{"id":6798,"date":"2019-04-07T23:44:28","date_gmt":"2019-04-08T03:44:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=6798"},"modified":"2019-04-07T23:44:28","modified_gmt":"2019-04-08T03:44:28","slug":"venezuelas-power-struggle-reaches-a-tense-stalemate-as-human-suffering-deepens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=6798","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela\u2019s Power Struggle Reaches a Tense Stalemate, as Human Suffering Deepens"},"content":{"rendered":"
Venezuelans have faced food and medicine shortages since late 2015. Now power outages have cut off water supplies, too. AP Photo\/Natacha Pisarenko<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even in a country where crisis has become the norm, the past month has been eventful for Venezuela.<\/p>\n

On April 3 Juan Guaid\u00f3, the Venezuelan National Assembly president who is leading an effort to remove President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro from office, was stripped of his parliamentary immunity<\/a>. Arrest seems increasingly likely. Guaid\u00f3\u2019s chief-of-staff was jailed<\/a> on March 22, on charges of organizing a \u201cterrorist cell.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two days later, two Russian military planes carrying 35 tons of unspecified equipment and 100 soldiers landed<\/a> at the international airport in Caracas.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, three blackouts left over 90 percent of the country in the dark<\/a>. Since water pumps need electricity to run, neighborhoods and families were forced to organize water rationing systems<\/a> or fetch water from polluted rivers and streams.<\/p>\n

Maduro blames the blackouts on \u201csabotage<\/a>\u201d by Guaid\u00f3 and the United States. The opposition blames government corruption and neglect of Venezuela\u2019s energy grid.<\/p>\n

Thousands of Venezuelans protesting the power outages<\/a> on March 30 were met with violent repression. Counter-protestors came out to support the Maduro government<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These extraordinary events may give the appearance that armed conflict is on the horizon<\/a>. But having researched Venezuela for over 25 years, I believe a prolonged deadlock \u2013 and deeper human suffering \u2013 is the more likely result.<\/p>\n

International conflict<\/strong><\/p>\n

Each side in Venezuela\u2019s political struggle has powerful international backers.<\/p>\n

Guaid\u00f3 has been coordinating with the Trump administration<\/a> since before assuming the interim presidency, and Trump has made regime change in Venezuela a foreign policy priority<\/a>. Over 50 countries now recognize Guaid\u00f3 as Venezuela\u2019s legitimate president.<\/p>\n

Maduro\u2019s government retains important support from Cuba, Turkey and China \u2013 though China, which has loaned Venezuela some $60 billion<\/a> over the last 12 years, has diminished its public backing of Maduro.<\/p>\n

Russia has become Maduro\u2019s most important ally. The Russian military equipment and personnel<\/a> sent in March will likely help maintain and operate Venezuela\u2019s sophisticated Russian-made S-300 air defense system, which protects the capital and key military bases from air attack.<\/p>\n

The missile defense system may have been damaged in recent power outages, or left understaffed by desertions from Venezuela\u2019s military.<\/p>\n

In a March 29 press statement<\/a>, White House national security adviser John Bolton called<\/a> Russia\u2019s military assistance to Venezuela a \u201cdirect threat to international peace and security in the region\u201d that will \u201cperpetuate the economic crisis that has destroyed Venezuela\u2019s economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russian officials retorted that the deployment is part of a prior bilateral arms trade agreement with Venezuela<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States is present in many parts of the world and no one is telling it where it should or shouldn\u2019t be,\u201d said Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s spokesman Dmitry Peskov<\/a> at a March 28 Kremlin press conference.<\/p>\n

Regime change stalled<\/strong><\/p>\n

Venezuela\u2019s opposition coalition and its allies in the U.S. appear to have thought that global rejection of Maduro\u2019s re-election and Guaid\u00f3\u2019s assuming the interim presidency \u2013 coupled with threats of a U.S. military invasion and sanctions on Venezuelan oil \u2013 would lead Venezuela\u2019s armed forces to turn against Maduro. That would then usher in a democratic transition.<\/p>\n

Recent events have shown that this strategy was simplistic.<\/p>\n

More than 500 Venezuelan soldiers<\/a> have defected to Colombia and Brazil. But most have stayed loyal, as have the generals who hold high positions in Maduro\u2019s government<\/a>. And Maduro has shown himself quite adept at using dispersed violence to discourage dissent.<\/p>\n

Despite President Donald Trump\u2019s repeated mentions of a \u201cmilitary option\u201d for dealing with Venezuela, it\u2019s become clear in recent weeks that the U.S. has no actual plans for military action<\/a>. Indeed, it does not have significant military assets in position near Venezuela.<\/p>\n

Venezuela\u2019s armed forces are the fifth most powerful in Latin America<\/a>, according to Global Fire Power, which ranks military strength. It has around 200,000 troops<\/a>, a volunteer militia, plus paramilitary forces<\/a> and a fleet of Russian Sukhoi fighter jets.<\/p>\n

The presence of Russian troops in Venezuela further complicates any plans for U.S. intervention. Russia is a nuclear power, so incurring Russian casualties is probably too big of a risk for the U.S. to take<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Adam Isacson, a defense expert at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights organization, suggests that removing Maduro by force would not only kill thousands<\/a> of people on the ground, it would likely require tens of thousands of U.S. troops to occupy Venezuela for years in order to stabilize it.<\/p>\n

Outside of south Florida, where some 200,000 Venezuelan exiles are clamoring for Maduro\u2019s ouster, few Americans would have an appetite for such a prolonged operation.<\/p>\n

U.S. economic sanctions<\/a> \u2013 which are now targeting Venezuelan oil \u2013 appear to be hurting the Venezuelan people more than Maduro\u2019s government.<\/p>\n

That will only make a democratic transition more elusive. Depriving the Venezuelan government of cash and credit will impede it from fixing the electrical grid<\/a> by preventing the purchase of new equipment. And without electricity and water, Venezuelans, who in their vast majority oppose Maduro, will be concentrating on survival rather than protest.<\/p>\n

Working for peace<\/strong><\/p>\n

An international effort led by the European Union, Uruguay, Ecuador and Costa Rica<\/a> is seeking to negotiate new elections. Calling itself the International Contact Group, this coalition has sent technical teams to Caracas twice to meet with the Maduro government and the opposition<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The International Contact Group has not actually found much interest on either side.<\/p>\n

The opposition and its allies in the Trump administration still believe<\/a> that their strategy of political pressure and economic punishment will lead to the government\u2019s collapse. Maduro, it appears, thinks he can hunker down and wait out the storm<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There is one glimmer of hope.<\/p>\n

After years of political wrangling over humanitarian aid, on March 29 the International Committee of the Red Cross announced that it had brokered agreements with both the Maduro government and the opposition. They will allow the Red Cross to distribute food and medicine<\/a> to Venezuelans, who have suffered severe shortages of both since 2015.<\/p>\n

The United Nations estimates<\/a> that 94 percent of Venezuela\u2019s population now lives in poverty, and a quarter of its people urgently need humanitarian assistance.<\/p>\n

The Red Cross deal shows what can be achieved with \u201csatellite diplomacy\u201d \u2013 that is, negotiations that engage with rival factions independently rather than requiring them to meet face to face.<\/p>\n

This is significant. It is the first time that this diplomatic technique has succeeded in Venezuela\u2019s conflict.<\/p>\n

In the best-case scenario, the humanitarian aid agreement will stick. And it could serve as a model for how international actors can facilitate a democratic transition in Venezuela.\"The<\/p>\n

David Smilde<\/a>, Professor of Sociology, Tulane University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even in a country where crisis has become the norm, the past month has been eventful for Venezuela. On April 3 Juan Guaid\u00f3, the Venezuelan National Assembly president who is leading an effort to remove President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro from office, was stripped of his parliamentary immunity. Arrest seems increasingly likely. Guaid\u00f3\u2019s chief-of-staff was jailed on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":7291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/267213\/original\/file-20190402-177175-1seg8fc.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Venezuela\u2019s Power Struggle Reaches a Tense Stalemate, as Human Suffering Deepens","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-polity-governance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6800,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6798\/revisions\/6800"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}