The ink has just dried on the first agreements of the dialogue between the regime of Nicolás Maduro and the Unitary Platform of the opposition. Initially, Maduro wins the unfreezing of more than 3 billion dollars and an LG41 license is announced for Chevron to carry out “limited” operations with Venezuela. In exchange for all this, the regime promised to continue the dialogue. Nothing more.
Although the fine print of the agreement says that the United Nations will help to allocate the funds to social issues such as health, education, energy, food security and natural disasters, Maduro has never respected any type of international arbitration and less when it comes to “sovereign money”
How did we get here?
In January 2019, the National Assembly of Venezuela declared Juan Guaidó as interim President of the nation. The decision was encouraging and had the overwhelming support of the democracies of more than 50 nations around the world. In 2020 the pandemic arrived, the political configuration of the Americas changed, and in 2022 the war in Ukraine came upon us. Almost four years later, the number of Venezuelan migrants increased from 4 to 7 million, Maduro continues to be screwed to power and political prisoners continue to rot in the regime’s prisons.
Dialogue without pressure is extortion
Corina Machado, Coordinator of Vente Venezuela and one of the most critical voices of the dictatorship, has made it clear that Maduro does not want to dialogue with the opposition but rather to extort money from the international community. “What can come out of a “negotiation” table that in practice has been an extortion table? A good cut for each of those represented, including the UN. Who represents the Venezuelans there? No one. What do people get? Nothing,” Machado said.
Colombia is a bad mediator
The Colombian government, which has not had the courage and integrity to openly and clearly condemn the crimes against humanity in Venezuela, is not an ideal mediator but rather an ideologized actor. The Colombian government has described taking the Maduro regime before the International Criminal Court as a serious mistake. President Gustavo Petro himself has proposed that the sanctions against the dictatorship be eliminated, that an amnesty be given for all its crimes and that a coexistence pact be agreed for the elections and after them. In other words, total impunity.
AMLO’s Mexico even worse
The government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) lacks the slightest credentials to promote democracy and human rights. Obrador has defended the dictatorships of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela without shame or embarrassment, and even tried to sabotage the last Summit of the Americas, just because he did not invite the aforementioned dictators. The Head of State of Mexico has never lent his voice to condemn the violations of human rights in Venezuela and he has not condemned out loud the abuses of the criminal regimes of Nicaragua and Cuba.
Migrants must be part of the dialogue
There can be no effective and real dialogue without taking migrants into account. It must be guaranteed that the 7 million Venezuelan migrants can have the right to vote and be granted the essential documents to exercise this and other rights, including passports or any other official identification document, which they do not have. Consideration should be given, and rightly so, to include other countries receiving thousands of Venezuelan migrants such as Ecuador, Chile or Brazil in the dialogue. They, too, have had to pay the piper for the self-inflicted crisis of the 6-foot-tall dictator.
Maduro’s ambiguous message
Before beginning the dialogue, Maduro clearly said that he was going to talk, but that “foreign governments are not going to come to impose anything on Venezuela. Not today, not ever.” Hours later, the dictator celebrated the agreements and said that “a new chapter for Venezuela is opening, in order to continue advancing towards Peace and well-being that all Venezuelans yearn for.”
The dictator won. Maduro, without doing anything, received in record time a bath of legitimacy as Head of State, 3 billion dollars and the green light for oil operations. Now, although a bit late, strong international pressure is needed for the dictator to open the doors of Venezuela to human rights organizations, release political prisoners and stop the savage ecocide of blood gold. This can be a good start and a sign of good faith. pay per view
*The author was the Nicaraguan ambassador to the OAS and a former member of the Norwegian Peace Corps (FK)
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