WILSON CENTER ON VENEZUELA: RESPECTED SCHOLARS CHOOSE PRAGMATISM OVER ETHICS

 La traducción al español saldrá más tarde/Spanish translation follows later on (after my lunch)

The most recent report on Venezuela from Washington DC based Wilson Center: “Venezuela in 2023 and Beyond: Charting a New Course” is the collective effort of a formidable array of U.S. and Venezuelan scholars who fully deserve both my respect and my vigorous disagreement.

Read it here:

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/uploads/documents/Venezuela%20in%202023%20and%20Beyond-%20Charting%20a%20New%20Course_Wilson%20Center_Latin%20American%20Program_January%202023.pdf

The report is signed, as its main author, by Abraham Lowenthal, and cosigned by Cynthia Arnson Wilson Center, Paul Joseph Angelo, PhD,  Javier Corrales Amherst College, Larry Diamond Stanford University,  Laura Gamboa University of Utah, Benjamin Gedan Wilson Center,  Sergio Jaramillo European Institute of Peace.  Maryhen Jimenez Oxford University and Wilson Center,  Miriam Kornblith National Endowment for Democracy, Jennifer McCoy Georgia State University, Keith Mines United States Institute of Peace, Francisco Monaldi Rice University,  Michael Penfold Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración,  John Polga-Hecimovich U.S Naval Academy,  Christopher Sabatini Chatham House, David Smilde Tulane University and Harold Trinkunas Stanford University.

With one or two exceptions this is a real “dream team” of political scientists, with sufficient gravitas, which cannot be suspected of group thinking, although their multiple individual occupations could have generated a slight tendency to compromise.

 The authors of the report state at the outset: “all of us recognize that negotiated transitions from authoritarian rule are not about finger-pointing but about repairing. We all believe that the only way for Venezuela to exit its stalemate is by sustaining the negotiating process to craft agreements that address the interests of both the Venezuelan government and the democratic opposition. These agreements should serve the needs of all Venezuelans by articulating a set of shared goals and by laying the foundations for how that vision should be achieved. We ground our approach on years of studying Venezuela and on the insights of practitioners and scholars who have fashioned or analyzed successful democratic transitions in many regions throughout the world’.

Such a paragraph indicates that the main line of thinking behind the report is more intent on looking ahead rather than looking back, emphasizing forgiveness rather than punishment and favoring pragmatic over principled solutions.  The authors believe that the Maduro regime would be capable and willing of establishing “shared goals” with the democratic Venezuelan population and also believe that negotiations can be made to satisfy the interests of both sides.  

Frankly, I find these assumptions highly questionable, as if manufactured in a laboratory rather than based on observations of Venezuelan reality. The basic assumption of the authors seems to be that the two sides have differences of opinion but share a common desire to solve the Venezuelan tragedy. Based on this assumption they go on to believe that the two sides can agree on the how, since they seem to agree on the what. In my view they are being excessively credulous.

However, this is consistent with their previous work.  Abraham Lowenthal has written on this topic extensively, including a valuable joint work with Sergio Bittar:  “Democratic Transitions. Conversations with World Leaders”, in which they describe a group of “successful” transitions to democracy, based on strategic patience, the recipe they now advise to Venezuelans.

  Strategies that might have worked in some countries do not necessarily work in others. More importantly, most of the cases that Lowenthal and Bittar have defined as successful have not resisted the test of time. South Africa, Chile, Spain, touted by these authors as examples of successful transitions to democracy have simply proven to be, in the famous words of Naim and Piñango about XX century Venezuela, “Illusions of Harmony”. In those countries the sweeping of the authoritarian dirt under the rug has mistaken as effective cleaning, although they have not been a permanent solution.  Although the only way to effectively clean the house is to take the dirt to the pit and burn it, this is not what the report is advising.

The authors go on to claim that 89% of Venezuelans support negotiations, basing this statement in polls conducted in Venezuela. I cannot disprove these claims but I would certainly love to see a reliable organization such as Gallup conducting a poll to confirm this assertion, since the voices I hear belong mostly to the other 11%.

The authors continue saying: “The negotiations are also not likely quickly to eliminate deep resentments among Venezuelans or to produce an immediate economic recovery. They will not produce effective democratic governance from one year to the next. In fact, there is no certainty that the Maduro administration will accept the possibility of negotiating itself out of autocratic power through agreements on free and fair elections. There is no other venue, however, where humanitarian relief, human rights, electoral issues, re-institutionalization, and economic recovery can be effectively addressed in tandem”.

Although the authors admit the process will take a long time and even agree that Maduro might use it as a way to extend his dictatorship without guarantee of agreeing to free elections they add that this is the only valid alternative for Venezuela.

I am not sure that the only road open to Venezuelans is the road to surrender and having to sit at the table with their oppressors, a humiliation bound to castrate them in their dignity, reduced to hoping that Maduro and his gang will agree to cede political  power and consent to be made accountable for their horrible crimes. I find this surreal. No society has ever won freedom by begging for it. Freedom has to be won, cannot be supplicated. I think a valid alternative to negotiating with Maduro is civic rebellion, a course of action that requires inspiring leadership along the lines of Churchill and De Gaulle, not Chamberlain and Petain.

The report continues: “it will also depend on Venezuelans with different ideas and loyalties taking incremental steps in the direction of democratic coexistence and pragmatic problem-solving and coordinating The chances that the negotiations will lead to significant positive changes will mainly depend on whether the Maduro government seriously engages in the process, and on whether the democratic opposition overcomes its structural weaknesses and broadens its political base with the international community to promote mutual compromise. Both sides should propose and accept cooperative ways to tackle shared problems. They will each need to make hard bargains on concrete issues. That takes courage”.

In this paragraph the authors asks Venezuelans to engage in “democratic coexistence and pragmatic problem-solving and coordinating”. I strongly differ. The last 20 years of Venezuelan history has been a horror story of death, hunger, repression theft, money laundering and drug trafficking by the gang in power. Thousands of Venezuelans have died, hundreds have been tortured and millions have had to leave the country with what little they had in their pockets. This horror cannot be glossed over in favor of “democratic coexistence and pragmatic problem solving”. I am sorry. I know the authors desire the best for the country but this cannot be it. This would be a repetition of the strategy of sweeping the dirt under the rug. What the authors call “strategic patience” would become a catalyst for the preservation of the status quo.

The report mentions as “the most concrete step forward” the recent agreement “between the Maduro government and the PU (unitary platform), with the blessing of the U.S. government, to create a Social Fund, to be administered by the United Nations, to address humanitarian crises in the country. The Venezuelan government and the Unitary Platform jointly agreed on a shared governance structure to unfreeze more than $3 billion in Venezuelan overseas assets to provide food aid and invest in the country’s crumbling infrastructure, including the electric power grid, hospitals, and public schools”.

This agreement lauded by the authors has two caveats. One is that much of that money is not accessible since it is tied to legal actions taken against the Maduro regime by debtors. The other is that Maduro’s ideas about the utilization of this money are totally different to the ideas of democratic Venezuelans, therefore chaos is bound to prevail. Who can believe in Maduro’s good intentions after the manner in which he has wasted the millions of dollars of oil income and has been for some time now actively engaged in illegal drug and mineral traffic?

The authors say: “Renewed U.S. escalation of harsh coercive measures is not likely nor would it be justifiable; that approach would only harden hostilities”. This paragraph is music to Maduro’s ears and clearly favors the submissive attitude which the democratic opposition would have to adopt.

The report adds: “Officials in the Maduro camp also no doubt seek assurances that they will not lose their political rights, or be subject to revenge or retribution, if they eventually give up power. In prior transitions from authoritarian rule, efforts to assure democracy, stability, memory, and justice have nearly always been in tension, and reconciling these in Venezuela will not be easy. But other transitions from authoritarian rule have managed – through persistent, focused effort – to develop solutions that combine principle and pragmatism”.

To combine principle with pragmatism is weak advice and already suggests a dilution in the application of justice. This approach has been at the heart of continued dissatisfaction and unrest in countries that have experienced only a timid and “pragmatic” application of justice. The authors unwillingly send a message to the Maduro gang to assuage their fears about retribution. Although they warn Maduro’s gang that It will not be easy to protect them, they add that there will be a combination of principles and pragmatism. 

Still worse,  the report ends: “Democratic coexistence:   well before negotiations can reach a final stage, it will be important that the Maduro administration and the Unitary Platform, as well as other elements of Venezuelan society, take practical and visible steps to facilitate democratic coexistence among Venezuelans… “.

Excuse me. Democratic coexistence with the Maduro regime is, in my opinion, a moral nono, which would send a terrible message to the Venezuelan population: CRIME PAYS. We would be buying an alleviation of our current tragedies at the expense of the country’s future sense of national pride and dignity, a spiritual asset without which no society can live at peace with itself or produce worthy citizens.      

Political Science is important and a valid tool to use in trying to solve a country’s tragedy but it has to be accompanied by the ethical component. The Venezuelan tragedy has important political, social and economic components but it also has a fundamental ethical component, which I feel is being neglected by the political sector in favor of excessive pragmatism. I have a degree in political science (Johns Hopkins) but I am more of a geologist. In geology there is such a phenomenon as an unconformity, the juxtaposition of rocks of different ages and composition. Geologists know they do not belong together. In Venezuela the Maduro regime and the democratic and freedom loving Venezuelans are an example of an unconformity.  In the field of ethics they do not belong together.  

                     Geological Unconformity: Maduro above, democracy below