Red Ken blames Venezuela chaos on its president – for not executing his enemies
THE crisis in Venezuela is partly caused by the socialist regime’s failure to ‘kill all the oligarchs’, Ken Livingstone claimed yesterday.
Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro is facing global condemnation after a brutal crackdown that has seen thousands of activists locked up and more than 100 protesters killed.
Images of leading opposition politicians being bundled away by the state security services have been beamed around the world.
The regime’s mishandling of the economy in the oil-rich country has also led to shortages of basic goods and rampant inflation of more than 700 per cent.
But Mr Livingstone – like Jeremy Corbyn a longstanding cheerleader for Venezuela – yesterday dismissed reports of an authoritarian crackdown as ‘propaganda’. The former mayor of London acknowledged the country was suffering economic problems as a result of the slump in world oil prices. But he claimed social unrest was being orchestrated by the US and a small group of wealthy oligarchs who have never been reconciled to the regime’s Marxist agenda.
He suggested Venezuela would be in a better place now if Mr Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez had rounded up the oligarchs and killed them.
His comments came as Labour’s split over the crisis deepened after a senior ally of Jeremy Corbyn suggested the party leadership might now be closer to Mr Maduro than it is to Tony Blair.
Speaking to TalkRadio, Mr Livingstone said: ‘There are real problems and Maduro’s got to tackle them but ... he didn’t kill all the oligarchs, there was about 200 families who controlled about 80 per cent of the wealth in Venezuela, he allowed them to live, to carry on.
‘And I suspect a lot of them are using their power and their control over imports ... medicines and foods, to make it difficult and to undermine Maduro.’
Mr Livingstone insisted he was ‘not in favour of killing anyone’.
But he said wealthy families would ‘do anything to get rid of Maduro’ – and if they had been executed ‘they wouldn’t be able to undermine the present government’.
Mr Livingstone, a personal friend of Mr Maduro, laid the blame for the present crisis squarely at the door of Washington, accusing the US of ‘ screwing up’ Latin Amercian countries with socialist gov- ernments. He suggested the full truth about the crisis would not be known ‘for decades’ until secret American files are released.
Asked about the recent crackdown, Mr Livingstone said: ‘You have given me the propaganda that’s circulating around the world. The simple fact is people are trying to overthrow the government. You have armed people on the streets from the opposition killing people. You have got people blockading the import of food and medicine and so on.
‘If there is any evidence that Maduro wants to create a oneparty state I would immediately oppose that.’ Violence in Venezuela has flared in the wake of last weekend’s controversial election, which handed Mr Maduro’s regime sweeping powers to change the country’s constitution.
Incredibly, Mr Livingstone suggested Britain should follow Venezuela’s lead, saying: ‘I would like to see us do that here in Britain – that we have a real look at our constitution.’
It comes after Labour’s home office spokesman Chris Williamson refused to distance Labour from the Maduro regime during an appearance on the BBC’s Newsnight on Tuesday. He also ducked questions about whether he felt closer politically to the hard-Left regime or Mr Blair’s moderate New Labour approach.
Asked to choose between the two philosophies, Mr Williamson replied: ‘Look, I don’t like to characterise those things as a matter of Left and Right. Really to me it’s a matter of right and wrong.’
His evasive answer prompted condemnation from his fellow Labour MPs. Graham Jones, chairman of the new all-party group on Venezuela, accused Mr Williamson of ‘backing the wrong side’, saying: ‘You don’t have to be a supporter of Tony Blair to know that the answer is Tony Blair.’ Mr Jones also joined other Labour MPs in urging Mr Corbyn to speak out against the regime. The Labour leader has so far remained silent.
Following last weekend’s poll, the Maduro camp has been accused of vote-rigging, with the chief executive of the Smartmatic technology firm saying the result of the ballot had been tampered with.
Yesterday Mr Maduro denied the claim, saying: ‘That stupid guy, the president of Smartmatic, pressured to the neck by the gringos and the Brits, said there were 7.5 million [votes]. I think there were 10 million Venezuelans who went out.’
‘He allowed the oligarchs to live’