Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro. Photo Credit: Kremlin.ru

Venezuela: Civil Rebellion May Be Only Resort Against Maduro Regime – OpEd

By Luis Fleischman
From: www.eurasiareview.com

Two Spanish-speaking media outlets interviewed me. In those interviews, I pointed out that I do not see a solution to the Venezuelan crisis except through civil war. Neither interview was published as they were probably considered to be inflammatory.

However, I was not inciting violence. I reached an inevitable conclusion.   

Several facts led me to such a deduction. 

Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro disclosed his intention not to give up his power early in the process. He disqualified Maria Corina Machado from running after she received overwhelming support in the opposition primaries.   

Maduro also blocked the presence of international observers in Venezuela. He also denied entry to a plane that carried former Latin American presidents and leaders. 

By contrast, the Maduro government, like Putin during the Russian presidential elections, brought international observers from more than 100 countries . These pseud-observers were militants sympathetic to his regime, whose function was to confirm a false electoral result that would give the government a victory. Among those “observers” were the Argentinean Fernando Esteche, leader of the pro-Iran group “Quebracho,” María Teresa Pérez, spokesperson for the extremist left Spanish party “Podemos,” Rodrigo Londoño (Timochenko),  a former commander-in-chief of the rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Ernesto Samper, a former Colombian president accused of having received funding from Drug cartels, and dozens of other militants from Latin America and Spain.  

Those who believed in the process were painfully disappointed. 

So, like in Ukraine in 2004, Venezuelan citizens who felt betrayed took to the streets in protests.   Thus far, the regime killed twenty-four people, and more than 1,400 people have been arrested. Some people are missing, and their fate is unknown.  The Venezuelan regime is known for carrying out “forced disappearances,” a method practiced by Southern Cone military dictatorships in the 1970s and 80s.  

Meanwhile, members of the Organization of American States (OAS) disagreed on a resolution calling for the publication of evidence of election results and to stop the persecution of opponents. Seventeen member states voted in favor of the resolution, 11 abstained, and five other countries did not send a representative to the meeting. Brazil and Colombia abstained, while Mexico did not send representatives. Mexico’s president, Andres Lopez Obrador, has been a strong advocate of non-intervention in the internal affairs of sovereign countries, and Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio “Lula” Da Silva, has been an apologist and a supporter of the Venezuelan dictatorship. To add cynicism to such a shameful attitude, Lula claimed that Maduro’s regime has “an unpleasant authoritarian bias, but it is not a dictatorship.” 

 Yet, the brave OAS Secretary is seeking to secure an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for Maduro.

To be realistic, even if the OAS reached 18 votes to approve the resolution on Venezuela, the countries have little power to enforce anything practical. Even if the United States applied maximum economic pressure through sanctions, a totalitarian entity like the current Venezuelan government would do everything possible to stay in power, even if it means sacrificing its people. It is enough to look at the Cuban and Iranian regimes, both of whom are allies and models for Maduro. Furthermore, governments of countries such as China, Russia, and Turkey will provide Maduro with all the help it needs to survive.  

The military has been politicized and co-opted into the regime’s criminal machine. Its leaders have been bribed, and dissidents have been purged. The government has given the military control over primary national resources such as mining, oil, food distribution, and customs. The “alliance between the people and the military” has become an alliance of the military with the regime. A scenario where the military abandons the government is unlikely, more so when the regime’s spying machine is closely watching them. 

In her recent book How Civil Wars Start, the political scientist Barbara Walter claims that after all non-violent means fail to achieve the goal, the most extreme elements take over and resort to violence. I would say that in the case of Venezuela, the non-extremist elements are also left with no choice but to resort to violence. 

At this point, I believe that if Venezuelans no longer wish to live as enslaved people for the rest of their lives, they are likely to resort to violence. If a rebellion breaks out, the United States and other powers in the free world must make sure it succeeds.   

Luis Fleischman, Ph.D., is a professor of Sociology at Palm Beach State College, co-presdient of the Palm Beach Center for Democracy and Policy Research and the author of the book “The Middle East Riddle: The Peace Process and Israeli-Arab Relations in a Changing Times.”