By Luis Manuel Aguana
It is public, notorious and communicative that the main basis of the Venezuelan opposition strategy against the regime of Nicolás Maduro Moros is to present it to the world as a government of criminals and violators of human rights, and lately as a certain threat to the security of the USA, due to the association of the Venezuelan regime with Iran since the beginning of the Castro-Chavist-Madurist era, and especially now when the USA has become directly involved in the war in the Middle East between Iran and Israel.
According to the logic of that strategic line of action, Venezuelans are being sold that foreign aid, especially from the US, would be very close to arrive to free the country from the criminals that rule it, since Venezuela can and will be used for Iran's ulterior purposes in that war -if nothing is done about it- where Venezuelans are already participating -and suffering the consequences worldwide- without having anything to do with it, by the regime's grace and deed.
It would be far from what I would like to see happen if I did not agree with the aforementioned strategy, but as we will see below, we should be more realistic in putting all our eggs in one basket. Of course, Venezuela constitutes, in the hands of the transnational criminal relations system that governs it, and that has been built in 26 years, a current and potential danger not only for the US, but for the whole region, which should merit that the Venezuelan crisis is in all the plans and concerns of all governments and political leaders of the continent.
But one thing is what one would like to happen and quite another what happens in reality. One thing is the IS and another the should be. The United States, in the words of Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, at the General Assembly of the Organization of American States, OAS, had to threaten to withdraw from the OAS and stop financing it so that the members would understand its role in the hemisphere (although we still do not know if it was successful), taking the Venezuelan case as the main pivot:
“…Let’s look at some of the relevant cases. Last year, the entire world witnessed a brazenly stolen election in Venezuela. The opposition not only won overwhelmingly, but had the evidence to prove it – the “actas.” The regime didn’t even bother seriously to dispute the validity of the “actas” or the electoral fraud. In response to that brazen electoral fraud, what has this organization done? As far as we can tell, nothing of substance. The Chavez/Maduro regime has taken Venezuela from one of the most prosperous nations in our hemisphere to one of the most wretched, subjecting its people to abject poverty and political repression, and leaving millions with little choice but to flee. Many if not most of the nations represented around this table are home to hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of Venezuelan refugees. As recently as last month, the Venezuelan regime ran another sham legislative and regional election that lacked transparency and fairness and included a controversial vote purporting to elect Venezuelan representatives to govern Guyana’s Essequibo state. If this organization is unwilling or unable to respond to or remedy this situation, where a regime openly thumbs its nose at international norms and threatens the territorial integrity of its neighbor, then we must ask what’s the point of the organization.…”.
Later on, he added something that surely hurt those countries' pockets: “Secretary Rubio and I have to be able to tell our President and our people that our substantial investment in this organization benefits our country. I’m not sure that we’re in a position to do that right now, and I’m asking you in good faith to help me make that case.”, ending with a closing that can be considered historic, in support of what the OAS should be doing: “Colleagues, this is not a time for mere words and slogans about hemispheric solidarity. It’s time for the OAS to show results. Let’s stand with the people of Venezuela and Haiti not just in word but in deed. Let’s reject authoritarian and anti-democratic regimes and those that seek to pursue political vendettas through the judicial process. Let’s affirm our sovereign right to secure our borders, uphold democratic norms, and strengthen this organization through action, not rhetoric.” (see Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau at the Organization of American States General Assembly, in https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2025/06/deputy-secretary-of-state-christopher-landau-at-the-organization-of-american-states-general-assembly/ ) (highlighted our).
Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio know perfectly well that the new US policy under the Trump administration is NOT TO DEFEND ANYONE'S HUMAN RIGHTS (except of course those of US nationals), and in that scenario he has directly asked OAS members to assume that commitment in exchange for their budget, on pain of abandoning them. It is hard to say, but that is how it is.
And as I already pointed out in a previous note (see Venezuela and the U.S. strategic shift, in https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/p/venezuela-and-us-strategic-shift.html) this position is already a fact reviewed internationally by relevant U.S. foreign policy analysts: “The Trump administration’s “Americas First” policy arguably represents. a significant strategic shift away from the pursuit of U.S. strategic interests through nurturing global support for democracy, universal rights, and institutions Instead, Washington is taking a much more transactional approach, pursuing more concrete benefits through a combination of carrots and sticks. International relations scholars will long be debating the strategic impact, efficacy, and morality of that shift” (see R. Evan Ellis, Trump’s Foreign Policy Could Accelerate China’s Advance in Latin America, in https://revanellis.com/trumps-foreign-policy-could-accelerate-chinas-advance-in-latin-america) (highlighted our).
In opposition sectors in Venezuela, the US position expressed by Ambassador Landau at the OAS was applauded, which reminds us of the old line of US foreign policy prior to Trump's "America First", but reality tells us that "realpolitik" will end up prevailing, with the position of most countries voting for their ideological positions and economic pressures: "The last General Assembly of the OAS began on the wrong foot and controlled by the left. The new Secretary General, Albert Ramdin, made it clear: He is not going to call Nicolas Maduro a dictator even though the IACHR itself recognizes that he is responsible for state terrorism"... " The saddest thing about the OAS is that they have already determined not to call Maduro a dictator and therefore do not dare to demand the immediate release of almost a thousand political prisoners. They do not mention their names, their days of jail and torture because for the OAS there is no such thing as torture"..."The new OAS is going through a real earthquake. China has entered with more strength and wants to impose its agenda, while the United States is about to kick the table and withdraw from a good-for-nothing organization. Democracy is trading down and Beijing buys shares" (see in Spanish PanamPost, The new OAS does not want to call the criminals in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela dictators, in https://panampost.com/arturo-mcgields/2025/06/28/la-nueva-oea-no-quiere-llamar-dictadores-a-los-criminales-de-cuba-nicaragua-y-venezuela/) (highlighted our).
Therefore, given this unfortunate reality where Venezuelans are abandoned to our hemispheric fate, insisting on a single strategy that presents us before the U.S. and the world only as a criminal and humanitarian case to be solved by another, will necessarily have to change and be modified by a less passive and more proactive one, and that generates the attention, not only of an OAS in the hands of the left and extra hemispheric actors such as China, but of the Venezuelans themselves who expect their opposition to fulfill its fundamental promise to go "to the end". And this will never be achieved if what we expect to happen in Venezuela does not depend on Venezuelans. It is time to ground politics in reality. It is time to start thinking out of the box...
Caracas, June 30, 2025
Blog: TIC’s & Derechos Humanos, https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario