Venezuela’s road to ruin
The oil-rich South American country, once a byword for wealth and glamour, has been turned into a poverty-stricken hell-hole by its communist dictator
iT WAS hailed as the jewel of Latin America, a paradise of tropical beaches, spectacular mountains and wild floodplains. It boasted no fewer than 22 beauty pageant winners, including 12 Miss World and Miss Universe winners between 1979 and 2013. And underpinning it all were its oil reserves, the world’s largest.
As recently as 15 years ago Venezuela was South America’s most powerful petro-economy, with a president whose vision of a socialist utopia bankrolled by more than a trillion barrels of black gold had seen unemployment rates halved, income per capita doubled, infant mortality reduced and education improved. But today it is a country on the brink of collapse.
According to the International Monetary Fund Venezuela now has the world’s worst economic growth and the highest inflation, currently 720 per cent but expected to rise to 2,000 per cent within the year. The currency is worthless, with banknotes costing more to print than their face value.
This has resulted in a nationwide humanitarian crisis. Eighty two per cent of Venezuelan households now live in poverty. Official figures claim an 87 per cent shortage in food and medicine. Malaria has multiplied tenfold since 1999, maternal mortality is up 67 per cent in the past year and infant mortality up 30 per cent since 2012. Fifty-four per cent of Venezuelan children are malnourished.
Violence is endemic. It has the second highest murder rate in the world and nationwide protests against the government have resulted in 120 deaths in the past four months.
BUT if the figures are shocking, the stories of human suffering are heartbreaking. In a House of Commons debate Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh highlighted the plight of some of the 5,000 British-Venezuelan citizens whose families remain there.
One of her constituents, Marifel, related how her brother, a doctor, has to carry out surgery by torchlight as the hospital has no electricity. “Patients need to bring everything with them, from bed sheets to antibiotics,” Marifel said. “The X-ray machines are not working and nor is simple equipment to take blood pressure.”
Another, Jennifer, explained how drinking water is rationed and how she has to send her 93-year-old grandmother vital medicines by post as “the doctors treating her told us that the medicines she needed were no longer available to them”.
A third constituent called Leana teams up with her mother to send monthly “care packages” to their family. “They can’t afford to live. The price of the items you can actually find in the supermarkets is unobtainable. People eat out of rubbish bins.”
So how did a country that once epitomised glamour and so rich in natural resources fall into such chaos? The answer lies in the socialist vision of former president Hugo Chavez – and how it has been abused by his successor Nicolas Maduro.
When the charismatic Chavez came to power in 1999 his presidency coincided with an unprecedented oil boom: his reforms were bankrolled by a rise in oil prices that saw a trillion dollars pour into the Venezuelan economy. By the time of his death in 2013 he was hailed by many as an exemplar for socialism, with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn tweeting: “Thanks Hugo Chavez for showing that the poor matter and wealth can be shared.”
His successor, however, has presided over an economic cataclysm. A year after Maduro took power, oil prices crashed and the Venezuelan economy collapsed. Suddenly it became apparent that Chavez’s vision was built on sand. With little industry outside oil production, Venezuela continued to rely on imports for its most basic goods and as the currency devalued these became prohibitively expensive.
Alongside this, corruption has reached unprecedented levels. Even as the population starves some £260billion has “disappeared” from state coffers.
VENEZUELA has also become a key route for cocaine cartels, with ties extending to the highest levels of government. Last year two of Maduro’s nephews were found guilty of conspiring to smuggle 800kg of cocaine into the US.
Maduro has also stifled democracy, setting up a rigged “constituent assembly” to replace Venezuela’s equivalent of our parliament, postponing elections, imprisoning political rivals and cracking down on protests.
In response the UK government has vowed to put pressure on Maduro to resolve the situation, with Sir Alan Duncan, Minister for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, stating: “Venezuela stands on the brink of disaster. The Venezuelan government must pull it back from the brink. They must engage with the opposition, restore democracy and respect the human rights of all its citizens.”
Many believe the scale of the crisis means tangible action has to be taken. “Humanitarian relief simply isn’t getting through,” says McDonagh.
“Parliament needs to act now through targeted sanctions against individuals in the Venezuelan government, by freezing assets, enforcing travel bans and preventing UK companies doing business with them.
“The scale of suffering is horrific. And we shouldn’t let parliamentary point-scoring distract us from the starvation, suffering and murder of the Venezuelan people.”