Maduro embracing chaos over recovery

THE EDITOR: Has anyone noticed that despite the ongoing news on Venezuela’s horrific economic disaster, the government seems to be doing very little to come up with workable solutions to the crisis?

Indeed, Venezuela has become the first country in living memory to transition from middle income to almost no income, while the government’s response has been as follows: devaluing the currency by about 95 percent, re-dominating new bills by dropping five zeros and pegging the new bolivar soberano to a non-existent, non-traded crypto currency called the petro. All of these optical financial refurbishments have not even impressed the regime’s few remaining friends.

In response to the dire unfolding humanitarian crisis there, many nations and international NGOs have offered assistance and have been turned away by President Nicolas Maduro. The only possible reason for this is because misery destroys civil society and its ability to confront dictatorship.

The situation has now become so dire in Venezuela that the majority of its citizens are now living on less than US$2 a month, while seven percent of the population has fled to neighbouring countries, creating a mini humanitarian crisis in those countries.

It all seems on course for Maduro’s plan to pauperise his opponents into such a weakened state that they are no longer able to effectively oppose his tyrannical regime. Similar to what the Cuban regime did in 1968, by confiscating all remaining private businesses, the Venezuelan private sector is now operating at ten percent of its capacity of 20 years ago.

So, the Venezuela Government has now virtually completed its takeover of all major economic activity, apart from allowing a few of its friends, willing to co-operate with the state, to amass wealth, even if through illicit activities or by granting access to inexpensive dollars using the government’s multiple exchange rates.

The end game is that Maduro is embracing chaos, despite the grave risks, over recovery, because when chaos reaches the depths it has in Venezuela for the past three years, it is more likely to destroy the opposition rather than the government. However, if you look at the state-run oil company PDVSA, where production is now less than half of what it was in 2016, you realise that the rot runs deep everywhere.

GREGORY WIGHT, Maraval