU and NATO foreign policy. Turkey currently is holding over three and a half million Syrian refugees and Turkey's willingness to hold them in exchange for payment from the EU was the kick-the-can-down-the-road "solution" to the immigration crisis of 2015-6 that Angela Merkel negotiated. The Syrian refugees are one motive for Turkey's current miltitary incursion into Syria.

The US and the EU have to get better of refugee problems more generally. And they need to take the lead in strangtening and expanding the United Nations' role, as well.

On the other hand, raising the need for (vaguely defined) longterm solutions to immigrantion/refugee issues is also used by xenophobic politicians as a deflection from discusinng more immediate problems. And if you can't be realistic and practical about the current problems, you're unlikely to be serious or realistic about longterm ones.

The Venezuelan military and the failed coup attempt

Asa Cusack does a postmortem of the recent failed coup attempt in Venezuela, Guaido's military mutiny miscalculation Aljazeera 02/03/2019.

Javier Corrales addresses the loyalty of the Venezuelan military as well in How to Tackle Venezuela’s Military Problem New York Times 03/04/2019.

Cusack emphasizes several factors that didn't get reported very well in the mainstream US and German/Austrian press.

There was a lotz of reporting in the US press about the involvement of Venzuelan generals in drug trafficking and corruption. "Corruption" has become a kind of conjuring word for Americans and Europeans such that when it's invoked against a government under criticism, no further thought is required.

Cusack discusses the illicit benefits available to senior military officials this way:

For those at the top of the tree, privileged and poorly controlled access to anything carrying a state subsidy - most notably food, oil, and dollars - enabled different forms of speculation. Cheap food and oil could be smuggled into Colombia, Brazil, and the Caribbean and sold at a huge mark-up.

Demand for dollars combined with capital controls created a black market whose exchange rate soon soared above the fixed official rate, allowing cheap state dollars to be recycled through the two markets, the difference in prices passing from state coffers into private hands. Control over borders and remote areas of the national territory also facilitated involvement in drug trafficking.

Here's where it becomes a problem when "corruption" is enough to put an end to thought about US policy toward a country should be. And this kind of official corruption is particular hallmark of petrostates, including Venezuela. Which doesn't mean that it's not a problem or that it doesn't do damage to economies. It does mean that any new government will have similar challenges in dealing with corruption. Corruption is also not grounds for war.

He also notes that the chavista governments involved the military in a close military-civilian alliance, "further reinforced this, directly involving the armed forces in the delivery of social projects." He sugggests this is one of the several factors that the coup planners underestimated in thinking generals and significant additional portions of the military would quickly go over the coup side.

Cusack also points to the straightforward patriotic/nationalistic factor, which the American media seem to largest ignore:

Given that their core function is to protect the homeland from foreign invaders, armed forces everywhere already have a natural inclination towards nationalism, but a Bolivarian ideology centred on escaping the oppressor's yoke only reinforced this tendency in Venezuela. And while for Latin American independence hero Simon Bolivar the oppressor was Spain, by the end of the 20th century the United States had come to occupy this role.

This in itself makes the US sponsorship of Guaido's bid to unseat Maduro extremely hard to swallow for the military. More fuel was added to the fire by National Security Adviser John Bolton admitting that Venezuelan oil is a motivating factor for US involvement and by Trump assigning the Venezuela portfolio to Elliott Abrams, best known for his role in covering up gruesome atrocities and illegally channeling funds to murderous paramilitary armies in Central America in the 1980s. [my emphasis]

He also notes that Venezuelan military officials have good reason to doubt the sincerity of promises of amnesty coming from the Trump-Pence Administration.

Javier Corrales makes the less-than-credible claim that Nicolás Maduro's government "has the heart of only one institution: the military." But he talks about the "unconventional" nature of civil-military relations in Venezuela:

But the politics of decoupling the military from Maduro has proved complicated because Mr. Maduro’s military alliance, in many respects, is more unconventional than not. His military is not a single, professional, vertical organization. It comprises multiple elements, each with its own interest in supporting the regime. A strategy to divorce it from Mr. Maduro requires deploying policies to address each of those groups.

There’s the standard military establishment, which in Venezuela consists of professional career soldiers. Then there are nonstandard groups. They include ideologized soldiers, working together with Cuban military and intelligence officials to crack down on dissent. They also include bureaucrat generals who support Mr. Maduro because they have good jobs running state-owned corporations, and profit-seeking soldiers, who are making a fortune trafficking in illicit markets, including the drug trade. Finally, there are Maduro’s killing agents, in charge of repressing. [my emphasis]

The "killing agents" to which he refers are the citizen's militia, aka, collectivos. While the difference between a citizens militia and a death squad may heavily depend on which side the gun barrels are facing, I don't have enough familiarity will the details of how the citizens militias in Venezuela have actually been functioning to comment the accuracy of his characterization.

But his description does confirm, for better or worse, that the chavista idea of civil-military organization was robust enough to resist the bald-faced attempt at a US-directed coup that we've seen play out this year.

Humanitarian aid amidst political and military conflicts (with reference to Venezuela)

Last weekend's (melo)dramatic but very serious confrontation on the Venezuelan border with Colombia involved an attempt by the US-directed coup leader Juan Guaidó to deliver humanitarian supplies at needy Venezuelans. I've blogged here more than once about the transparent cynicism of the effort. If the intent of the coup directors in Washington - in particular, Vice President and Christianist fundamentalist Mike Pence, National Security Adviser and chronic warmonger John Bolton, and Special Envoy and professional ghoul Elliott Abrams - really was to provide humantiarian aid to Veneuelans, the need for which even the real existing government of Nicolás Maduro does not dispute, they could work with the Red Cross/Red Crescent or the UN to send such aid in a politially neutral way. The Red Cross is operating inside Venezuela already, but both the Red Cross and the UN declined to participate in the Pence-Bolton-Elliott-Guaidó stunt last weekend on the grounds that it was clearly a political operation.

At the moment, the coup effort appears to be stalled, to put it mildly. And the US credibility as a responsible actor in Latin America and the world has taken a hit because of the seriously-meant but almost comically poorly-executed coup, coming as it did the same week of the very embarrssing failure of Trump's Hanoi summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

So I'm going to take this moment to look at the question of humanitarian aid in conflicts in a broader sense, drawing on David Rieff's article, "Humanitarian Aid, Blocking of", in Crimes of War 2.0 (2007), Roy Guman et al, eds.

Rieff's article is mainly focused on experiences from the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. That's one huge difference to the Venezuelan situation. In the Balkans, there were civil wars and international conflicts, ethnic cleansing and mass killings, along with serious humanitarian emergencies resulting from them. In Venezuela, there is has been a very active civil conflict for years that has included some violence. But the situation is certainly not a civil war. The humanitarian problems are the result of Venezuela's status as a petrostate which has been facing low oil prices for years now. How much the Maduro regime's policies or external sanctions against it may have contributed to the problem has been a big part of the political polemics. But that shouldn't detract us from how significant oil dependence is for Venezuela's economy. (Or from the dominant role that Venezuela's huge oil reserves plays in American policy toward the country, even when as grim a character as Elliott Abrams isn't driving it.)

Rieff notes that the need to provide humanitarian aid in conflict zones, both supplies and medical services, "was supposed to be beyond the politics of the war, beyond all questions of military or psychological advantage," "something that was unarguably good, and, as such, something that must not be interfered with." And he elaborates:

The legal bases for this view were already powerful with the passage of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. It imposed on all its parties the obligation to allow "the free passage of all consignments of medical and hospital stores" and of "all consignments of essential foodstuffs, clothing and tonics intended for children under fifteen, expectant mothers and maternity cases" even to its military adversaries. The 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions further cemented both the obligations of belligerents and the rights of noncombatants. Article 69 imposes on occupying powers the obligation to provide relief supplies to the population of its adversary "without any adverse distinction," to ensure that population's physical survival (it also called for the provision of articles necessary for religious worship). Article 70 requires belligerents to treat offers of relief not as interference in the conflict, so long as the relief effort was "humanitarian and impartial in character," but as a duty imposed by international humanitarian law (IHL). [my emphasis]

This addresses a level of conflict that is not present in Venezuela right now, even though coup advocates would be quick to remind us of the chronically high level of everyday criminal violence in that country. But it's notable here that international law even in wartime situations specifies that allowed humanitarian aid be provided without any adverse distinction, i.e., without the aid being restricted to a particular side in the ongoing conflict. And it specifies that humanitarian aid cannot be considered as foreign interference in the military conflict if it is humanitarian and impartial in character.

Again, the Red Cross is currently operating in Venezuela and both it and the UN declined to participate in the "humanitarian aid" operation staged by the Guaidó group effort because they judged it not to be politically impartial. The Pence-Guaidó coup party made it very clear leading up to the event that they intended it specifically to provoke political changes, e.g., senior military figures joining the coup. As a political matter, partisans of Guaidó found it perfectly fine to support this move. But there is no reason for everyone else to take their propaganda claim on this at face value.

For wartime situations, Rieff provides this reminder of the ugly practical realities of war and civil war, without using it as any kind of excuse for warring parties to block humanitarian aid in violation on international law:

The bitter truth was that to stand for international laws governing the free movement of humanitarian aid was to stand against the war aims of the Bosnian Serbs and, to a lesser extent, the Bosnian Croats, and their respective masters in Belgrade and Zagreb as well. For the fighters of the Croatian Defense Council (HVO) to allow a humanitarian convoy into Bosnian government-controlled East Mostar, for example, was to sanction the continued physical presence of Muslims in that part of Bosnia-Herzegovina. And all the killing and destruction had been undertaken precisely with the opposite goal in mind. ... In other words, what in IHL often constitutes a war crime was, for the fighters, the essential tactic of their fight.

Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that an army must be satisfied that there are no "serious reasons" for fearing that relief supplies will be diverted from their intended destination and recipients, or that control over distribution will not be effective, or that the enemy will not derive some substantial benefit to its war effort or have its economy shored up. ... The guarantee of access comes with the right of belligerents to inspect convoys to see that the aid is what it purports to be and is destined for populations that are entitled to it.

In wars that pit not armies but armed populations against each other, such guarantees are almost impossible to ensure. Fighters on all sides use humanitarian relief supplies for their own purposes, and the laws do not adequately come to grips with the problem of a war in which the distinction between soldier and civilian is unclear, if it exists at all. [my emphasis]

I'll add what should be obvious. None of this is to say that the Maduro government handled last weekend's border action in an optimal way. And it would also be naive to think that the coup leaders expected the actual government to cooperate with it. Although, given the amount of wishful thinking that has been driving this effort, who knows what they might have been assuming?

Looking back of the Venezuelan coup attempt

It was five weeks ago yesterday that Juan Guaidó proclaimed himself the president of Venezuela, starting what is the weirdest coup attempt I've ever heard of. This past weekend, it pretty obviously fizzled out. Once it looked like this could lead to an American military intervention and war, even the governments of Brazil and Colombia, neighboring countries to Venzuela and both very much opposed to the actual Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, made it very clear they didn't want this to turn into a war. Not least of the reasons is that an invasion or civil war in Venezuela would send even more refugees into Brazil and Colombia in addition to the three million or so they already have.

New York Times reporter Anatoly Kurmanaev provided some important details on the humanitarian aid event on the Venezuelan border this past weekend in a long Twitter thread, which includes the following:

The opposition's message of imminent salvation was misleading. Pretty much every opposition leader & activist talked about "food & medicine" that would flood into Venezuela on the 23rd. The fact is there was no medicine to bring in on that date.

— Anatoly Kurmanaev (@AKurmanaev) February 25, 2019

He introduces the thread with this disclaimer, "the lion's share of the blame for the current impasse lays with Maduro. By refusing to even recognize humanitarian crisis & blocking the aid he condemns thousands to premature death. That said, I believe we need to look critically at the opposition's strategy & performance."

Stephen Loiaconi reports on the fizzled-out operation last weekend (US-backed opposition in Venezuela struggles to break Maduro's blockade of food, supplies WJLASinclair Broadcast Group 02/26/2019):

Experts say what happens next is difficult to predict because Guaido’s strategy appeared to bank heavily on breaking the blockade of humanitarian relief and there had been little talk of a backup plan.

“It was a high-stakes gamble that did not pay off in terms of seeing a break of the military with Maduro,” said Jennifer McCoy, co-author of “International Mediation in Venezuela” and a professor of political science at Georgia State University. “Also, the opposition, Guaido and his supporters, appeared to hope the failure of the entry of aid into Venezuela might galvanize or justify the U.S. to support a more aggressive intervention.” ...

McCoy noted some in Europe and Latin America are calling for Maduro to accept international aid and hold an early presidential election. This offers him a path out of the crisis while still allowing him to limit the political cost by continuing to rail against U.S. imperialism.

“They actually could provide a face-saving way out for Maduro,” she said. [my emphasis]

A negotiated agreement that would allow new internationally-supervised elections would be the optimum solution. But that would also be a very complicated thing to arrange. Given that this five-week coup attempt directed by the Trump-Pence Administration makes the infamous Bay of Pigs operation in 1961 look like a stunning success, it's hard to imagine the main Washington players in this - Mike Pence, John Bolton, and Elliott Abrams - now pulling off such a difficult arrangement. And this leaves the US, most of the governments in the Western Hemisphere, the EU, and a number of the EU member countries recognizing an official government for Venezuela that apparently consists entirely of Juan Guaidó. (Although see below for more on the legitimacy question.) That obviously won't make it any easier for those governments to convince the internal parties in Venezuela to hold new elections.

In connection with that prospect, this is a helpful summary of the major milestones in the democratic deficits in Venezuela since 2015, Venezuela, esa herida absurda Anfibia Jan 2019, from José Natanson, an editorial director for Le Monde Diplomatique.

The "chavista" era in Venezuela began at the latest when Hugo Chávez become President in February 1999 and extends to the present. The Clinton, Bush II, and Obama Administrations were not fans of Chávez, who passed away in 2013. Nicolás Maduro replaced him as President and won the Presidential election of 2013. In the National Assembly election of 2015,

Si la democracia puede definirse como un tipo de régimen en el que no sólo hay elecciones sino que además no se sabe de antemano quién las va a ganar, si la democracia comporta en definitiva un cierto grado de incertidumbre, Venezuela era todavía una democracia; en el límite, pero democracia al fin (de hecho, al chavismo se lo podía acusar de muchas cosas salvo de no realizar elecciones y de no reconocer sus derrotas en los pocos casos en los que ocurrían, cosa que por otra parte no hacía la oposición, acostumbrada a denunciar fraude cuando pierde pero no cuando gana, y siempre con el mismo Consejo Nacional Electoral, las mismas urnas electrónicas y el mismo tribunal).

Pero en los últimos años esto cambió. En diciembre de 2015 la oposición triunfó inesperadamente en las elecciones para la Asamblea Nacional. Consiguió una mayoría de dos tercios, suficiente para reformar la Constitución y bloquear al gobierno, y anunció que su plan consistía en forzar una salida anticipada de Nicolás Maduro. El chavismo, que había denunciado irregularidades en la elección a pesar de que controló todo el proceso, presentó una serie de impugnaciones. El Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (TSJ), que le responde, aceptó una, y ordenó, con argumentos dudosos, repetir la elección en el estado de Amazonas y no juramentar a sus tres diputados. La oposición, que de este modo perdía los dos tercios, se negó a acatar la sentencia. El TSJ, ante un pedido del Ejecutivo, declaró a la Asamblea en desacato, y al poco tiempo anunció que absorbía sus funciones, un autogolpe tan ostensible – y aparentemente implementado sin el aval de Maduro - que al final tuvo que retroceder.

If democracy can be defined as a type of regime in which there are not only elections but in addition no one knows ahead of time who will win them, if democracy definitely implies a certain degree of uncertainty, Venezuela was still a democracy [up until December 2017]; within limits, but in the end, democracy (in fact, one could accuse chavismo of many things except for not holding elections and of not recognizing its defeats in the cases where they occurred, something that on the other side the opposition, accustomed to denouncing fraud when the lose but not when they win, and always with the same National Election Council, the same ballot boxes, and the same court, refused to do.)

But in recent years, that changed. In December of 2015, the opposition unexpectedly triumphed in the elections for the National Assemby [parliament]. They achieved a two thirds majority, sufficient to reform the Constitution and block the government, and announced that their plan consisted in forcing an early exit of Nicolás Maduro. Chavismo, which had denounced irregularites in the election due to which they [the opposition] controlled the whole process, presented a series of challenges. The Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), who had the responsibility, accepted one of them and ordered, with dubious arguments, the election to be repeated in the state of Amazonas and to not swear in its three deputies [just elected from that state]. The opposition which thereby would lose the two thirds majority, refused to comply with the decision. The TSJ, in response to a request by the Executive Branch, declared the 'Assembly to be in contempt, and in a short time announced that it would absorb its functions, an internal coup so blatant - and apparently implemented without the guarantee of Maduro - which they finally had to reverse it.

After months of active opposition protests, Maduro held a referendum for a Constituent Assembly in May 2017, which would be charged with writing a new Constitution. As Natanson notes, the complicated election scheme based on social sectors (in political science, this could be called a "corporate" voting structure, in this context not meaning business corporations) seemed to ensure a Maduro victory even if his party, the United Socialist Party (PSUV), failed to win a majority of votes. The opposition boycotted the election, always a tricky political tactic. When the Constituent Assembly was elected with an overwhelming PSUV majority, it declared itself the legitimate legislative power in place of the National Assembly.

In other words, the elections of the chavista era can reasonably and accurately be called democratic, up to and including the National Assembly election of 2015.

This set up a type of "dual government" with the Executive treating the Constituent Assembly as the legitimate legislature and the National Assembly considering itself the legitimate legislature. Juan Guaidó currently claims to be head of the government based on the National Assembly.

Elections for state governors took place in October 2017, and the PSUV unexpectedly won 18 of the 23 governorships. Maduro had posponed this election from the previous year, according to Natanson on the basis that the PSUV expected defeat. A new Presidential election took place in May 2018, in which Maduro won a new term that began in January 2019. In this election, the main opposition umbrella group (Mesa de Unidad Democrática/MUD), and the opposition partially boycotted that election.

At the risk of sounding like a Both-Sides-Do-It Mugwump, this is enough of a mess that an internationally supervised election would be a sensible way forward, if such a difficult thing can actually be arranged. But for that to work, both the PSUV and the opposition would have to have reasonable confidence that the major political forces inside Venezuela would respect the results of such an election. They would also have to be confident that the international community, and particularly the United States, would also respect the process and the results. The PSUV would obviously not agree in a process if they though the United States, i.e., currently the Trump-Pence Administration, would take a PSUV victory as a signal to mount another coup attempt.

This is another reminder that the longer the Trump-Pence Administration blunders along with an erratic foreign policy, the more the US ability to build international political coalitions to achieve important goals. No Foreign Ministry in the world could have failed to notice what a cock-up this recent Venezuelan coup attempt was.

Planned staged confrontation on the Colombia-Venezuela border today

The PBS Newshour actually did a report on Maduro supporters, Why Venezuela's Chavistas are fiercely loyal to Maduro, despite economic crisis 02/22/2019:

The American coup attempt in Venezuela is staging a confrontation today (Saturda) that the leaders apparently hope will provoke (or provide a figleaf excuse for) an American military intervention against the real existing government of Nicolás Maduro.

Alex Daugherty and Franco Ordoñez report (Keeping up momentum in Venezuela hinges on getting humanitarian aid in on Saturday Miami Herald 01/22/2019):

... none of Venezuela’s top military leaders have publicly backed [self-proclaimed "president" Juan] Guaidó’s interim government. Russia and China continue to recognize Maduro. India is buying more Venezuelan oil. Both supporters and critics of the decision to recognize Guaidó are worried about losing momentum for elections if Saturday comes and goes without a change in the status quo, as the full effect of U.S. oil sanctions on Maduro’s inner circle will take months, not weeks. ...

Diplomats from the region are growing concerned that momentum against Maduro is slowing.

“The thought was that when the United States recognized Guaidó that things would fall apart for Maduro,” said one South American diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity because the diplomat was not authorized to publicly discuss U.S. policy. “But that hasn’t happened yet.”

The thinking in the region was that the international pressure campaign would spur top leaders of the military to turn against Maduro and back Guaidó. But that hasn’t happened yet.

After the U.S. imposed financial sanctions on PDVSA, the Venezuelan oil company controlled by the government, “we were thinking this was a turning point,” said the diplomat. “But that was weeks ago.” [my emphasis]

This coup is clearly not unfolding as its backers hoped.

There was some violence on the Brazilian border Friday, with two people reportedly killed by Venezuelan security forces. Here's professional ghoul Elliott Abrams pretending like he actually cares about how many people get killed: "Donald Trump’s Venezuela envoy Elliott Abrams, who was also in Colombia, also blasted Maduro for the clashes along the Brazilian border. Abrams said the two Venezuelans 'were killed trying to get food and medicine for their families. It’s a crime and a disgrace.'" (Jim Wyss, Guaidó makes surprise visit to Colombia as Venezuelans demand aid and Maduro digs in Miami Herald 02/22/2019)

Anne Gearan and Carol Morello give attention to some considerations that should be obvious but don't seem to be aired in most of the news reports I've seen (Trump, in risky gambit, ratchets up pressure on Venezuela as tensions flare at the border Washington Post 02/22/2019):

Elliott Abrams and other State Department officials accompanied an airlift of U.S. humanitarian aid to the Colombian border in a provocative partnership with Maduro’s political rival as tensions rise over the internal power struggle in Venezuela. The Trump administration has not said whether it will attempt to deliver the aid by force Saturday, the day when opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who is supported by the Trump administration, has said the relief supplies will cross into Venezuela.

Trump has repeatedly said that military action is an option, including in remarks Monday to Venezuelan exiles in Miami, setting up a paradox for a president who has argued that the United States wastes money and lives when playing global policeman. ...

Having leaned so heavily into the conflict, Trump risks looking weak or ineffective at home and abroad if the Maduro regime survives in the face of U.S. opposition.

The Trump administration emboldened Guaidó to declare himself Venezuela’s rightful leader last month and has helped rally international diplomatic support behind him. The White House has not said what it will do if Guaidó’s movement collapses in chaos or a bloodbath. [my emphasis]

David Smilde writes in the WOLA blog about the humanitarian aid gambit by the coup leaders (Venezuela Weekly: Battle of the Bands on the Border 2/19/2019):

AN [National Assembly] Deputy Miguel Pizarro who is coordinating the operation has said that it is the Maduro government that is politicizing the aid. The opposition would be quite happy if they could bring it in without confrontation. Yet, aid organizations such as Caritas have made clear that they would only participate in distribution of the aid if it fulfills international standards. The United Nations has also warned about politicization of humanitarian aid. Any efforts or operations on the border that appear like they are intentionally putting people in harm’s way, could generate a backlash.

• It is not completely true that Maduro has blocked all aid. He recently accepted $9 million in health and nutritional aid from the United Nations. There have also been a number of groups getting aid into the country under the radar.

Smilde also makes some points about Trump's major Venezuelan speech this week that need to be kept in mind in relation to the American-directed Venezula regime change policy:

The speech made clear that while in Afghanistan and Syria, Trump’s “America first” vision is holding sway, in Latin America policy it is his neoconservative advisors that are in charge. He represented the push for a transition in Venezuela as just the first step in an effort to free Cuba and Nicaragua as well. When that happens, he said, “this will become the first free hemisphere in all of human history.”

He also mentioned socialism from beginning to end in the speech, repeatedly tying the situation in Venezuela to those who want to install socialism in the United States, implicitly referring to some left democrats who have increasingly adopted the term for their politics.

The centrality that Venezuela has taken in his discourse, and his insertion of Venezuela into broader policy goals for the region, suggest it is unlikely Trump will put Venezuela on the back burner. [my emphasis]

All of which adds up to this: The regime change operation of the Trump-Pence Administration in Venezuela is a high-risk operation that's stalled coming out of the gate. It could lead to a serious war if the US intervenes, which would have major consequences for regional peace, refugee inflows into Brazil and Colombia, and deadly consequences for the people of Venezuela. A foreign policy of going in and breaking things is not a good foreign policy. And invading another country just because you can is literally a crime under international law.

A flashpoint coming in the Venezuela coup attempt?

My main focus of attention on Venezuela is whether the grim triad of Mike Pence, John Bolton, and the thoroughly creepy Elliott Abrams are going to get their regime change war or not.

Before getting into the more current news, I want to call attention to this long read from the longtime left journal Monthly Review: Ana Felicien, Christina Schiavoni and Liccia Romero, The Politics of Food in Venezuela 6/01/2018. It's from the middle of 2018, so it doesn't directly address the current coup attempt. But it has some historical background, including a description of how the development of the oil industry badly disrupted Venezuelan agriculture as early as the 1920s. It's a good antidote the comic-book version of conflict in Venezuela that the US mainstream media is giving us today. (The German and Austrian press reporting on it that I've seen has also often been painfully superficial.)

But, even as lazy as some of the mainstream press articles on the Venezuelan crisis may be, they are worth a close reading, especially the more important parts that are often buried deep in the articles. Ernesto Londoño, for instance, reported for the New York Times almost a week ago in U.S. Military Starts Flying Aid for Venezuela to Colombia 02/16/2019 (Spanish version here):

... the country’s large corps of generals and other high-ranking officers has so far refused to back a plan to oust Mr. Maduro and help opposition leaders convene a new election. ...

Once it became clear to opposition leaders that the military was siding with Mr. Maduro after Mr. Guaidó proclaimed himself the country’s rightful leader on Jan. 23, the opposition mounted a plan to get tens of millions of dollars worth of food and medicine into the country. [my emphasis]

Things have clearly not gone the way the coup planners in Washington and elsewhere expected. The ongoing stunt around humanitarian aid is clearly understood by Washington and pseudo-president Juan Guaidó as a political manuever, even a tripwire for outside military intervention.

But, as Londoño reports:

Rebecca Chavez, who served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Western Hemisphere during the Obama administration, said it was “very likely” that the American military would be drawn into the crisis in Venezuela as the power struggle between Mr. Maduro and Mr. Guaidó escalates.

But, she argued, “any unilateral military intervention in Venezuela would be a huge mistake.” If the American military does end up delivering aid, or takes part in a peacekeeping mission, Ms. Chavez said, it should be done as part of a coalition.

The recent election of conservative leaders in key Latin American nations, including Brazil, Colombia and Chile, makes that prospect more plausible than in past years. But so far, officials in Colombia and Brazil have signaled deep reservations about military missions in Venezuela. [my emphasis]

We‘re now into the fifth week of what may be the strangest coup attempt Latin America has ever seen. Brazil's fascist-minded President Jair Bolsonaro may be part of the (metaphorical) Nationalist International. But this shows a big problem with expecting “internationalism“ from rightwing nationalists.

Even if they are cynical and corrupt allies of the local oligarchies, they still have to think about their own national interests and their political base has to see them doing nationalist posturing. There are several obvious reasons an even half-sane Brazilian or Colombian government would be worried about this regime change operation. One is that it‘s run by Elliott Abrams. Bolsonaro may admire Abrams‘ passion for murderous savagery in politics. But the fact the Abrams is in charge guarantees that the result will be an awful mess.

Another is that up to three million refugees from Venezuela are already in Brazil and Colombia. Bolsonaro would be glad to demagogue against the refugees. But unlike Trump in the US or Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Brazil and Colombia already have real refugee problems, and an American invasion or civil war in Venezuela will magnify them. Also, the Trump-Pence Administration have been remarkably crass about the fact that Washington is running it. Even pro-American rightwing Latin American government have to worry about the precedent.

And why would Brazil or Colombia choose to kick off the invasion? They know that Trump will be quick to blame them if something goes wrong. And they would be credibly attacked politically for acting as US mercenaries.

Anthony Faiola and Rachelle Krygier reported yesterday (Venezuela braces for possible conflict ahead of opposition’s push to deliver humanitarian aid Washington Post 02/21/2019):

Maduro on Thursday ordered the closure of the border with Brazil and weighed sealing the border with Colombia, not far from this western metropolis, as his government scrambled to respond to the planned Saturday operation. Venezuela’s National Institute of Civil Aviation issued an order grounding private jet traffic nationwide. Commercial flights were still operating, though Air France said it would cancel flights to Caracas through Monday, given the heightened tensions.

In an apparent bid to counter international criticism of turning away the aid — provided by the United States and other countries advocating for Maduro’s ouster — Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, said the government on Thursday had sent the United Nations a list of medicines the country needed for “humanitarian assistance.” Maduro also announced that 7.5 tons of medical supplies had arrived Thursday from Russia and the Pan American Health Organization.

Maduro’s directives came as the U.S.-backed effort to topple his government is entering a critical and potentially more dangerous phase. [my emphasis]

And this is a pretty straightforward attempt by the Coup Triad (Pence, Bolton, Abrams) and Juan Guaidó to provoke a direct military conflict. And if they actually do send unarmed civilians to face off with the Venezuelan army, the ethics of that seem pretty questionable, to put it mildly. How many people will sign up to be human sacrifices to kick off Elliott Abrams' war with Venezuela?

Aljazeera reports on the border closure to Brazil, Maduro shuts Venezuela's border with Brazil amid aid standoff 02/22/2019:

And it really is a question worth asking. Why is the Maduro government, which Trump described in his speech this past week as a "dicatatorship" and a "socialist tyranny", allowing internal opponents to operate out in the open like this inside Venezuela?

Guaidó and his team in a caravan of 10 vans were headed Thursday toward San Cristobal, and ultimately to the Colombia border. Four buses traveling ahead of him with opposition lawmakers, journalists and volunteers were stopped in the state of Carabobo by national guardsmen throwing tear gas, said Roberto Campos, an opposition lawmaker who was on one of the buses.

Some of the lawmakers struggled with the guardsmen, who, Campos said, sought to take their IDs. A Guaidó spokesman confirmed that his vehicle was still making its way west.

The national guard used tear gas and tried to take their IDs, but didn't try to arrest them? A group headed to the border with the expressed purpose of staging a confrontation to justify foreign intervention?

I'm not suggesting that the Maduro government is angelic. Amnesty International says that it's about to put out a report on official abuses they have documented, Venezuela: Hunger, punishment and fear, the formula for repression used by authorities under Nicolás Maduro 02/20/2019. The article linked does not mention the government deliberately using hunger as a political weapon, despite the headline. It does mention that in some poor areas, "residents depend to a large extent on the currently limited state programs to distribute staple foods." The Monthly Review article linked at the top of this post contains a more detailed explanation of those programs and their background against the impact of the oil business on Venezuelan agriculture.

But back to the question why the government is letting the coup participants operate so openly, I don't have any specialized knowledge of the situation there. But it's hard for me to imagine that the government isn't calculating that the coup faction is discrediting itself with the Venezuelan public by their actions, which look from from afar like bumbling and desperate moves. (Obviously, whether the government is right in their estimate.) To be fair, Trump did call Maduro's government a "failed dictatorship." It does seem like a failure at the dictatorship game to allow an internationally back coup that is threatening to invite foreign invastion to run around and operate in public.

Trump and the Elliott Abrams regime change agenda in Latin America

This is the PBS Newshour video of Trump's speech on Venezuela yesterday.Trump's speech starts just after 15:30. President Trump delivers remarks on Venezuela 02/19/2019:

Here is the Miami Herald's report from David Smiley and Martin Vassolo, Trump proclaims ‘twilight’ of socialism in the Americas during Miami speech on Venezuela 02/18/2019.

The speech was bizarre, even though he was obviously reading most of it from a prepared text on the teleprompter.

Trump in this speech sounded like a John Birch Society type circa 1959. Trump all but declared war on Venezuela, and seems to think he's himself the president of Venezuela as well as commander-in-chief of the armed forces there. Lots of Mussolini vibe in this one. He's obviously working the stop-socialism-in-America theme in close connection with the anti-Veneuela agitation.

But on Venezuela, with the regime change operation looking pretty tepid at the moment, what will the US do with Maduro calling his bluff and the military doesn't join the coup?

And with Trump playing a professional wrestler's version of Teddy Roosevelt on Venezuela, it really wouldn't too much to expect that the corporate press take a serious look at what the actual plans of the Juan Guaidó "government" are to solve the problems of the Venezuelan petrostate. Frances Coppola wrote a column four years ago called The Impending Collapse Of Venezuela Forbes 01/13/2015:

The balance of payments problem is bad enough. The falling oil price is causing a widening foreign exchange gap. Venezuela needs an oil price of $100 per barrel to balance its external accounts, but oil is falling rapidly towards $40 per barrel and so far, Venezuela has failed to persuade other oil producers to reduce production in order to support the price. Venezuela’s foreign exchange outflows now substantially exceed its inflows, not least because it is supporting a complex and unhelpful exchange rate system: its US$ reserves are down to $22bn and falling fast.

Venezuela is actually an extreme case of the petrostate dilemma, meaning among other things that it is particularly vulnerable to swings in the price of oil. That wouldn't change if Maduro decided to throw in the towel tomorrow and let puppet "president" Juan Guaidó take over. The accusations of corruption around the national oil company PDvSA are particularly credible because corruption is a chronic problem of petrostates. See Putin's Russia, for instance.

Diversifying the petrostate economy to have less dependence on petroleum is another chronic dilemma. Agriculture has proven to be a particular challenge in Venezuela, which has a large amount of high-quality fertile land. But agriculture is stagnant literally because of a how're-you-gonna-keep-them-on-the-farm-after-they've-seen-Caracas problem. The oil business draws people into the cities, where they can get better wages and other benefits of urban life. Hugo Chavez' government made an effort to revitalize agriculture but it didn't have much success. Even in years of high oil prices, Venezuela has had a high level of violence, i.e., ordinary criminal violence. That always has multiple causes. But the ongoing disruption of rural communities by the migration to the cities is surley a contributing factor.

How the Guaidó government - when and if it actually become a real government - intends to remedy these problems is a question that American reporters should be asking. Prior to last month, polls showed that a large percentage of Venezuelans didn't know who Guaidó was, Is he going to be the actual president if the coup succeeds? Or will he be pushed aside for some other authoritarian goon or scamster? Remember this guy? Ahmad Chalabi, Iraqi Politician Who Pushed for U.S. Invasion, Dies at 71 by Sewell Chan New York Times 11/03/2015

I'll give Nadja Drost credit for this PBS Newshour interview with self-proclaimed "president" Guaidó, Of pushing out Maduro, Guaido says 'Venezuela already decided for change' 02/18/2019, transcript here:

She actually does challenge him with some important questions. Which he evaded by decided the stock regime change propaganda pitch.

She asks him, "You have said that all options are on the table. And I'm wondering, where are you going to draw the line in the sand if Maduro does not step down from power? Would you think about the possibility of an outside military intervention?"

Guaidó responds:

We have been clear in saying that all cards are on the table, the necessary pressure to achieve an end to the usurping [meaning Maduro's government], the transitional government [Guaidó himself] and the free elections, with the best social cost as possible, so that it generates governance and stability to the country, and it lets us have elections as soon as possible.

Our constitution is very clear. Venezuelans are the ones to authorize any use of violence. It is Venezuelans who will make the decision. Obviously, no one wants to get to that point. But, again, it is Maduro's choice to refuse something as elemental as humanitarian aid, a free election.

These are the clear demands for the Venezuelans. [my emphasis]

Guaidó is making clear that if the real existing Venezuelan government blocks delivery of humanitarian aid by coup supporters, that would justify a violent action to remove Maduro's government, even violent action backed by a foreign military. That much is a clear statement from the nominal coup leader.

Drost keeps pressing him on what that means, and Guaidó keeps responding with stock propaganda lines. There may be ways to interpret the following interchange as something other than Elliott Abrams' boy Guaidó saying that Maduro has to surrender first and then they will negotiate but not before. But I can't think of what those other readings might be:

Nadja Drost:

Right now, there's many options on the table for how Maduro might possibly leave office.

Are you willing — in an effort to reduce the possibility of violent confrontation, is the opposition willing to participate in a model of co-governance for a temporary transition period with Maduro?

Juan Guaido:

The only one suggesting a violent confrontation is Maduro, with his military aggressions, when he threatens us with snipers.

We're going to continue the blueprint we followed for years in a way that's nonviolent, in a way that is peaceful. If they want to slaughter the people, they have the weapons. And they have already done it on some occasions.

So, having some sort of cooperation with Maduro, it seems not to make sense now. For there to be a transitional government, it seems that Maduro would have to be out of the scene.

Nadja Drost:

You have said that there's no possibility of co-governance with Maduro for a temporary period. Would you be willing to negotiate with him for him to leave office or accept elections?

Juan Guaido:

It's absolutely impossible to have a truly free election with someone who for years has kidnapped and killed, who prohibits humanitarian aid.

So it seems, at this moment, that it's not a path toward a free election, so that's not an option. [my emphasis]

The portions of that interview reported there do not include any description of how Guaidó and his handlers in Washington and Miami plan to transmute Venezuela from a petrostate to not-a-petrostate.

And, once again, professional ghoul Elliott Abrams is the special US envoy in charge of this regime change operation. He has a very well established and thoroughly documented record. The results of any regime change project he's directing will be seriously ugly. Everyone in the US and elsewhere who are backing this coup operation have good reason to know who and what they are supporting when they back an Elliott Abrams project.

And the Miami Herald report on the speech linked above also draws attention to the larger Latin American regime change agenda in the lede paragraph, "President Donald Trump declared 2019 as the 'twilight of socialism' in the western hemisphere Monday during a speech in Miami and cast impending regime change in Venezuela as a harbinger of things to come in Cuba and Nicaragua."

Venezula coup attempt seems to be stalling out on the ground

Obama's supposed foreign policy maxim, "Don't Do Stupid S**t" - in the more family-friendly version, "Don't Do Stupid Stuff" - seems a bit tacky for a foreign policy principle.

But the current regime change operation in Venezuela is shaping up a a classic illustration of what the DDSS principle should always be in the top two or three considerations for foreign policy decisions. To quote the late great John Kenneth Galbraith on the subject in his 1977 Age of Uncertainty, referring to the much-discussed beginning of the First World War:

There was a final consideration, one that it is always thought a trifle pretentious to stress. Rulers in Germany and Eastern Europe, generals in all countries, held their jobs by right of family and tradition. If inheritance qualifies one for office, intelligence cannot be a requirement. Nor is its absence likely to be a disqualification. On the contrary, intelligence is a threat to those who do not possess it, and th ere is a strong case, therefore, for excluding those who do possess it. This was the tendency in 1914. In consequence, both the rulers and the generals in World War I were singularly brainless men.

None was capable of thought on what war would mean for his class - for the social order that was so greatly in his favor. There had always been wars. Rulers had been obliterated. The ruling classes had always survived. To the extent that there was thought on the social consequences of war, this was what was believed.

He was referring there to hereditary aristocracies. But the US foreign policy establishment is such an exclusive club that it has definite similarities.

We're now three and a half weeks into the very strange coup attempt in Venezuela, nominally headed by Juan Guaidó and opernly directed from Washington by Vice President Mike Pence, National Security Adviser John Bolton, and the odious Elliott Abrams, with lots of political assistance from Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio. And it's getting hard to pretend that it's not off to a very wobbly start:

Ethan Bronner and Andrew Rosati report in With Cocaine Flowing, the Push to Pry Generals From Maduro Hits a Snag Bloomberg 02/13/2019:

Since Juan Guaido declared himself interim president three weeks ago and offered amnesty to officers who abandon Maduro, more than 30 countries led by the U.S. have hailed the move, waiting for the military to follow. There hasn’t been a rush to his side. ...

In a country with more than 2,000 generals and admirals, only one top officer -- who commands no troops -- has pledged allegiance to Guaido. So have two colonels (a physician and a military attache in Washington). Guaido has said that he has privately been in touch with other officers and that more will follow. He doubtless is, and perhaps they will.

This may be a big part of why Maduro‘s government hasn‘t moved to arrest Juan Guaidó and his closest associates: their coup attempt looks more like a bad joke every day at this point. From a strictly ”realist“ point of view, this is why recognizing an alternative ”government“ that is clearly a front for a US regime change operation is so risky. The US has very publicly committed itself to this. And at this point, the operation is looking very much like a flop.

So what‘s next? Send in the troops to arrest Maduro like in Panama? Start running Elliott Abrams/Iran-Contra type death squads? Admit that the Trump regime change attempt was a LOSER operation? Actions like this US-backed coup can initially be marketed to the US public as a safe and low-risk thing. But the can actually create entanglements that may not be easy to unwind.

This from the Bloomberg report is one of the reasons the DDSS guideline is so important :"U.S. policy makers and those around Guaido -- as well as leaders in Brazil and Colombia -- are eyeing one another and worrying about failure. Officials in each camp have said privately they assumed the others had a more developed strategy."

Even a conservative US ally like Colombian President Iván Duque or a fascist one like Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro may have some serious reservations about the brazenness of the US regime change operation in Venezuela. Its stumbling, bumbling nature is prsumably not too impressive to them, either, and that will surely figure into their risk calculations when dealing with the US. It raises doubts not only about how the US may be willing to do the same to them but also about the Americans' willingness to keep their commitments and their competence in doing so.

Colombia and Brazil are already getting most of the refugees from Veneuela. A civil war or escalating pressure from foreign sanctions will produce more refugees. This is a relevant moment in the Bloomberg report:

Worry about what comes next has intensified. At a meeting in the U.S. embassy in Bogota, Colombia, last week, military, intelligence and civilian leaders from both countries discussed ways of moving humanitarian aid into Venezuela. There was a sense of frustration in the air, according to a participant who agreed to discuss it on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. said it was paying for the aid but wanted Colombia to find trucks and drivers to move it in. The Colombians said no one would accept the mission because the Venezuelan military would arrest them. The aid remains in warehouses near the border.

At similar meetings in the Colombian border city of Cucuta, a person who attended said the dynamic was the same -- the U.S. expecting Colombia to find the means to deliver the aid and the Colombians saying they can’t.

Did I mention that Elliott Abrams was involved? From Tom Phillips, Nicolás Maduro claims foes 'totally failed' to topple him as efforts falter Guardian 2/13/2019:

Addressing a congressional hearing, the US special envoy on Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, claimed “Maduro and his band of thieves” were finished. He claimed international pressure meant “there is a storm brewing inside the Maduro regime that will eventually bring it to an end”.

But while Abrams said Washington was “hopeful and confident” of Maduro’s demise he admitted it was “impossible to predict” when it might come. The US would maintain pressure “over the next weeks and months”, he added, suggesting a quick resolution is no longer expected.

Opposition leaders have spent recent days trying to dampen expectations that Maduro’s exit is imminent.

Juan Andrés Mejía, an opposition leader and Guaidó ally, admitted that goal “could take some time”.

Any enterprising screewriter trying to come up with a story line based on this coup attempt has a dilemma at this point: should they write it as a political drama or a comic farce?
A later Tom Phillips report has Guaidó insisting that, yes we do too have a great coup going! (Venezuela: Juan Guaidó denies bid to unseat Maduro has failed Guardian 2/13/2019)

Which brings me to this.

Friends on the left: please read this piece by an advisor to Chile’s democratically-elected Salvador Allende. As he writes, if you truly support the cause of progress and of siding with the "forgotten children of the earth," you *need* to reject Maduro. https://t.co/54RPVuPUi5

— Geoff Ramsey (@GRamsey_LatAm) February 16, 2019

The link is to this article by Chilean author, Ariel Dorfman, Salvador Allende Offers a Way Out for Venezuela’s Maduro The Nation 02/11/2019. Dorfman was a cultural adviser to Allende's government in Chile. He writes in what he imagines would be the voice of Allende himself advising Maduro:

The Chilean experiment—we were trying to build socialism through peaceful means, rejecting the sort of armed struggle that had prevailed in all previous revolutions—was in trouble, and undergoing considerable economic difficulties, albeit nothing like the extraordinary humanitarian disaster plaguing Venezuela at this moment. And just as Nixon and Kissinger and American multinational companies conspired against Chile in 1973, Trump, Pence, and Pompeo (not to mention the redoubtable Elliott Abrams, of Iran/Contra infamy) are leading the effort to oust you, the constitutional president of Venezuela, through the force of arms. [my emphasis]

That "effort to oust you ... through the force of arms" is a pretty striking characterization, given the fact that the coup spokespeople are still swearing on their peaceful intentions.

He goes on to criticize various democratic deficits of the Maduro government. And somewhat oddly argues:

Despite these resemblances between Chile in 1973 and Venezuela in 2019, I [imaginary Allende] feel that you do a disservice to history and to the cause of revolutionary change by comparing yourself to me. I was, throughout my life, and until the moment of my death, a defender of democracy in all its forms. Never, during my three years in office, did I restrict the freedom of assembly of my opponents (even when some of them engaged in virulent tactics and terrorist acts), nor did I curb in any way the freedom of the press (even when papers, radios, and TV stations owned by the Chilean oligarchy were calling for my removal and spreading lies about my person and my tenure). Not one person was jailed for expressing his or her opinion, nor, heaven forbid, was anyone tortured while I was president. If anything, my opponents were given free rein, which they grievously abused, helped by millions of dollars expended by the CIA. And I scrupulously respected the result of all manner of elections during my time in office, especially when they were unfavorable to me.

This calls to mind Abraham Lincoln's letter of 06/12/1863 to Erastus Corning, defending his actions of arresting and holding without habeus corpus a small number of people in the Northern states suspected of conspiring to act in support of the Confederate rebellion which was in the process of claiming hundreds of thousands of casualties to the US Army. Lincoln was acting under Article 1:9§3 of the Consitution that requires that habeas corpus “shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.” Lincoln argued that the Civil War qualified as such a situation and wrote:

Of how little value the constitutional provisions I have quoted will be rendered, if arrest shall never be made until defined crimes hall have been committed, may be illustrated by a few notable examples. Gen. John C. Breckinridge, Gen. Robert E. Lee, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, Gen. John B. Magruder, Gen. William B. Preston, Gen. Simon B. Buckner, and Commodore Franklin Buchanan, now occupying the very highest places in the Rebel war service, were all within the power of the Government since the Rebellion began [i.e., they were on Union-controlled territory], and were nearly as well known to be traitors then as now. Unquestionably if we had seized and held them, the insurgent cause would be much weaker. But no one of them had then committed any crime defined in the law. Every one of them, if arrested, would have been discharged on habeas corpus were the writ allowed to operte. In view of these and similar cases, I think the time not unlikely to come when I shall be blamed for having made too few arrests rathern than too many. [my emphasis]

After Pinochet's coup of September 11, 1973 - "9/11" was a date of historical significance to Latin America long before 2001 - Allende never had the opportunity to reflect himself on how his handling of threatened coup might have been different. He died in his office, apparently by his own hand, on the day of the coup.

Dorfman has his imaginary Allende advise Maduro, "My vibrant answer is that, now, so many decades later, my example of sacrificing my life for democracy and a peaceful revolution continues to shine throughout the world, inspiring humanity to never cease its quest for social justice."

I also think of Allende as a martyr to the cause of democracy. But in this context, his praise of Allende for not having taken stronger measures against those planning and implementing a coup comes off as grotesque. Even so, I'm not sure how Geoff Ramsey gets from Dorfman's peace his appeal to "friends on the left" that "you *need* to reject Maduro."

In any case, that's stock war propaganda rhetoric. Any regime change operation headed by Elliott Abrams is not interested in democracy, human rights, or human life in Venezuela. He has a clear record. Anyone supporting this regime chang efforts has every reason to know what they are supporting.

Ariel Dorfman seems to be suggesting that Maduro hold a referendum like Allende tried to do. An effort which failed. Given the politics of the last few years, it's hard to imagine a Maduro-called referendum ending the turmoil. I hope that there will be some sort of independent, internationally supervised elections to which both sides agree that they will respect the results. That would be a complicated undertaking in itself. But the Washington-directed alternative "president's" side has been rejecting the idea publicly. On February 1, Vice President Mike Pence told a pro-regime-change crowd in Florida, “This is no time for dialogue. This is time for action.” (Roberta Rampton, To Florida's Venezuelan exiles, Pence vows more pressure on Maduro 02/01/2019)

Third-week anniversary of the Venezuelan coup - or is it the Mike Pence-John Bolton-Elliott Abrams-Juan Guaidó show?

Today is the three-week anniversary of the ongoing coup attempt in Venezuela. The aspiring junta at this point consists of US Vice President and Christianist fundamentalist zealot Mike Pence, US National Security Adviser and professional warmonger John Bolton, Special Envoy and Iran-Contra criminal Elliott Abrams, and the local figurehead and self-declared President Juan Guaidó.
Although I'm probably not giving sufficient credit to Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio for his role in this very dubious operation.

Aljazeera reported yesterday on the situation on the ground in Venezuela, Rival rallies held in Venezuela as political crisis continues 02/12/2019:

Following are some general observations about the current stage of the Venezuelan crisis.

Venezuela has the largest known petroleum reserves of any country in the world.

Oil has driven the United States' policy toward Venezuela in the past and will continue to do so for a long time. This is not just a matter of cupidity by oil company executives, though there is always an abundent supply of that. It's also about the geostrategic clout that oil gives Venezuela when oil prices are strong.

Venezuela is a petrostate, i.e., its economy is very much dominated by the oil industry. Being a petrostate is both a blessing and a curse.

Rocio Cara Labrador provides a helpful primer on what a petrostate is, with special reference to Venezuela's situation, Venezuela: The Rise and Fall of a Petrostate Council of Foreign Relations 01/24/2019.

The focus of her analysis from a couple of weeks ago is the situation in the current downterm. But its a great summary of the "petrostate" phenomenon.

American reporting on Venezuela and on Latin America more geneerally is poor.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, American news services drastically reduced their foreign coverage. US government priorities generally drive the attention of the press on foreign stories. And relations with Latin America generally became relatively less of a priority for the US since 1989.

Here's a partial example. The American Prospect has a current story by Manuel Madris, Trump Is Tough on Venezuela -- but Won’t Let Fleeing Venezuelans Into the U.S. 02/12/2019 on the Trump-Pence Administration's unwillingness to admit signficant numbers of refugees from Venezuela, even though the Pence-Bolton-Abrams troika are running a bold regime change operation there which will almost certainly wind up increasing the already significant number of refugees from there.

Whenever we think about the effects of a proposed or actual war, regime change operation, or civil war, an always relevant question is, how many refugees is it likely to generate, what countries will wind up receiving them (voluntarily or otherwise), and who will cover the cost of the refugee operations?

This piece actually does look at the refugee issue and provides important factual information about it. But the framing of the article is not the best, because it's unclear about Venezuela's status as a petrostate. For instance, the problem of criminal violence that Madris has been a real one in Venezuela even before the oil price downturn. (See my post, Venezuelan actress Mónica Spear's murder becomes a national political shock 01/11/2014) And it's a problem related to Venezuela's petrostate status that Labrador's piece describes.

It's really strange that local coup leader Juan Guaidó is out giving speeches and holding rallies, while not having any actual control over the executive agencies of the government, calling for the overthrow of the real existing government headed by President Nicolás Maduro, and openly saying he might want foreign military intervention, and in three weeks Maduro's government has made no apparent move to arrest him.

I don't know what to make of this. It could be that the government is worried about giving the US an excuse to intervene militarily. Or hoping that the coup leaders will make such fools of themselves that they will lose all credibility. Or worried that a crackdown might provoke some significant portions of the military to flip to the Pence-Bolton-Abrams-Rubio-Guaidó faction. Or actually hoping for a settlement that doesn't set off large scale civil violence. Or is waiting for a "firing on Fort Sumter" moment to proceed against the coup participants under circumstanes where the coup leaders are more clearly seen as provoking the clash.

At some point, letting this go on, with an alternative "president" running around the capital city threatening to call in foreign troops to overthrow the government, will be seen by foreign actors and even Maduro's own supporters as weakness. Something's got to give. An internally negotiated settlement for United Nations supervised new elections looks like the most promising peaceful solution. How likely that is at this point, I don't know. It seems like a long shot.

This is a seriously risky situation for the United States.

To quote the Council of Foreign Affairs' Rocio Cara Labrador again (Maduro’s Allies: Who Backs the Venezuelan Regime? 02/05/2019):

Venezuela remains a strategic political foothold for Russia as it seeks to offset U.S. influence in Latin America and elsewhere. ...

Russia is Venezuela’s largest supplier of weapons, having sold the country more than $10 billion in hardware since the mid-2000s, including assault rifles, jet fighters, tanks, and missile systems. The two nations also conduct joint military exercises, and Russian jets and warships make regular stopovers. ....

China has been Venezuela’s other major financial crutch. It views the socialist regime in Venezuela as a geopolitical ally and an important trading partner. ...

She is looking there at major power allies of the Maduro government. But a military intervention by the US or its local allies in Venezuela would also have signficant, decades-long repercussions on US relations to Latin America. Blowback happens. And here we're talking about blowback involving the country with the largest known oil reserves in the world.

US policy toward Latin America has been friendly to right-leaning governments under both the Bush and Obama Administration, and is becoming more aggressively so under the Trump-Pence Administration.

That's how it is. And in practice, that means support for the ruinous IMF/Washington Consensus/neoliberal economic dogma. A prosperous Latin America with mutually respectful relationship among themselves and with the US would be a desirable thing for the Unites States. And it would also mean a better, more hopeful life for millions of Latin Americans. IMF economic policy doctrine won't get us there. Nor will a Teddy Roosevelt version of the Monroe Doctrine.

The current play with humanitarian aid by the coup managers is stunningly cynical.

The Red Cross and Red Crescent are being cautious about getting sucked into cooperating with the coup leaders' attempt to use humanitarian aid for regime change: Red Cross will not deliver humanitarian aid to Venezuela EFE 02/05/2019

"The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement reaffirm that in order to ensure the fulfillment of its exclusively humanitarian mission and, according to the fundamental principles of impartiality, neutrality and independence, it cannot take part in the initiatives to hand over assistance for Venezuela from Colombia," the two organizations said in a joint statement signed by the head of the IFRC Country Cluster for Andean Countries, Michele Detomaso, head of the ICRC delegation in Colombia, Christoph Harnisch, and president of the Colombian Red Cross, Judith Carvajal.

The Red Cross/Red Crescent provides additional information on its website (Venezuela: focusing on humanitarian needs in a highly polarized environment 02/02/2019), "The International Committee of the Red Cross has been working in Venezuela for many years, focusing on meeting the humanitarian needs in the country. We are present on the ground, close to the Venezuelan people and working independently and in support of the Venezuelan Red Cross."

According to this report from Jerry Iannelli (The UN and Red Cross Keep Criticizing the Trump/Rubio Group's Moves on Venezuela Broward-Palm Beach New Times 02/12/2019), the UN as well as the Red Cross "recently warned the United States that its attempts to foment a coup or possible civil war in Venezuela will almost certainly make the situation worse rather than better."

Venezuela coup attempt, Week Three is starting

"Venezuela is Latin America's biggest exporter of crude oil and has the world's largest petroleum reserves." - Brian Ellsworth and Andrew Cawthorne, Venezuela death toll rises to 13 as protests flare Reuters 02/24/2014

"Venezuela claims the world’s largest proven reserves of petroleum, an estimated 298 billion barrels of oil." - Michael Klare, The Desperate Plight of Petro-States TomDispatch 05/26/2016

Today is the second week anniversary of the strange coup attempt in Venezuela, openly directly by the Trump-Pence Administration is Washington, which along with various European and South American countries have recognized National Assembly leader Juan Guaidó as the legitimate head of government in Venezuela, despite his not having control of apparently any part of the executive branch of Venezuela's government.

This is a recent report from Aljazeera, Venezuela's Juan Guaido: 'Nobody is going to take a risk for Maduro' 02/06/2019:

The New York Times editorial board weighs in with a cautionary note in Venezuela’s Crisis Spreads Beyond Its Borders 02/05/2019, even though they call for "an interim government under Mr. Guaidó."

As in any geopolitical struggle, disparate interests are at play, and many include a suspicion or fear of President Trump’s motives and potential means. For the hard-core conservatives in the Trump administration, Mr. Maduro is the failed standard-bearer of the scourge of socialism in Latin America and the beachhead for Russian, Cuban and Chinese influence. Mr. Trump has repeatedly refused to rule out a military option.

The prospect of a proxy war that could spill over Venezuela’s borders horrifies most Latin American leaders, as well as Canada and the Europeans. The Lima Group, which brings together Canada and a number of Latin American countries with the aim of finding a nonviolent solution to the Venezuelan crisis, held an emergency meeting in Ottawa on Monday at which it unequivocally rejected any foreign military intervention. “This is a process led by the people of Venezuela in their very brave quest to return their country themselves to democracy in accordance with their own constitution,” declared the Canadian foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, in a statement echoed by most Latin American and European supporters of Mr. Guaidó.

This comes as no surprise: Venezuela: Juan Guaido will open up oil deals to foreign private companies, opposition leader’s US envoy says Independent 02/05/2019.

A former chief of staff to current actual Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro warns, Recognising Juan Guaidó risks a bloody civil war in Venezuela Guardian 02/05/2019:

The recent move by Guaidó to anoint himself “interim president” could bring about catastrophic consequences for Venezuela. Unless the international community is willing to risk a needless war on the American continent, it must urgently create conditions for a national dialogue aimed at reaching a political agreement. This means acknowledging that both the status quo and the endorsement of Guaidó’s claims are unsatisfactory from a democratic point of view, and do not guarantee the country’s peace and stability.

The idea that Maduro has managed to remain in office during the past six years solely through corruption and the use of force is a gross misrepresentation. It ignores that, beyond the president, the Chavismo social movement counts millions of supporters, primarily from lower-income communities, and is strongly embedded within the Venezuelan military. [my emphasis]

The Washington coup in Venezuela

Jeremy Schahill comments on Mike Pence's regime change operation in Venezuela in this video, The Yankee Plot to Overthrow Nicolás Maduro and Steal Venezuela’s Oil 02/02/2019:

As you can tell from the title, Schaill is definitely taking an editorial position here. But what he describes is accurate, based on the information currently publicly available.

There will be blowback from this operation. Even if Pence and John Bolton and Elliot Abrams were to decide today that they're ready to fold and just give up this coup attempt, there will still be ugly blowback for the US. If they push it to military intervention, as that particular Triad of Warmongers will if they aren't restrained from doing so, it will become a major diaster.

Speaking of blowback and disasters, Tom Engelhardt thinks back on a previous regime change adventure in “The Bleeding Wound”: Afghanistan and the Implosion of America TomDispatch 01/24/2019. Blowback happens.

And, in the [deep sigh] category, the New York Times may have learned nothing from its various fiascos in covering US foreign policy, particularly their disgraceful role in pimping the Iraq War based on Dick Cheney's and Don Rumsfeld manufacture WMD hype.

In a glowing report on nominal coup leader Juan Guaidó (Guaidó Steers Venezuela to a Perilous Crossroads 02/03/2019), Ernesto Londoño writes, "His success would be all the more remarkable considering the scrappy operation/ Mr. Guaidó and his allies have mounted, seemingly overnight, to/take down a heavily /armed authoritarian government whose leaders stand accused of turning the state into a vast criminal enterprise."

That is the tenth paragraph of text in the piece. And to that point the reader would never know that the coup attempt is being openly directed from Washington by the Trump-Pence Administration.

If you read past this point, you see:

As he tries to rally domestic and international backing, Mr. Guaidó has been crisscrossing Caracas with minimal security, at times weaving through traffic on the back of a motorcycle. He fields the calls from world leaders, as well as diplomats and Venezuelan politicians, on a cellphone that gets a torrent of text messages, and his phone’s battery seems always on the verge of dying. [my emphasis]

Someone who is awake while reading might ask at this point, what kind of dictatorship is Nicolás Maduro running and what kind of coup leader is Guaidó if this is what he's doing on a daily basis?

There could be plausbile answers to this. But the Times doesn't seem to notice that it raises the obvious questions.

Further down, we see what is the first public admission I've noticed from the coup leadership that things didn't go as planned in the last two weeks:

Opposition leaders had hoped that when Mr. Guaidó proclaimed himself the country’s legitimate leader at a huge street rally, the chiefs of the armed forces would turn on Mr. Maduro in short order. While there have been a handful of high-profile defections, the top military brass has publicly rallied behind Mr. Maduro, which may portend a protracted standoff.

“We’re seeing progress, but it’s not happening as quickly as we’d like,” Mr. Guaidó said, adding that fear remains a strong impediment, particularly among low-level troops who support what the opposition is doing.

Elliot Abrams is probably threatening to send Guaidó to Guantánamo from letting this slip out.