Wednesday, May 01, 2019

Is Venezuela's Uprising Over?


Word is that Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro has vanquished rival Juan Guaido. The decisive moment came yesterday when the military failed to shift allegiance to Guaido.

Now, the International Crisis Group is calling for some sort of reconciliation between the two sides.

Security forces easily subdued the uprising, but the fact that it followed a series of efforts since early this year to isolate, destabilise and split the government underlines not only the opposition’s inability to dislodge Maduro but also the government’s powerlessness to stifle its political foes. Much as talks between two deeply polarised sides and their respective foreign allies appear far-fetched, the stalemate in which they are locked, the high costs borne by the Venezuelan people and the risk of local or even international escalation mean that the country’s stability continues to depend on a negotiated settlement.
...The clear lesson from the 30 April events is that there can be no “winner-take-all” solution in Venezuela. The government remains in control of security forces, the electoral authority and the supreme court, but it cannot fix the economy without a political settlement that enables sanctions to be lifted and a competent team of technocrats to begin implementing a recovery programme. Nor can it silence public dissent except through repression. The opposition can still count on the devastating effect of sanctions, the threat of a U.S. military intervention (made more explicit than ever by Secretary Pompeo) and the belief that the armed forces will ultimately force Maduro out. But there is no evidence sanctions will bring the government down; repeated attempts to win over elements of the military have failed, and external armed intervention still seems a remote possibility that – if employed – would almost certainly fuel further instability through triggering prolonged conflict with pro-government armed groups and militias.

5 comments:

Trailblazer said...

The USA;s fracked oil will come back to haunt them.
They need a reliable source of conventional oil and Venezuela has lots of it.
Needless to say oil is the reason behind the new found hate of Mundurno.

TB

Purple library guy said...

I too have doubts about the longevity of fracked oil. The US is building new international policy based on a rather short-term change in their political economy. Mind you, by the time they're out of fracked oil, we will hopefully be well into a transition away from oil period and the whole web of oil-based politics will be in for some massive disruption.

As to "reconciliation"--yeah, because that's what you always do when someone tries to stage a military coup but has no support whatsoever, reconcile with them. In other news, I am the rightful Prime Minister of Canada and, although nobody noticed, I staged a military coup yesterday. I confidently expect Justin Trudeau to begin power-sharing consultations with me any minute now.

Trailblazer said...

We live in a world that lives for the moment with no thought of the future no matter how close it may be.
Fracked oil and gas are short term solutions with obvious detrimental effects on our future offspring ( but who nowadays gives a shit)
We may consider nowadays attitudes ill considered , lacking information or a multitude of get out of jail card free decisions!!
Truth is we have become much too selfish to be worthy of this magnificent planet!

TB

Northern PoV said...

Freeland ... supporting fascism shoulder to shoulder w tRump & Bolsonaro.

Oh, Canada indeed

Clarke said...

If Maduro actually used force on the opposition, we would see US marines hitting Caracas. For a brutal dictator, he has little power over the opposition. Indeed, a lot of the paramilitary violence is due to opposition forces.