Venezuela: Where lies the truth?

THE EDITOR: The continuing crisis in Venezuela has significant implications for us in TT, not the least being the unchecked migration of thousands of desperate Venezuelan nationals to our shores creating severe strains on the national security and law enforcement system, our burdened social services, the already challenged housing situation, the labour market and other areas.

For there to be any abatement of this massive exodus, it seems obvious that the situation in Venezuela has to change in a positive way, including a reformation or displacement of the ruling regime, preferably through non-violent and constitutional means, as a first step to revival of the economy and a restoration of hope and confidence amongst the population.

We cannot even begin to contemplate this scenario except we attempt to examine with some objectivity the reasons for Venezuela’s descent into socio-economic chaos and political disarray. It cannot be seriously argued that the situation there is exaggerated or non-existent when a whopping 15 per cent of the total population representing a cross section of it has fled in desperation.

I have posed a number of questions for which, if we can even find tentative answers, may bring us nearer to the truth about the reality of the crisis and its genesis.

1. Has the crisis in Venezuela emerged primarily as a result of US sanctions and how much truth is there to the claim by the US Embassy that the Venezuelan economy was in serious decline before August 2017 when sanctions were imposed?

2. Has the US embargo included the exports of essential supplies of food and medicine to Venezuela and, if not, were the supplies that were received equitably distributed?

3. Has the effect of US sanctions been partly neutralised by the support that Venezuela has received from Russia, China and Iran, placing it in their spheres of influence?

4. How much was the decline in oil output due to government-inspired corruption and mismanagement at PDVSA and how much effect did this decline and that of oil prices have on the precipitous decrease in government revenues and the collapse of the economy and the currency?

5. Was much of Venezuela’s windfall oil revenues not only mismanaged and misappropriated but dissipated in promoting massive popular but unsupportable welfare schemes and the satiation of Hugo Chavez’s ambition for regional hegemony through Petro Caribe?

6. Is it true, as the US Embassy claims, that President Nicolás Maduro apportions a significant sum of the limited revenues available for the purchase of weapons and for financial support for military and security personnel instead of buying food and medicine?

7. Is there a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela and, if so, to what extent has it been engendered not only by a collapse in the economy but by severe suppression of political dissent and harsh restrictions on political freedoms?

8. How accurate is the report of the UN Commission for Human Rights on the existence of widespread human rights violations in Venezuela and the commission of certain crimes against humanity?

9. How much credence should be placed on the accounts of Venezuelan migrants on the dire situation in that country?

10. If, as is alleged, Maduro still has significant support among Venezuelan citizens, does he enjoy majority support?

11. Why is Maduro reluctant to hold free, fair and transparent elections open to all representative aspirants and accessible to international observers, thereby unquestionably establishing his political legitimacy?

12. Has Maduro, the alleged victim of aggression by the US, now become the aggressor against Guyana and what is the motivation for this adventure?

TREVOR SUDAMA

San Fernando