Venezuela: Solidarity in the aftermath of U.S. attack

MOGC senior program officers Lisa Sullivan and Dan Moriarty led a webinar, “Venezuela: Behind the Headlines,” on January 8, in which Sullivan, a returned Maryknoll Lay Missioner who lived for 30 years in Venezuela, shared perspectives from people on the ground. That presentation led to others with international partner organizations, including a virtual gathering of North and South Americans to explore new structures for solidarity between faith groups in Latin America and the U.S.

Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro’s vice president, is now acting president of Venezuela. She and the rest of the repressive apparatus of the Maduro regime are still firmly in place. Armed “colectivos” patrolled the streets in the wake of the U.S. attack, threatening anyone who spoke in favor of it.

There have been a few encouraging signs – some, but not most, political prisoners have been released. But Rodriguez was sworn in as acting president, maintaining that Maduro is still the rightful president. If she were named president, the Venezuelan Constitution dictates that she would have to call for elections. By remaining as acting president, she can remain in power at least through U.S. takes over control h the end of the year.

President Trump did not mention elections or human rights once during his press conference the day after the strike. He mentioned the released prisoners in his February 24th State of the Union address, but did not mention democracy or human rights more broadly. Instead, he has repeatedly spoken about oil.

Sullivan poses the question: is Venezuela really escaping dictatorship, or simply being refashioned into a new, U.S. petro-client state? She recounts the long history of Venezuela’s natural resources being exploited by foreign powers, and how the government of Hugo Chavez, who took power in 1999 and, at a time of record-breaking international oil prices, was able to turn the country’s oil wealth into historic social programs for impoverished Venezuelans who had been ignored by previous governments. But “Chavismo” devolved into authoritarianism, particularly under the dictatorial rule of President Maduro after Chavez’s death in 2013. Mismanagement and the decline of global oil prices meant leaner times for Venezuela, but U.S. economic sanctions turned those pressures into a full-blown crisis. By 2018, the country was suffering from the largest peacetime economic collapse in history – the equivalent of three Great Depressions. The average Venezuelan lost 20 pounds, and Sullivan herself turned to community farming, working with youth in her neighborhood to eke every calorie they could from the earth as 1.7 million percent inflation made buying enough food impossible. Roughly one in four Venezuelans fled the country, with only a small fraction migrating to the United States.

Now, it seems the principal interest of the United States in Venezuela is to bring the country’s vast oil reserves – the world’s largest – back under the control of U.S. corporations. Trump promises that the profits will benefit U.S. citizens first, but also Venezuelans. It is not clear how quickly or effectively the country’s oil can actually be extracted, or how the two governments plan to share the resulting profits with their citizens.

Sullivan reports that her many contacts in Venezuela are feeling some hope with Maduro gone, but also much anxiety. House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters after being briefed on the attack, “This is not regime change; this is a demand for change in behavior by a regime.” As some of the most powerful and repressive figures from the Maduro government remain in place, Delcy Rodriguez meets with the heads of the CIA and U.S. Southern Command, the U.S. takes control of Venezuelan oil revenue, and illegal U.S. military strikes on civilian boats in the Caribbean continue unabated, it is unclear what kind of change the U.S. ultimately seeks, and what it will mean for ordinary Venezuelans. Meanwhile, factions within Venezuela could split, and the threat of further U.S. military intervention hovers should the government prove an inadequate partner for U.S. interests.

MOGC is collaborating with the Churches and Mining Network and other partners across the Americas to discuss what international solidarity means today. Latin American partners were quick to draw connections between U.S. military interventionism in Venezuela and elsewhere, and the militarism of ICE raids on display in Minneapolis and other U.S. cities. Solidarity means not forgetting the plight of the Venezuelan people, including among migrants. But, whereas U.S.-Latin America solidarity has traditionally involved U.S. civil society groups supporting Latin Americans suffering U.S.-fueled violence, today, a new South-North solidarity is emerging in response to authoritarian violence in the United States, Venezuela, and beyond.

FAITH IN ACTION: Use and share our Prayer for the People of Venezuela.

Photo: courtesy of Andrés Silva, available on public domain via Unsplash.