Dear Editor,
Beatrice Rangel, a former Chief of Staff to former Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez, has said that a desperate President Nicolas Maduro may well order military intervention into Guyana as a means of trying to divert attention from his internal troubles, but not a single platoon of the armed forces of Venezuela will obey that order.
“It is not going to happen. The military is too fragmented,” she said in response to questioning by former Guyanese diplomat Wesley Kirton about such a possibility during a forum here on Thursday, titled “Voices from Venezuela”, put on by the Council of the Americas.
Rangel had earlier argued that the Venezuelan president is desperate, and is being “propped up” by a number of international criminal organisations, including the Russian and Chinese Mafia and the Colombian drug cartels, which are believed to be currently directing the Maduro regime’s every move.
She criticised the international community’s lack of action on brokering a solution to the crisis in the once oil rich Latin American republic, saying that the violence, which is likely to erupt this Sunday, may force it to act.
The Opposition and the Government are scheduled to hold votes this month, the Opposition holding a referendum on Maduro’s leadership this Sunday and Maduro holding a vote for a constituent assembly on July 31. This could be the bloodiest day in Venezuela’s recent history, Rangel said, pointing out that this may be the occasion for the Organization of American States (OAS) to invoke the Inter-American Democratic Charter and request the United Nations (UN) Security Council to address the crisis in Venezuela.
Rangel said the OAS resolution, which fell short of passage by three votes at the recent General Assembly in Cancun, Mexico, was a result of threats and scare tactics carried out by Venezuela’s mafia connections, which forced countries like neighbouring Trinidad and Tobago to abstain on the resolution out of fear.
She said these groups have been terrorizing Trinidadian fishermen off the coast of Tobago, making life difficult for Tobagonians. However, a representative of one of Trinidad and Tobago’s non-governmental organizations participating in the forum later told me that Rangel’s analysis was flawed, and that his country’s abstention had to do with future joint exploitation of oil and gas resources that are to be found in the maritime space of the two neighbouring countries.
Asked about the role of the oil industry, Rangel said that is a complicated architecture of relationships, and accused Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA, of helping to finance and facilitate companies and interests whose access to finance and financial institutions has been cut off as a result of US sanctions placed on them. She cited, as an example, a reported recent telephone conversation between Maduro and Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which Putin suggested that Maduro may want to ensure he operates within the Constitution, and Maduro responded that such advice could force him to ask Russian oil interests to leave Venezuela.
As for a solution to the crisis in Venezuela, Rangel said the international community has to broker a deal, but in the process of negotiation, has to recognise that it is not dealing in an environment of traditional negotiations, and therefore has to be tough, offering Maduro the option of peaceful exile or imprisonment.
She also argued that there will have to be the emergence of a new political entity to counter-balance the current Opposition. The new political party would have to be one that would represent the interests of the working and middle classes that supported the late Hugo Chavez.
The forum also heard from a number of other presenters from Venezuela, including Jose Domingo Mujica, National Coordinator of the Electoral Assembly of Education; University Professor Juan Manuel Raffle, and journalists Marianela Balbi and Nathan Crooks, Venezuela Bureau Chief, Bloomberg.
President of the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA), Mike Mc Cormack, and President of the Transparency Institute of Guyana, Dr. Troy Thomas, were among participants in the forum from CARICOM member states.
Regards,
Wesley Kirton
