{"id":7789,"date":"2022-06-08T18:15:13","date_gmt":"2022-06-08T22:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=7789"},"modified":"2022-06-08T18:15:13","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T22:15:13","slug":"biden-sidelines-venezuelas-pro-democracy-leader-from-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=7789","title":{"rendered":"Biden Sidelines Venezuela\u2019s Pro-Democracy Leader from Summit"},"content":{"rendered":"
Opposition leader Juan Guaido speaks during an interview with the Associated Press in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Feb. 10, 2022. A little more than two years ago Guaido was showered with bipartisan applause during President Donald Trump\u00b4s state of the union speech, but now he has not been invited to the Summit of the Americas that is taking place on the second week of June in the United States. (AP Photo\/Ariana Cubillos, File)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A little more than two years ago, Juan Guaid\u00f3 was showered with bipartisan applause when President Donald Trump during his state of the union speech praised the Venezuelan opposition leader as a \u201cvery brave man\u201d who carries on his shoulders the democratic hopes of an entire nation.<\/p>\n

But in a sign of how far his political fate has fallen, and how quickly U.S. geopolitical calculations can shift, the 38-year-old wasn\u2019t even invited to this week\u2019s Summit of the Americas \u2014 despite the Biden administration\u2019s persistent promotion of democracy and insistence it recognizes Guaid\u00f3 as Venezuela\u2019s interim president.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the man Guaid\u00f3 has been trying to unseat, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, is taking something of a victory lap. On a rare foreign trip to Turkey this week, Maduro, who is the target of U.S. sanctions and a federal narcotics indictment, denounced the decision to exclude him and leftist allies from Cuba and Nicaragua from the gathering as a \u201cstab\u201d in the back of regional cooperation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a clear win for Maduro,\u201d Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of Americas, said from Los Angeles, where he was attending the summit. \u201cHe\u2019s seen allies take up his cause at the summit while preventing his primary rival, whom Washington recognizes as president, from attending.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

In what may be an attempt at damage control, Biden on Wednesday spoke with Guaid\u00f3. It was the first time the two leaders have spoken and during the call, which lasted around 17 minutes, Biden reiterated his support for Guaid\u00f3, whose claim to the presidency stems from his role as head of the National Assembly elected in 2015.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Biden expressed his support for Venezuelan-led negotiations as the best path toward a peaceful restoration of democratic institutions, free and fair elections, and respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all Venezuelans,\u201d according to a White House readout of the call. \u201cThey discussed the role the United States and other international partners can play to support a negotiated solution to Venezuela\u2019s crisis. President Biden reaffirmed the United States is willing to calibrate sanctions policy as informed by the outcomes of negotiations that empower the Venezuelan people to determine the future of their country.\u201d<\/p>\n

But coming on the heels of weeks of silence from the White House about whether Guaid\u00f3 would be invited or not, the call provided little comfort to Venezuela\u2019s pro-democracy movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to be seen as party crashers going where we aren\u2019t wanted,\u201d said one Guaid\u00f3 envoy on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic dealings.<\/p>\n

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan downplayed suggestions the U.S. was snubbing a staunch ally.<\/p>\n

Speaking aboard Air Force 1 on its way to Los Angeles, Sullivan insisted the decision to not invite anyone from the Guaid\u00f3 camp, and instead involve civil society activists from Venezuela, was a tactical one to encourage negotiations between Maduro and his opponents that leads to \u201cultimately a better future for the Venezuelan people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Guaido\u2019s possible presence at the summit also appears to have irritated many of the Venezuelan government\u2019s allies, including Mexican President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador, who decided to skip the summit over the exclusion of Maduro and the leaders of Cuba and Nicaragua.<\/p>\n

A Mexican official confirmed that his government asked the U.S. to exclude Guaid\u00f3 as part of its back-and-forth with the Biden administration on the guest list, an effort that ultimately failed to persuade L\u00f3pez Obrador to partake in the summit. The official, who requested anonymity to discuss diplomatic dealings, said that other countries had done the same.<\/p>\n

Joining the Mexican leader\u2019s boycott were fellow leftist leaders of Bolivia, Grenada, Honduras, St. Kitts & Nevis, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Also staying home in protest, although not in solidarity with Maduro, were the leaders of El Salvador and Guatemala, as well as the president Uruguay, who was exposed to COVID.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not just foreign pressure that has Biden wary of inviting Guaid\u00f3.<\/p>\n

Since Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine triggered a spike in energy prices, the U.S. has started to re-evaluate its policy on Venezuela, a country that sits atop the world\u2019s largest petroleum reserves but whose decades-long decline in oil production has been made worse by U.S. sanctions.<\/p>\n

\n

In March, U.S. officials led by Juan Gonzalez, the National Security Council\u2019s senior director for the western hemisphere, traveled to Caracas to meet with Maduro. Then, as now, Guaid\u00f3 was kept on the sidelines, with U.S. officials not meeting with him during the several day trip. The goal of the talks was to dangle before Maduro the possibility of sanctions relief in exchange for a return to negotiations in Mexico with his opponents, something that so far hasn\u2019t happened.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Guaid\u00f3 continues to fight for change, although his street appearances are less frequent, and crowds greatly diminished from when he launched his challenge to Maduro in 2019.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, his supporters were met in the western city of Maracaibo, a short distance from Colombia and a flight onward to the U.S., with a barrage of flying plastic chairs and fisticuffs from allies of Maduro.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe violent ones were left empty handed,\u201d Guaid\u00f3 told a small group of supporters to shouts of \u201cFreedom, Freedom, Freedom\u201d after the raucous brawl. \u201cLet\u2019s be clear: we are not going to take a single step backward.\u201d<\/p>\n

– Chris Megerian and Joshua Goodman, AP News<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A little more than two years ago, Juan Guaid\u00f3 was showered with bipartisan applause when President Donald Trump during his state of the union speech praised the Venezuelan opposition leader as a \u201cvery brave man\u201d who carries on his shoulders the democratic hopes of an entire nation. But in a sign of how far his…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":7791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/afs-prod\/media\/c108cb8e31e24b2899b37faa5f63b2f9\/800.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"Biden Sidelines Venezuela\u2019s Pro-Democracy Leader from Summit","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7789","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\/7789","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=7789"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7790,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7789\/revisions\/7790"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}