Amerikancı darbeler Sinan Meydan 28 Ocak 2019

Amerikancı darbeler / Sinan MEYDAN

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Amerikancı darbeler / Sinan MEYDAN

gönderen Oğuz Kağan » Pzt Oca 28, 2019 12:08

Amerikancı darbeler

II. Dünya Savaşı sonrasındaki soğuk savaş döneminde İran'dan Guatemala'ya Endonezya'dan Şili'ye birçok ülkede Amerikancı darbe yapıldı. Musaddık'tan Arbenz'e Sukarno'dan Allende'ye kadar pek çok devlet başkanı Amerikancı darbeyle devrildi.

23 Ocak'ta Venezuela'da ABD destekli muhalefet lideri Juan Guaido kendisini geçici devlet başkanı ilan etti. ABD, Guaido'yu geçici devlet başkanı olarak tanıdı. ABD Başkanı Donald Trump, “ABD'nin ekonomik ve diplomatik gücünü Venezuela'da demokrasi sağlanması için kullanacağını” söyledi.

Tarihsel yönden bakınca durum şu: ABD, soğuk savaş döneminden itibaren, “petrol zengini” veya “ABD karşıtı” ülkeleri, darbelerle kendi çıkarına göre şekillendirdi. Bugün Venezuela'da yaşanan da budur.

ABD'nin derdi, Venezuela Devlet Başkanı Nicolas Maduro'nun “diktatörlüğü” veya Venezuela'da “halkın perişanlığı” değildir; ABD'nin derdi, kendi emperyal çıkarlarıdır.

ABD'nin yakın geçmişte “demokrasi götürme” bahanesiyle gerçekleştirdiği belli başlı darbeler, bu yargıyı doğrulamaktadır.

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İRAN'DA MUSADDIK'A DARBE: (OPERASYON AJAX)

İran'da, Muhammed Musaddık, 20 Mart 1951'de meclis kararıyla İran petrollerimi millileştirdi. Böylece İngilizlerin İran petrolü üzerindeki ayrıcalıkları sona erdi. Daha önce İran'ın petrol üretimi İngiltere-İran ortaklığındaki Anglo-İran Oil Company'ın elindeydi. (Bu şirket daha sonra British Petroleum'a -BP- dönüşecektir). Anglo-İran Oil Company, İran petrol gelirinin yüzde 84'ünü kendisi alıyor, yüzde 16'sını İran'a bırakıyordu. İngilizler, İran petrolüyle zenginleşirken İranlılar yoksulluk içinde yaşıyordu.

İran petrollerinin millileştirilmesi, İngiltere ile ABD'yi çok endişelendirdi.

Öyle ki İngiltere, önce İran'ı işgal etmeyi bile düşündü, ama daha sonra bu düşünceden vazgeçti.

İngiltere, İran'ı işgal etmek yerine İran'a karşı “ekonomik savaş” başlattı. İran petrolüne ve mallarına ambargo koydu. İran'la ticareti durdurdu. Hatta İran'da darbe planladı.

İngilizlerin İran'da darbe planladıklarını öğrenen Musaddık, İran'daki İngiliz Büyükelçiliği'ni kapattı, çalışanlarını sınır dışı etti.

Mart 1953'te CIA, “Operasyon Ajax” adlı bir darbe planı için çalışmaya başladı. Operasyona İngiliz istihbaratı MI6 da destek verdi. Operasyonun amacı, bir halk ayaklanmasıyla Musaddık'ı devirmekti. ABD, CIA ajanı Kermin Roosevelt'i İran'a gönderdi. Roosevelt, İranlı gazetecileri, aydınları, vaizleri, polis memurlarını satın aldı. Başkent Tahran'da olaylar çıkardı. Musaddık'ın aslında bir Yahudi ve komünist olduğu söylentisini yaydı. CIA güdümündeki İranlı çeteler, mollalara saldırdılar.

Musaddık, İran Şahı Muhammed Rıza Pehlevi'nin darbecilerle iş birliği yaptığını öğrendi. Şahı, ülkeden kaçmaya mecbur etti.

İran'da ilk darbe başarısız oldu.

Bunun üzerine Kermin Roosevelt, General Fazlollah Zahedi'yi saklandığı yerden çıkardı. O sırada İtalya'da bulunan Şah Muhammed Rıza Pehlevi, Zahedi'yi İran'ın yeni başbakanı olarak atadı.

İran'daki ikinci darbeden sonra darbeciler Musaddık'ı ve on binlerce destekçisini tutukladılar. Bazıları idam edildi. Musaddık “vatana ihanetten” yargılandı ve hapsedildi. Şah Muhammed Rıza Pehlevi İran'a geri döndü.

2013'te açıklanan gizli belgeler, 1953 İran darbesindeki CIA parmağını gözler önüne serdi. Öyle ki belgelerden birinde açıkça “Askeri darbe, ABD dış siyasetinin bir parçası olarak CIA yönetiminde gerçekleştirildi” deniliyor. Belgelerde, CIA'nın, Musaddık karşıtı haberleri yayarak darbeye nasıl ortam hazırladığı da anlatılıyor.

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Bu nedenledir ki darbeden sonra İran Şahı Pehlevi, İran darbesini hazırlayan Roosevelt'e şöyle demişti: “Tahtımı Tanrı'ya, halkıma, orduma ve size borçluyum!”

İran'da Musaddık'ın bir Amerikancı darbe ile devrilmesinden sonra İran petrollerinin yüzde 40'ı, beş Amerikalı petrol şirketinin kontrolüne bırakıldı. Darbeden sonra ABD, İran'a 68 milyar dolar acil yardım yaptı.

Amerikancı darbeyle iktidara gelen Şah Pehlevi, ABD'nin desteğiyle, hileli seçimlerle ve yeni kurulan istihbarat örgütü SAVAK sayesinde 25 yıldan fazla İran'ı yönetti.

ENDONEZYA'DA SUKARNO'YA DARBE

Endonezya, 1949'da Hollanda sömürgesi olmaktan kurtulup bağımsız oldu. Bağımsızlık hareketinin lideri Ahmet Sukarno da başkan oldu.

Sukarno, antiemperyalist bir liderdi. 1955'te Bandung'da düzenlenen bir konferansta Asya, Afrika ve Ortadoğu'dan tam 29 ülke liderini bir araya getirdi. Burada bağımsızlık hareketlerini destekleme ve milli kaynakları kontrol etme kararı alındı.

Sukarno, SSCB ve Çin ile çok iyi ilişkiler kurdu. Doğu Avrupa'dan silahlar satın aldı.

ABD Dışişleri Bakanı John Foster Dulles, Sukarno'yu ABD çıkarlarına karşı bir tehdit olarak görüyordu.

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1957'de ABD Başkanı Eisenhower'in onayıyla CIA, Endonezya'da Sukarno'ya yönelik askeri darbeyi destekledi. CIA, ABD uçaklarıyla darbecilere yardım etti. Buna rağmen Eisenhower, bu darbedeki ABD etkisini reddetti.

1957 darbesi başarısız oldu. Fakat CIA, Sukarno'yu devirme planından hiç vazgeçmedi.

1965'te Sukarno, Endonezya'nın bir atom bombası deneyeceğini duyurdu. Bu arada Endonezya'daki ABD Haber Ajansı Kütüphanesine el koyuldu. Endonezya'daki ABD Konsolosluğu yağmalandı. Amerikalılara ait olan Caltex şirketinin 160 bin dönüm toprağı kamulaştırıldı.

1 Ekim 1965'te Sukarno, CIA desteğiyle kendisini devirmek isteyen 6 generali yakalayıp öldürdü. Ancak Savunma Bakanı ile General Suharto kaçmayı başardı.

1 Ekim 1965'te Suharto liderliğindeki ordu, Amerikancı bir darbeyle Sukarno yandaşlarını etkisiz hale getirdi.

Sukarno karşıtı kışkırtılmış çeteler, Endonezya Komünist Partisi üyelerine saldırdılar. New York Times'daki ifadeyle “Bu saldırılılar, modern tarihin en vahşi toplu katliamlarından biriydi.” Birkaç ay içinde Endonezya'da, çoğu ABD silahlarıyla, 500 bin ile 1 milyon arasında komünist ve solcu vahşice katledildi. 1 milyona yakın komünist ve solcu da hapsedildi.

Endonezya'da, 1967'de Sukarno'nun yerine Suharto başkanlığa getirildi.

ABD'nin adamı Suharto, yabancı sermayeyi yeniden baş tacı yaptı. Kamulaştırmaya son verdi. Yabancı petrol şirketlerine yeni imtiyazlar verdi.

1965 Amerikancı darbesinden sonra Endonezya yıllarca askeri diktatörlerin yönetiminde kaldı. Endonezya halkı, yıllarca yoksullukla ve hatta açlıkla pençeleşti.

GUATEMALA'DA ARBENZ'E DARBE

1950'de Guatemalalılar, demokratik bir seçim sonunda Albay Jacobo Arbenz Guzman'ı başkan seçtiler. Başkan ilk konuşmasında özellikle sosyal adalete vurgu yaptı.

Arbenz, hiç vakit kaybetmeden Guatemala'da sanayi yatırımları yaptı. Tarımı modernleştirdi. Toprak reformu yaptı.

Guatemala ekonomisini, United Fruit Company adlı bir yabancı şirket kontrol ediyordu. United Fruit, Guatemala'nın demiryollarını, limanlarını, hatta muz bahçelerini bile ele geçirmişti. Arbenz, toprak reformuna, işte bu United Fruit'in 234 bin dönümlük arazisini kamulaştırarak başlamak istedi. Arbenz, ülkesini yabancı şirketlere soydurmak istemiyordu.

Bunun üzerine ABD Başkanı Truman, 1952'de Arbenz'i devirmek için kolları sıvadı.

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1954 başında ABD'nin, sürgündeki Guatemalalı Albay Castillo Armas'la anlaştığı söylendi. Bunun üzerine Guatemala hükümeti, Çekoslovakya'dan silah istedi. ABD yetkilileri, Arbenz'in bu hamlesini, ABD'ye yönelik büyük bir “komünist tehdit” olarak yorumladılar.

Bu arada CIA, Guatemala'daki Arbenz hükümetini zayıflatmak için büyük bir kara propagandaya başladı.

1954 yazında, Albay Castillo Armas'ın eğittiği paralı askerler, ABD hava desteğiyle Honduras ve Nikaragua'daki üslerinden harekete geçip Guatemala'ya girdiler. Arbenz ilk saldırıyı önleyince ABD Başkanı Eisenhower, Castillo Armas'a yeni savaş uçakları gönderdi. Amerikancı darbeye yenilen Arbenz, 1954 yazında iktidarı askeri cuntaya teslim etti. ABD, darbe içinde darbe yaptı: Cunta başkanını zorla görevden alıp yerine Castillo Armas'ı yeni hükümetin başkanı olarak görevlendirdi.

Kısa bir süre sonra Armas, Washington'u ziyaret etti. ABD Başkanı Nixon'a, “Bana yapmamı istediğiniz şeyi söyleyin hemen yapayım!” dedi. Bunun karşılığında, sonraki iki yılda 90 milyon dolar ABD yardımı aldı. Castillo Armas, Guatemala'da askeri bir diktatörlük kurdu. Toprak reformundan vazgeçti. Yabancı yatırımcılara kolaylıklar sağladı. Muhalifleri hapse attı. United Furit Company'nin topraklarını geri verdi. Armas, 3 yıl sonra bir suikasta kurban gitti.

ŞİLİ'DE ALLENDE'YE DARBE

Şili, dünyanın en önemli bakır üreticilerinden biriydi. Şili'nin bakır üretimi Amerikan sermayeli iki şirketin elindeydi.

ABD, 1964'teki Şili başkanlık seçimlerinde sosyalist Salvador Allende'ye karşı, ılımlı Eduardo Frei'ye yardım etti.

ABD, daha sonra da Şili'deki anti-komünistleri desteklemek için milyonlarca dolar harcadı.

Sosyalist Allende, 1970 başkanlık seçimlerinde yeniden aday oldu. Allende, milli üretim, eşit bölüşüm ve ABD şirketlerini kamulaştırma vaatleriyle seçime girdi.

ABD'nin tüm çabasına rağmen Allende –çok az bir oy farkla- seçimleri kazandı.

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Allende 3 Kasım 1970'de göreve başladı.

5 Kasım 1970'de ABD Başkanı Richard Nixon, Ulusal Güvenlik Konseyi'ne “Allende'yi devirme” emri verdi.

Nixon, CIA'nın Şili'de iki yönlü bir operasyon yürütmesini istedi:

1- Allende'yi gözden düşürmek için propaganda yapmak… Allende'nin başkanlığının Şili Kongresi'nde onaylanmasını engellemek için temsilcilere rüşvet verip onları satın almak…

2- Gerekirse bir askeri darbe planlamak…

Birinci yöntem denenip de işe yaramayınca ikinciye geçildi. ABD, Şili'nin ekonomik ve siyasi istikrarını bozmak için çalışmaya başladı. Dünya Bankası, Şili'ye ekonomik yardımı kesti. CIA, Allende muhaliflerine yardım etti. Şili'de Allende karşıtı kara propaganda yürütüldü. Hükümet karşıtı gösteriler ve şiddet eylemleri başlatıldı.

Buna karşı Allende hükümeti, 1971'de Amerikan sermayeli madencilik şirketlerini kamulaştırdı.

4 Aralık 1972'de Allende, Birleşmiş Milletler'de, ABD'nin, seçilmiş bir hükümeti ekonomik yaptırımlarla, devirmeye çalıştığını anlattı. “Biz buna emperyalist küstahlık diyoruz” dedi. Ülkesini sömüren yabancı şirketlerinden açıkça şikâyetçi oldu.

1973'te CIA, Şili ordusundaki bazı generallerle ilişki kurdu. Allende'yi bir askeri darbeyle devirme planını hayata geçirdi.

11 Eylül 1973'te Ordu Komutanı General Augusto Pinochet, Allende'yi devirmek için orduyu harekete geçirdi. Başkanlık sarayı kuşatılırken Allende Şili halkına radyodan son kez şöyle seslendi: “İstifa etmeyeceğim… Yaşasın Şili… Yaşasın halkım!”

Allende, emperyalizme teslim olmak yerine intihar etti.

Şili'de darbeci diktatör Pinochet başa geçti. “Ölüm Kervanı” adı verilen bir terör rejimi kurdu. 3200 muhalifini katletti. On binlerce muhalifine işkence yaptı. Pinochet'in suikast mangaları Şili dışında da 13 binden fazla insanı öldürdü. Yüz binlerce insanı toplama kamplarına attı.

Bu kadar mı? Tabi ki hayır!

Paraguay'da, Brezilya'da, Bolivya'da, Uruguay'da, Arjantin'de, Yunanistan'da, Vietnam'da ve daha pek çok ülkede Amerikancı darbeler oldu.

TÜRKİYE Mİ?

Maalesef! Amerikancı darbelerle şekillendirilen ülkelerden biri de Türkiye'dir.

(Bakınız: John Perkins, Bir Ekonomik Tetikçinin İtirafları, İstanbul, 2010, Oliver Stone-Peter Kuznıck, ABD'nin Gizli Tarihi, İstanbul, 2015, M. Emin Değer, Oltadaki Balık Türkiye, 14. Bas, İstanbul, 2014, Stephan Kinzer, Şah'ın Bütün Adamları, İstanbul, 2004.)

Sinan MEYDAN, 28 Ocak 2019
https://twitter.com/smeydan

South America and Venezuela

Thursday, January 31, 2019 - 12:00am

How South America Ceded the Field in Venezuela

Outside Powers Will Decide the Outcome in Caracas

Oliver Stuenkel

OLIVER STUENKEL is an Associate Professor of International Relations at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, Brazil.

Last week, the young Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself interim president [1], claiming that the country’s current president, Nicolás Maduro, had forfeited his right to rule by rigging elections in May 2018. Soon after, the United States, Brazil, and most other South American governments (with the exception of Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname, and Uruguay) recognized Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate president.

The decision by the majority of South American governments to back Guaidó was hailed by many as a crucial step forward in confronting Maduro’s authoritarianism [2]. Yet in fact, South America no longer plays any significant role in the Venezuelan crisis. Maduro and his youthful challenger both know that although the armed forces will be the decisive domestic player, the only external actors that really matter are the United States and China and, to a lesser extent, Cuba and Russia.

This is a humiliating turn of events for South American governments, which since the region’s transition to democracy in the 1980s have made reducing interference from outside the region a paramount foreign policy goal. For Brazil in particular, such impotence in the face of a geopolitical crisis at its border symbolizes the dramatic failure of decades of Brazilian foreign policy, in which Brasília sought to make itself into the region’s diplomatic and political leader. As the crisis in Venezuela shows, South America is once again the playground of foreign powers.

HOW WE GOT HERE

South America has a long and troubled history with foreign interference—throughout the twentieth century, outside powers such as the United States backed coups and military dictatorships across the continent in pursuit of their own foreign policy interests. Since the region’s transition to democracy in the 1980s, governments have sought to protect both their sovereignty and their democracy by developing intraregional mechanisms to address one of South America’s major historical challenges: democratic backsliding and the political crises that often derived from it. These mechanisms have included so-called democracy clauses—joint commitments to punish those governments that violate democratic norms—such as the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Democratic Charter or the Southern Common Market (Mercosur)’s Protocol of Ushuaia. They have also included the use of concrete measures, such as suspension from regional organizations like Mercosur in response to democratic ruptures. Governments in the region have failed to prevent certain instances of democratic backsliding—Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, for example, was removed in a coup in 2009, and Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo was ousted in a controversial impeachment in 2012. In both cases, however, these countries suffered temporary diplomatic isolation in response to what regional leaders considered to be a break from normal constitutional practice.

Brazil has played a key role in setting and enforcing these norms—part of a conscious attempt by the country’s democratic rulers to position Brazil as the major diplomatic player in South America and actively engage in moments of regional crisis. In 1996, Brazil helped convince a power-hungry Paraguayan general, Lino Oviedo, not to stage a coup against President Juan Carlos Wasmosy, the country’s first democratically elected civilian in decades. Three years later, it again helped solve a political crisis in Paraguay, this time by granting asylum to (and organizing for the swift departure of) the beleaguered President Raúl Cubas Grau. And in the aftermath of a failed coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in 2002, Brazil organized the “Friends of Venezuela” group, which included the United States, Portugal, and Spain alongside Latin American governments, to mediate between the embattled president and the opposition.

These efforts at protecting democracy on the continent, however, proved to be no match for Chávez. The former Venezuelan president keenly understood that the mechanisms established over the past decades were designed to prevent overt political ruptures, such as coups, rather than to stop an elected government from taking incremental steps to undermine democracy. Chávez helped his case by signing shady oil deals with numerous governments, including Argentina, Bolivia, and several countries in Central America and the Caribbean, and by granting lucrative but equally opaque infrastructure contracts to Brazilian firms. Left-wing governments in Buenos Aires and Brasília had a degree of ideological sympathy for Chávez, but it was above all the Venezuelan president’s oil diplomacy and benign treatment of Brazilian firms that kept him on other governments’ good side. Indeed, Argentina and Brazil became enablers for Chávez during the first decade of this century, shielding him from international pressure while telling diplomats from the United States and elsewhere that they were able to control events in Caracas.

For Brazil, in particular, recent domestic political and economic crises have further reduced the country’s influence in Venezuela. Since 2013—the year that Maduro assumed the Venezuelan presidency following Chávez’s death from cancer—successive Brazilian governments, consumed by recession and then the outbreak of a major corruption scandal, have reduced Brasília’s foreign policy footprint, leaving the region largely rudderless and allowing the crisis in Venezuela to fester. In the interim, high-ranking diplomats across South America have privately admitted to me that Venezuela would inevitably collapse and that the political situation there had deteriorated so much that any mediation would be little more than window-dressing. Although they were right that any action taken after 2013 would likely have been too little too late, both Argentina and Brazil could have done much more during the Chávez years to pressure the Venezuelan president to respect basic democratic norms—for example, by making Venezuela’s 2012 accession to Mercosur conditional on respect for democracy.

FOREIGN ENTANGLEMENTS

Today, South America is paying the price for its dramatic failure to act in Venezuela. After two decades in which the continent’s governments have tried to reduce the sway of outside actors, the four most influential countries in Venezuela now are, in order, the United States, China, Russia, and Cuba. Other states in the region have only a limited ability to shape events in Caracas. This is a particular concern given that migration from Venezuela is already putting a strain on neighbors such as Brazil and Colombia. A continuation—or intensification—of the crisis will have spillover effects for years to come.

Despite recent political changes—symbolized by the election of President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil—and a renewed determination across most of the region to address the Venezuelan crisis, South American governments will have little say in resolving it. Colombia may consent to host U.S. troops [3], but no countries in the region are willing to countenance direct interference. Bolsonaro, for instance, seems keen to support the United States rhetorically, but this is unlikely to amount to much in the way of practical assistance. The Brazilian military will not agree to putting their troops on the ground in Venezuela, which even pro-U.S. governments in the region would see as a dangerous precedent. In fact, governments are unlikely to go beyond the diplomatic measures, such as recognizing Guaidó, that they have already adopted.

Even if the Maduro government collapses, moreover, subsequent events in Caracas will be shaped in Washington and Beijing, thanks to the latter’s economic importance for Venezuela. (Moscow’s and Havana’s ties to Venezuela are largely political and would shrink if Maduro left office.) Maduro’s successor will need to sign massive deals with both Western and Chinese development banks to begin reconstructing the country—a painful process that will likely take decades. Indeed, many of Venezuela’s problems, including its extreme inequality and dependence on oil revenues, precede the rise of Chávez, and no future government will be able to solve them easily. Recovery to anything resembling pre-crisis levels is likely to take many years, requiring sustained attention from and help by U.S. and Chinese leaders.

The most likely candidates for regional leadership, meanwhile, are unlikely to offer much. Argentine President Mauricio Macri is weak owing to a struggling economy and a grueling reelection fight, while Bolsonaro must show that he can fix Brazil’s domestic economic and political problems before he will be in any position to take an active role abroad. Even Colombia, a close U.S. ally and Venezuela’s neighbor, still faces significant domestic challenges—including the need to integrate around one million Venezuelan migrants, a number that could grow in the coming months—and lacks both the ability and the political will to take on responsibility for reconstructing Venezuela.

Realistically, there are four useful actions that South American governments can take to help. First, they can better coordinate the response to the Venezuelan migration crisis across the continent. Leaders should organize a regional summit to discuss the matter and decide to jointly coordinate the registration, distribution, and integration of Venezuelan migrants. They should also set up a fund to compensate the countries most affected by the migratory crisis, such as Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Second, regional governments can help coordinate the delivery of medical and humanitarian aid to Venezuela once the Maduro government—or any successor government—allows it.

Third, South American states should offer amnesty and asylum to leading figures in the Maduro government. Although deeply frustrating, such a step would go a long way toward convincing Venezuela’s current leaders that they need not fight a bloody battle to remain in power to avoid the fate of Saddam Hussein in Iraq or Muammar al-Qaddafi in Libya—authoritarian leaders who were executed after relinquishing power.

Finally, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and others should use the collapse of the Maduro regime as an opportunity to deepen cooperation among their armed forces. This could operate through existing institutions such as the Council of South American Defense and should involve, among other initiatives, joint military exercises, joint missions to deal with natural disasters, and joint participation in UN peacekeeping. The goal should be to increase peer pressure on Venezuela’s military—which stands to lose from a transition to democracy, given the privileges it has accumulated under Maduro—to stay within its barracks under any future leader. Although such cooperation would have only a limited and indirect impact on Venezuela’s military, it would, in future crises of this kind, offer neighboring countries an additional channel for dialogue and coordination—a necessity if South American governments ever want to influence what happens in their own backyard.

Venezuela: No to Intervention, No to Maduro

The left has a proud tradition of both democracy and anti-imperialism. It’s critical to keep both traditions in mind when addressing the current crisis in Venezuela.

By John Feffer, January 30, 2019.

 

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Thousands of people, mostly women, protested the food shortages in their country by banging on pots and pans as they marched in the streets. They loudly opposed the socialist policies of the government. The police eventually dispersed the protestors, but pressures on the government were mounting. In response, the government complained loudly about a U.S.-led policy of economic strangulation and isolation. At the United Nations, the president of the country worried that the United States would support a military coup to oust him.   

This was Chile in 1971. And the president of the country, Salvador Allende, was right to worry aboutU.S. intervention: he would be overthrown and killed in a coup in 1973.

But this is also Venezuela in 2019. Anti-government protesters face even worse food shortages that have brought thousands onto the streets to bang on pots and pans. This is no manufactured crisis. In 2017, according to Reuters, Venezuelans lost an average of 24 pounds, and nearly 90 percent now live in poverty. The Venezuelan government has responded to the protests not only by dispersing them but, after the most recent demonstrations, killing 40 people and detaining 850. This is on top of the government killing dozens of people as a result of protests in 2017 and throwing hundreds of political opponents in jail.

The president, Nicolas Maduro, blames the United States for the country’s economic woes. But prior to the Trump administration’s move in August 2017 to restrict Venezuela’s access of international financial markets, U.S. sanctions were focused on specific individuals and didn’t affect the overall economy. The country’s economy was in free fall well before the Trump administration took office. And the United States has continued to import oil from Venezuela: in 2017, it was the fourth largest supplier to the United States.

Venezuela’s economic miseries are largely homegrown, and they are particularly painful given the huge oil resources at the country’s command. But Maduro, and Hugo Chavez before him, failed to diversify Venezuela’s economy away from petroleum, which made Venezuela vulnerable when oil prices fell (and a drought paralyzed the country’s hydroelectric sector). Add corruption and gross mismanagement to the mix and the country’s economy shrank by half between 2013 and 2018.

The world is divided, by country and by ideology, about whom to support in Venezuela: the embattled president or the opposition.

Nearly half a century ago, the international left rallied around Salvador Allende, a Marxist who came to power through free elections, and roundly condemned U.S. interventions. Today, the left — and many others — are also vigorously protesting against U.S. efforts to intervene in Venezuela. And that’s absolutely the right thing to do. Although Maduro is wrong about the cause of his country’s economic problems, he is right to condemn Washington for its regime-change policies.

Still, no one should rally around Nicolas Maduro. He is no Salvador Allende. Maduro is corrupt and undemocratic. He outlawed the National Assembly because it opposed his policies and created a rubber-stamp parliament to take its place. Like Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania or Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Maduro is a “socialist” in name alone. True, he supports the redistribution of the wealth — but into the pockets of himself and his cronies. He is cut from the same political cloth as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He presides over the closest thing to a failed state in Latin America, as I pointed out more than two years ago.

The protests that have broken out in Venezuela are like the ones that targeted Hosni Mubarak in Egypt in 2011, that filled the streets in Hungary against Viktor Orban earlier this month, that are still going on today against Omar al-Bashir in Sudan. They all target autocrats. Salvador Allende was elected democratically and governed democratically. Maduro is part of an altogether different authoritarian tradition.

Opposing military intervention by the United States is necessary, but not sufficient. As an international declaration spearheaded by Venezuelan leftist intellectual Edgardo Lander puts it, it’s essential as well to:

Reject the authoritarianism of the Maduro Government, as well as the government’s repression in the face of growing protests throughout the country, for food, transportation, health, political participation, public services, living wages, among others. The Venezuelan people, who suffer the enormous precariousness and the current repression, have the right to protest without being criminalized for it.

Venezuelans not only have the right to protest. They have the right to choose the government they want.

What’s Next for Venezuela?

The Trump administration always thinks in zero-sum terms. It is insisting that the world choose between Maduro and Juan Guaido, the head of the outlawed National Assembly who declared himself interim president on January 23. A number of countries have joined the United States to line up behind Guaido: Canada, Australia, Taiwan, Brazil, Colombia. Maduro, meanwhile, can count on the support of Russia, China, Turkey, Bolivia, Syria, and South Africa.

Europe is on the fence. It has issued an ultimatum to Maduro: announce new elections by next week or the EU may well recognize Guaido. Maduro has rejected the ultimatum.

Venezuelans are not enthusiastic about Maduro. At the time of the May 2018 presidential elections, his approval rating was down around 20 percent and yet he won 68 percent of the vote (the opposition largely boycotted the vote). Public disapproval has been low for some time: in March 2016, around 63 percent of Venezuelans wanted Maduro to step down. Even the working-class base of his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, has shifted against the current president.

In Chile, Allende’s opposition came from the wealthy and the middle class. In Venezuela, food shortages, hyperinflation, high unemployment, and rampant corruption have alienated virtually all sectors of society from the ruling party. A couple million Venezuelans have voted with their feet and now await the day when they can return to a well-functioning country.

A few prominent Venezuelans have called for outside intervention. But despite the hardships they face and the tenacity of their autocratic ruler, a majority of Venezuelans opposes foreign intervention. And indeed, U.S. moves so far — the threats, the sanctioning of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company — have given Maduro a way to deflect responsibility for the country’s problems away from himself. The United States, given its abhorrent record in Latin America and the insanity of the current administration, should just stay out of it.

The way forward is clear: Maduro should step down and accept an amnesty, and then Venezuelans can vote for a new government in free and fair elections. The longer Maduro hangs on, the more divided the country will become and the greater the likelihood of outside intervention. Most recently, the Venezuelan president has shown some willingness to submit to an international mediation effort. But so far he is refusing to consider relinquishing power or even calling for new presidential elections.

The Left and Democracy

The political left has been, from its beginnings in the French Revolution, against monarchs and in favor of popular sovereignty. During the nineteenth century, one segment of the left drifted away from democracy to support dictatorship, in this case of the proletariat. This illiberal model has either collapsed (the Soviet Union) or morphed into something that no longer represents the interests of workers (China).

It’s distressing to see the left rally around illiberal leaders either because of their professed “socialist” beliefs or because they present themselves as a counterforce to U.S. power in the world. It was embarrassing to see the left make excuses for China or the Soviet Union during the Cold War. And it’s mortifying to see the left makes excuses for Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping or Nicolas Maduro today.

The left has a proud tradition of both democracy and anti-imperialism. It’s critical to keep both traditions in mind when addressing the current crisis in Venezuela.

Eurasia's Great Game by James M. Dorsey

Black Swans Haunt Eurasia’s Great Game

JANUARY 30, 2019JAMES DORSEY  LEAVE A COMMENT

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by James M. Dorsey

The battle lines in the twenty-first century’s Great Game aimed at shaping the creation of a new Eurasia-centered world, built on the likely fusion of Europe and Asia into what former Portuguese Europe minister Bruno Macaes calls a “supercontinent,” are all but cast in cement.

For now, the Great Game pits China together with Russia, Turkey and Iran against the United States, India, Japan and Australia. The two camps compete for influence, if not dominance, in a swath of land that stretches from the China Sea to the Atlantic coast of Europe.

The flashpoints are multiple. They range from the China Sea to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Central European nations and, most recently, far beyond with Russia, China and Turkey supporting embattled Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.

The rivalry resembles Risk, a popular game of diplomacy, conflict and conquest played on a board depicting a political map of the earth, divided into forty-two territories, which are grouped into six continents. Multiple players commanding armies that seek to capture territories engage in a complex dance as they strive for advantage and seek to compensate for weaknesses. Players form opportunistic alliances that could change at any moment. Potential black swans threaten to disrupt.

The black swans in the Great Game are multiple and far more numerous than those developed in a just published report by the Paris-based European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS). Nonetheless, the scenarios conceptualized in the report, ‘What If? Scanning the horizon: 12 scenarios for 2021,” are grounded in recent trends and could prove to be game changers that radically rejigger the Great Game’s current line-up.

The scenarios or grey swans in the report’s terminology, if they unfold in reality, suggest that alliances in Eurasia are opportunistic and transactional and like with Risk can turn players on their erstwhile allies as interests diverge and re-converge. Analysis of five of the scenarios suggests that fragility is greatest in the efforts of China, Russia, Turkey and Iran to rebalance global power in their favor.

They suggest that strains in the United States’ relations with Russia and Turkey are not immutable. Similarly, Russia’s effort to lock in former Soviet republics with its Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) that groups Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan Belarus, and Armenia could prove to be on shaky ground. Russia’s alliance with Turkey and China as well as Iran even if the report has not developed the latter possibility may be on thinner ice than meets the eye.

The same can be said for grey swans in the U.S. ties to its long-standing allies as is played out in the report’s scenario for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Europe as a result of President Donald J. Trump’s accentuation of diverging trans-Atlantic interests.

With a multi-polar world the likely outcome of the battle for Eurasia, the scenarios suggest that the perceived decline of the United States, despite  Trump’s unilateralism, is not irreversible. Similarly, depending on how it plays its cards, Iran could emerge either as a winner or a loser.

The four scenarios involve a renewed round of popular protest in the Arab world following the reversal of successful revolts in 2011 in Egypt, Libya and Yemen and the embrace of brutal repression; political violence in the Caucasus that pits Turkey against Russia and could threaten key nodes along China’s Belt and Road; the dissolution of the Eurasian Economic Union in an approaching post-Vladimir Putin era; a rejiggering of the political map of south-eastern Europe and a strengthening of European cohesion with the US troop withdrawal and resolution of tension between Serbia and Kosovo.

The notion of renewed popular Arab protests, including resistance to the influence of militias in Syria and Libya, that could rewrite the political map of the Middle East is hardly far-fetched with mass anti-government demonstrations in Sudan persisting for more than a month; riots in Tunisia, the one relatively successful 2011 revolt; protests on the West Bank against a new social security law; and anti-government marches in Iraq.

If anything, the revolts highlight the risks that all players in the Great Game run by supporting autocratic regimes that have largely failed to sustainably deliver public goods and services and/or offer good governance and cater to the social, economic and political aspirations of young populations.

“Pressure for change across the Arab world is likely to continue to grow, keeping pace with the growth in populations, inequality and social injustice,” concluded journalist Simon Tisdall on the eighth anniversary of the uprising in Egypt that toppled president Hosni Mubarak but was ultimately defeated by a military coup two years later.

The European Union Institute’s report imagines a massive attack on the Baku Kars rail line, a vital node in the Belt and Road’s linking of China to Europe that rekindles dormant local animosities as well as competing Russian and Turkish economic and geostrategic interests, prompting both Moscow and Ankara to lobby Washington for US support.

Similarly, a scenario envisaging Kazakhstan and Belarus withdrawing from the Eurasian union because of its inability to live up to its ambition of furthering regional integration sparks fears in Moscow that the demise of the regional consortium could spark the collapse of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a military alliance that groups the five Eurasian union members as well as Tajikistan and hosts Afghanistan and Serbia as observers. The dissolution of the two organizations would significantly undermine Russia’s regional standing.

Likewise, a swap of land between Serbia and Kosovo that purifies two countries whose inter-communal relations have been poisoned by historic prejudices and recent wars opens a Pandora’s Box across south-eastern Europe but eases their accession to the European Union while a US troop withdrawal would force EU members to focus on collective security.

It would only take one of these scenarios to unfold and potentially spark a revisiting of the current line-up in the Great Game. Any one of the scenarios is a realistic possibility.

Said European Union Institute deputy director Florence Gaub in her introduction to the report: ”Grey Swans share with Black Swans a high level of strategic impact, but there is more evidence to support the idea that they are actually possible… The analogy with the 1985 film ‘Back to the Future’ is pure coincidence, of course – but just as in the film, we sometimes need to take a trip to the future to inform our decision-making today.”

Reprinted, with permission, from The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog.

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JAMES DORSEY

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title as well as Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr. Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario, Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa, and the forthcoming China and the Middle East: Venturing into the Maelstrom.