Brian Daniel Quiroz Murillo
U.S. sanctions are exacerbating Venezuela's economic woes, and the country has lost access to credit and the ability to attract investment. The dire situation has led to waves of emigration, and suffering of those who remain. There is mounting reason to believe the crisis-marred nation is being hurled into an armed conflict involving U.S. forces.
After disappearing for a few days following his “swearing in” as president, Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido emerged in a wealthy area of the country’s capital to speak to supporters about his plans and priorities.
“Radio Caracas TV (RCTV) will reopen again soon,” the thirty-five-year-old said to thunderous applause, referring to the television station whose broadcasting license was not renewed in 2005. The measure lead to a series of protests by opponents of then-president, Hugo Chavez.
“Not only that, but there will be soap operas again, and these created jobs,” Guaido continued.
Prior to his self-proclamation as president of the South American nation before an estimated 50,000 people on January 23, Guaido a little-known political actor whose rapid ascent into the international scene has surprised many on both sides of the country’s political divide. He rose to become head of Venezuela's opposition-controlled National Assembly before declaring that President Nicolas Maduro was illegitimately elected for a second term.
The unprecedented event, denounced by Maduro and other leaders as a coup, touched off surreal sidebars . . .
The unprecedented event, denounced by Maduro and other leaders as a coup, touched off surreal sidebars, including state media releasing a video said to depict a meeting between Guaido and government figures. Guaido initially denied having held talks, only to later concede that meetings had taken place.
With the drama surrounding Guaido’s self-proclamation garnering much of the spotlight, other more grave developments, including numerous deaths of protestors at the hands of security forces, have gone largely unnoticed. And there is mounting reason to believe the crisis-marred nation is being hurled into an armed conflict that could involve U.S. forces.
The United States and the governments of Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, and Chile, are pushing to recognize Guaido as the country’s leader and making overtures to Venezuela’s armed forces to rebel.
On Saturday, Venezuela’s military attaché in Washington, D.C., Colonel José Luis Silva, became the highest serving military official to break ranks with Maduro. The following day, opposition leaders delivered a “law” to the country’s navy offices offering amnesty for military officials who switch sides switch allegiances.
Ex-military leaders have also declared their intentions to mount an armed campaign against Maduro’s government should it survive this current standoff, while Guaido himself has confirmed his team has been meeting “discreetly” with sectors of the military.
Some observers, even those closely aligned with the opposition, have warned that splits and power struggles within the military could descend to territorial divisions and armed conflicts between factions, as occurred in Libya or Syria.
Alejandro Velasco, a Venezuelan historian at New York University, says this is a real possibility.
“I continue to think that that’s not a far-fetched scenario, and it’s long been on the table,” Velasco told me in a recent interview.
According to Velasco, who is executive editor for NACLA Report on the Americas, Silva’s defection is “significant,” but many in the upper echelons of the Venezuelan military are sticking with Maduro.
“Some of the military ranks are rebelling, but what we are not seeing is people at the general level, or at the colonel level,” Velasco says. “At least for now, the government seems to retain the loyalty of the higher commands but also be well-poised to control and to arrest anybody within the middle ranks who would rebel.”
Officially, Venezuela’s top military brass continue to recognize Maduro as the country’s president, but key leaders have also raised the specter of civil war.
Officially, Venezuela’s top military brass continue to recognize Maduro as the country’s president, but key leaders have also raised the specter of civil war.
“We are here to avoid, at all costs . . . a conflict between Venezuelans,” Defense Minister and General Vladimir Padrino Lopez said in a televised address.
The intensifying pressure on Venezuela by Guaido’s allies, especially those in Washington, may have the desired effect of pushing the military to break with Maduro. But if this does not occur, U.S. President Donald Trump and others in his administration have asserted that “all options on the table.”
Most economists fault government policies for driving Venezuela’s economic plight. But economic sanctions and pressures from Washington, D.C., have significantly exacerbated the nation’s woes. Venezuela has lost access to credit and the ability to attract investment, and the Trump Administration has levied sanctions to prevent the country from issuing bonds. This has led to waves of emigration and the suffering of Venezuelans who have remained in the country.
External efforts to bolster Maduro’s adversaries include millions channeled to rightwing, anti-Chavista groups, and U.S. political leaders have openly touted their support for leaders of Venezuela’s historically fragmented opposition.
As has now been widely reported, the plan to have Guaido proclaim himself as president was organized weeks in advance, with active participation of opposition allied countries including the United States and Canada.
Asserting Washington’s right to act “in our hemisphere,” Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton recently signalled the Administration’s intentions to seize Venezuelan oil assets in the United States.
The U.S. Treasury has now given Guaido control over U.S. bank accounts of the Venezuelan government and Venezuelan Central Bank, and at the same time, placed sanctions on the country’s state oil firm, PDVSA. In the U.K., the Bank of England has refused to allow Maduro’s government access to the gold deposited in Venezuela’s account’s there.
According to Velasco, this significant uptick in antagonisms between Venezuela and the U.S. means that a form of military invasion involving U.S. troops is likely.
“Like a Grenada scenario from 1983,” Velasco said, referring to President Ronald Reagan’s invasion of the small Caribbean island following a coup that killed leftist leader Maurice Bishop. “A small number of troops on the ground which would signal the intention and the will part of the United States to actually take a strong presence, and would be enough to tilt the scales for others.”
Some governments and bodies have urged calm and dialogue, and Maduro has agreed to accept offers of mediation by Mexico and Uruguay. But the risk of intervention grows as the drums of war pound harder.
Diosdado Cabello, president of the National Constituent Assembly and Chavista hardliner, told viewers on his television show last week that “the only thing left for them an American invasion.”
But Cabello, who is also a former military man who lived through the 2002 coup attempt, also promised resistance.
“It is likely that they will enter Venezuela, but the problem will be how they will leave Venezuela, because we will become Vietnam . . . . They underestimate us.”