Chaos zone
As Venezuela descends, the region tries to respond
Wednesday’s U.N. Security Council emergency meeting and recent actions by the Organization of American States and the South American Union indicate movement on the grave situation in Venezuela, which is approaching anarchy.
Venezuela, under the incompetent and increasingly violent rule of President Nicolas Maduro, is showing signs of problems that far surpass what could be considered normal unrest in a developing Latin American country. Health care has collapsed; worse, Venezuelans are showing signs of widespread national hunger.
The nation of 32 million possesses the largest proven oil resources in the OPEC group. But with world oil prices down since 2014, Venezuela’s economy has hit the skids — it depends on oil for 94 percent of its export earnings, making it a prime example of the problems inherent in a single-product economy.
Mr. Maduro succeeded President Hugo Chavez, a demagogue who aspired to be a revolutionary figure, in 2013. Mr. Maduro is in office, in principle, until 2019. He has the support of just 25 percent of the population, but, more critically, the nation’s security forces are on his side, kept on board through pay and corruption.
Demonstrations have been virtually a daily occurrence since early April, and at least 42 people have died. Perhaps most ominously, in view of the impact on Venezuela’s neighbors, Brazil, Colombia and Guyana, more than a million Venezuelans have simply fled the country as refugees.
The neighbors are responding, dealing with the problem of Venezuela as a regional problem.
The Organization of American States met on the subject of Venezuela’s plight April 26, calling for a timetable for new elections and a release of political prisoners, of which there are many. South American Union foreign ministers will meet in Ecuador Tuesday to address Venezuela’s humanitarian and political crisis.
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley called the Venezuelan problem a case of “serious instability” and compared it in gravity to those in Syria, North Korea, South Sudan, Burundi and Myanmar, a list that Venezuela should not be on, given its resources.
It is correct from a U.S. point of view that the Latin Americans address the Venezuela problem as a regional issue. America has little leverage there in any case, having become a villain in the eyes of the Chavez and Maduro regimes when it prematurely recognized a failed coup d’etat against Mr. Chavez during the George W. Bush administration. At the same time, Venezuelans suffering from a serious lack of food and medicine, in economic misery, even if self-inflicted, is painful and embarrassing to all Americans in the same hemisphere.