President Nicolas Maduro, thoroughly corrupt leader of Venezuela, has just stolen another presidential election. No surprise, but there is hope of reversal.
Venezuela’s ongoing economic disaster has become a major political crisis. The deterioration of the nation’s economy has been unfolding steadily now for years.
This is the principal legacy of deceased left-wing President Hugo Chávez. Petroleum is a rich national resource, but gross mismanagement and strong international sanctions have devastated the economy.
Nonetheless, Maduro clings to power. In early January 2019, he was sworn in for a second six-year term following another stolen election. In response, Juan Guaido, leader of the legislature, tried to compete with the dictator for a time. He finally fled and now lives in Miami.
The regional dimensions of the situation are discussed less often.
Cúcuta, a town in neighboring Colombia, shelters a quarter million Venezuelans. Approximately 3 million in total are in Colombia, a leader in international relief efforts, despite their domestic challenges.
The FARC is the acronym for a powerful insurgent force, known in English as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. They embraced communism.
In 1959, Fidel Castro’s revolution was victorious in Cuba, which became a Soviet ally and pursued regional subversion. Venezuela today is close to Russia and China.
Early in this century, the FARC seemed to be gaining. The conflict resembled the first years of the United States’ war in Vietnam. More and more American advisers were sent, along with growing numbers of helicopters, arms and ammunition, and other materiel.
The administration of President George W. Bush significantly expanded aid that began in the Clinton administration and tried to minimize media attention. This effort was eerily reminiscent of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, which endeavored before 1965 to keep Vietnam out of the news.
The long war and unrest made Colombia inviting for powerful international criminals. In November 2011, Viktor Bout, the “Merchant of Death,” was convicted and imprisoned. A Soviet army veteran, he became enormously rich dealing weapons and drugs on a global scale.
Colombia was a major profit center for him. Drug Enforcement Administration agents posing as Colombian rebels arrested him. Also in 2011, the U.S. Congress ratified trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea.
Then violence in Colombia began to decline, in great contrast to the evolution of the war in Southeast Asia. After years of war, the FARC agreed to disband. In late 2016, Colombia ratified a peace agreement. That is important and a direct reflection of substantial, real strategic change in Latin America.
There are other encouraging political developments in the challenged country. Unpopular Colombian President Iván Duque Márquez in 2022 was succeeded by Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla in the M-19 revolutionary movement.
The foundation of regional cooperation in Latin America is relatively strong. The Inter-American Pact for Regional Security — “Rio Pact” — was signed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1947, before the NATO Treaty in 1949 and two years after the meeting of the United Nations in early 1945 in San Francisco, even before World War II concluded.
Early in the life of the United States, President James Monroe promulgated his famous Monroe Doctrine, warning European powers to stay out of inter-American affairs. Fortunately for the new U.S. republic, Great Britain had identical interests. The British fleet enforced the edict.
The Monroe Doctrine proved important during the Cold War, and in earlier efforts by Germany to establish influence.
Arthur I. Cyr is the author of “After the Cold War – American Foreign Policy, Europe and Asia.” Contact acyr@carthage.edu.