After January 10, there is a natural concern of every Venezuelan to know how this political problem generated by the illegitimate swearing-in of Nicolás Maduro Moros will end. Nobody is buying the regime's logic of “normalizing” the nonsense of accepting it as legitimate, even if they have the mechanisms to subdue political dissidence by force. We are beginning to be in the tone of “it is obeyed, but not complied with”, when the laws of the Indians were ignored by the Spanish colonies in Latin America, because it was known that they did not apply to peoples like ours, especially the Venezuelan one, with such a contentious and fiery indigenous blood.
But even so, in spite of so many years of history, independence wars, caudillos and illegitimate governments, we fall into the error of insisting on ironing the dried leather of Antonio Guzmán Blanco, hoping that it will stay still and not rise up on the other side, as that caudillo of the 19th century insisted.
But the logic of today's globalized world prevents us from analyzing what may happen inside the country without taking a look at what is happening outside, to at least reach a first conclusion as to whether the political problem we are facing will end by force -violently- or by good -peacefully-, while we are all spectators of this power struggle, which it would be naive to think that it is only between the Maduro regime and the opposition headed by María Corina Machado (MCM) and Edmundo González Urrutia (EGU).
From a recent paper by Ian Bremmer, President and founder of GZERO Media, a subsidiary of the Eurasia Group and a specialist in global geopolitical affairs, entitled “What happens when no one is in charge”, we extract an important part of the current international political context, with the movement of its main players and its consequences for this year 2025:
“…the West failed to integrate Russia into
the US-led global order after the Soviet Union's collapse, breeding deep
resentment and antagonism. We can argue about who’s to blame, but the
consequences are undeniable: Now a former great power in severe decline, Russia
has transformed from a potential partner into the world’s most dangerous rogue
state, bent on destabilizing the US-led order and forging military-strategic
partnerships with other chaos actors like North Korea and Iran”…. “ China
grew far more powerful but no more democratic or supportive of the rule of law.
Deepening tensions, and even confrontation, between China and the West, are the
result”… “The United States is the only nation powerful enough to lead –
in fact, it’s in many ways more powerful than ever, at least compared to its
allies and adversaries. But it is no longer willing to serve as world sheriff,
architect of free trade, and promoter of common values. Trump’s return to power
with a politically consolidated, solidly unilateralist administration will
definitively accelerate America’s retreat from global leadership”… “In
short, with no one willing and able to lead, what’s left is ever greater
geopolitical instability, disruption, and conflict. Power vacuums will expand,
global governance will languish, and rogue actors will proliferate. The world
will grow more divided and more combustible. The most vulnerable will pay the
biggest price”… “The more immediate danger is the unraveling of the
world’s security and economic architecture leaving many spaces – both countries
and crucial domains like cyberspace, outer space, and the deep seas –
ungoverned and under-governed, wide open for rogue actors to increasingly
operate with impunity” (see Ian Bremmer, What happens when no one’s
in charge, in https://www.gzeromedia.com/by-ian-bremmer/what-happens-when-no-ones-in-charge#toggle-gdpr)
(emphasis added). The latter portrays Venezuela to the fullest extent.
If Trump's expressed
policy of strengthening the US domestic, as Bremmer indicates and recent
reports highlighting that he “would not
rule out the use of military or economic coercion to force Panama to relinquish
control of the canal the United States built more than a century ago and to
force Denmark to sell Greenland to the United States”, we are looking at a
scenario that clearly indicates an intention to tighten US policy for the
protection of what has been called the “US backyard.” (see in Spanish, New York Times, Trump
plantea tomar Groenlandia, el canal de Panamá y renombrar el golfo de México, in
https://www.nytimes.com/es/2025/01/07/espanol/estados-unidos/donald-trump-golfo-de-mexico.html).
Trump stated before the UN General Assembly in 2018, “Here in the Western Hemisphere, we are committed to maintaining our independence in the face of encroachment by expansionist foreign powers”... “It has been our country's formal policy since President Monroe that we reject interference by foreign nations in this hemisphere and in our own affairs”. CNN highlights “The 21st century Monroe reboot targets China, Russia, Iran and their commercial, military and intelligence partnerships in countries like Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba.” (see CNN Analysis, Trump's threats to Greenland, Canada and Panama explain all about “America First,” in https://cnnespanol.cnn.com/2025/01/08/estados-unidos/amenazas-trump-groenlandia-canada-panama-trax).
And these are the clear signs that indicate that things are not going well for the regimes that intend precisely to use the support of these countries to stay in power in our continent. From the above analysis it is clear that the U.S. is in a position of indisputable strength against any country, including China and Russia, to enforce a renewed Monroe Doctrine in the Americas. This leaves us in the ground that indicates that Maduro would never count in practice at the moment of truth with the help of those countries, as indeed happened in Syria, so this analysis seems to have been proven in practice.
A little more than 10 years ago I compared, without being a specialist in police matters, the Venezuelan case with a hostage situation (see in Spanish, País secuestrado, in https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/2014/04/pais-secuestrado.html). Some years later, Commissioner Ivan Simonovis had to escape from the prison imposed by the regime to prove me right, when he said in an interview to journalist Javier Mayorca the following: “In my opinion, Venezuela is like a hostage situation. Maduro and a group of military men are holding 27 million people hostage”. To Mayorca's question: “There are two solutions, one negotiated, and the other is intervention. Which one is used?”, the specialist's answer was not long in coming: “Whichever is necessary. But one does not exclude the other. Many know me from the Cúa case. Then, Commissioner Victor Amram negotiated up to the moment when the intervention was ordered. Negotiation will always be there, but there has to be a preparation, because at a certain moment negotiations fail and are no longer necessary... The criminal has to realize that there is a credible threat, that he is capable of doing anything to safeguard the lives of the innocent. ....” (see in Spanish, Javier Mayorca, Extorsión, hasta en las galletas, 14-07-2019, Tres preguntas al Comisario General Iván Simonovis, in https://crimenessincastigo.com/extorsion-hasta-en-las-galletas/) (emphasis added).
And those answers coincide perfectly with a recent analysis by journalist Bret Stephens, published in the New York Times, where he concludes: “...the only thing that will dislodge Maduro and his cronies is the combination of a powerful incentive and a credible threat. The incentive is an offer for him and his cronies to go into permanent exile, probably to Cuba or Russia, along with a guarantee of amnesty for all Venezuelan military and intelligence officers who stay and swear allegiance to a government led by the legitimate president. Maduro and his cronies will only leave power peacefully if they are convinced that the alternative is worse. The point of a powerful threat is that it reduces the chances of having to carry it out” (see New York Times, Depose Maduro, in https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/14/opinion/maduro-venezuela-trump.html) (highlighted our).
After knowing what is coming from outside, I will let you determine for yourselves how the final solution to the Venezuelan political crisis will end up being, understanding that, given the geopolitical context that the world presents, Trump's new policy of prioritizing the interests of the US and its zone of influence in Latin America as of January 20, and the current situation of illegitimacy proven by most of the important countries in the world, The current framework represents an unprecedented political alignment that will make the difference between a violent solution and a peaceful one, because those who usurp power are so convinced that they will be able to sustain themselves indefinitely, trying to sell “normality” to the dry leather that has historically been Venezuela. As of January 20, the announced alignment will not only be of the planets of the solar system. It only remains for us to see it in the firmament...
Caracas, January 19, 2025
Blog:
TIC’s & Derechos Humanos, https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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