Prevent War with Venezuela

It is clear that President Donald Trump’s goal is regime change; his administration is not even trying to hide it. And his allies, like Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., have long made it obvious what they are after.

It would be a terrible mistake to keep going down this road. Trump’s policies have only worsened the suffering of Venezuelans and made it almost impossible for the country to pull out of its prolonged economic depression and hyperinflation.

A negotiated solution is necessary to resolve the political conflict in Venezuela, yet the Trump administration’s commitment to extralegal regime change is rapidly precluding this option. Worse still, Trump’s apparent strategy is to increase suffering through sanctions — more of which were announced — until a fraction of the military carries out a coup to create a new, pro-Washington government.

The fairness of the 2018 presidential election, which the opposition boycotted, is up for debate, but the main problems with the regime change strategy have to do with other considerations. Venezuela is a polarized country and overthrowing the government — even if Washington were not involved in the fight — would only increase this polarization and the chances of greater violence or even civil war.

Venezuela is polarized along political lines and has been ever since Hugo Chávez was elected president in 1998 and launched his Bolivarian Revolution. The opposition’s attempt to overthrow Chávez in a military coup in 2002, aided and abetted by officials in the George W. Bush administration, as well as the opposition leadership’s vacillating willingness to accept the results of democratic elections in subsequent years laid the groundwork for many years of distrust.

Venezuela’s political polarization, however, also intersects with a great chasm that permeates most of Latin American society: a division by class and race. As in most of the Americas, the two are correlated. In the opposition protests that have occurred over the past decade, one could see these differences in the clothes worn by pro- versus anti-government protesters and in their skin tones. The opposition crowds and their leaders have been considerably whiter and from higher income groups than Venezuelans who supported the government. In the most recent protests, there has been an increase in anti-government actions in working-class and poor areas in Caracas, but the class and racial divide between Chavistas and opposition has not gone away.

Another line of Venezuelan polarization is the belief in sovereignty and self-determination. The Chavistas have made independence from the U.S. a centerpiece of their agenda, and their government, when it had money, pursued policies in the hemisphere that sought more independence for the region as well. The opposition and enemies of the Chavista governments, by contrast, have worked closely with the U.S. government for the past two decades — as can be seen in the coordination of this latest attempted coup. Washington’s intervention aggravates the polarization along the lines of sovereignty, and opens the opposition to charges of alignment with a foreign power — and a power that has historically played a terrible role in the region. To appreciate the animosity that this would create, think of how much ill will has been generated in the U.S. by Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential election, and multiply that by a few orders of magnitude.

The polarizing impact of the Trump regime change operation is what makes it so dangerous. The economy has been plagued by hyperinflation and it is estimated to have shrunk. Millions have left the country to look for work. The opposition could have won the last presidential election if they had participated and mostly united around a single candidate. (For the record, the U.S. reportedly threatened an opposition candidate who did participate, Henri Falcón, with personal financial sanctions if he ran for president.)

Though the government’s economic policies have played a role in Venezuela’s woes, the Trump sanctions have made things considerably worse since August 2017, decimating the oil industry and worsening shortages of medicine that have killed many Venezuelans. The Trump sanctions also make it nearly impossible for the government to take the necessary measures to exit from hyperinflation and depression.

Though the U.S. media is quiet on the matter, it’s important to note that the Trump sanctions are both violently immoral — again, they kill people — and illegal. They are prohibited under the Organization of American States Charter, the United Nations Charter, and other international conventions that the U.S. is party to. The sanctions also violate U.S. law, since the U.S. president must state, absurdly, that Venezuela presents “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security” of the United States in order to impose these measures.

Venezuela cannot exit from this political crisis by one side vanquishing the other, as the proponents of regime change assume. The Vatican played a role as mediator in 2016, and Uruguay and Mexico — who have remained neutral in the political conflict — offered to help mediate. But the Trump team is a powerful influence on the opposition, and they have so far shown no interest in a peaceful solution.

Just Foreign Policy is working to urge Congress to push back against the Trump administration’s dangerous and destructive regime change strategy. We are asking members to do the following:

• Oppose economic sanctions:  Although government mismanagement and the fall in global oil prices are to blame for much of Venezuela’s deep crisis, the Trump administration’s economic sanctions — both the August 2017 financial sanctions and the January 2019 sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry — are resulting in billions of dollars of additional lost foreign exchange necessary for essential imports, according to experts and even administration officials like NSC Advisor John Bolton.  In the current context these sanctions will inevitably generate greater human suffering, including many deaths from lack of medicine and other essential imports.  Unilateral economic sanctions are illegal under the UN Charter and the OAS charter.
• Oppose threats of military intervention: President Trump has reportedly argued for military intervention in Venezuela since early 2017, while he and various other administration officials have repeatedly stated that “all options are on the table” for Venezuela. These threats are absolutely unacceptable, particularly regarding a country that poses no threat to the U.S., and are only increasing the immense political polarization in Venezuela.  Members of Congress should firmly denounce these threats and make the adoption of the “Prohibiting Unauthorized Military Action in Venezuela Act” a top priority.  They should also commit to invoking the 1973 War Powers Resolution in the event that President Trump and his Administration involve the military in any action directed at Venezuela, thereby triggering a debate and vote in Congress to terminate any unauthorized use of force.
• Support dialogue: US administration officials have rejected the possibility of dialogue and, instead, have pushed for immediate regime change in Venezuela, calling for Venezuela’s armed forces to rebel against the Maduro government.  Experts have warned that this strategy could result in a split within the country’s military, with a potentially catastrophic violent outcome.  Members of Congress should oppose the administration’s dangerous zero-sum strategy and advocate for peaceful dialogue. The Vatican, the UN Secretary General, Mexico and Uruguay have all offered to help mediate dialogue and political negotiations to resolve the current crisis peacefully.  Congress should support these efforts.

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