Early in his administration, U.S. President Joe Biden made a deal with Venezuelan president Nicolas Madura. Sanctions, including oil sanctions on Venezuela, would be relaxed in exchange for Madura’s promise to run a fair election and respect human rights. Select western oil companies were authorized to operate in Venezuela and crude oil began flowing once again to terminals in the U.S. Gulf Coast.
The American deal got tricky with Maduro’s recent claim of victory at the polls in what looks to be a stolen election. Harvard scholar and democracy expert Steve Levitsky called Maduro’s claim “one of the most egregious electoral frauds in modern Latin American history.” Even Maduro’s allies, including Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, joined with Biden to call for the “immediate release of full, transparent, and detailed voting data at the polling station level.”
Maduro claims he will cooperate; he’s asked his country’s Supreme Court to audit the election results. But that’s hardly reassuring. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has now recognized Venezuela’s opposition candidate as the victor in the presidential race.
To further complicate matters, tensions are escalating in the Middle East — another petroleum sanctuary that America relies on for oil. Israel has assassinated Hezbollah’s senior military commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut and Iran alleges Israel killed Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran.
Josue Ramirez — one of the eight million Venezuelans living outside their country of birth and ring-leader of the 30,000+ Venezuelan diaspora in Canada — has a unique perspective on what world leaders are likely to do next. Nearly 20 years ago, Ramirez (now 57) sought asylum in Canada, fearing prosecution for supporting a political opponent to then Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. Ramirez’s name is still on a list; he couldn’t safely return to Caracas to see his dying mother before she passed away this June.
We meet at a crowded Calgary coffee shop and escape outside to talk, at a small table parked on the concrete pathway. Ramirez looks weary and I invite him to sit in the bit of shade afforded by the building’s shadow.
“Well, they are going to talk,” Ramirez assures me, with a wry smile. “But remember, international politics is about national interest. What is good for my country, for my nation, for my interest,” that’s what matters in these negotiations, Ramirez reports, his accented voice sounding rueful.
Biden may have cut a deal with Maduro — but if Maduro doesn’t keep up his end of the bargain, it’s not easy for Biden and the Democrats, in the throes of an election campaign and chaos in the Middle East, to pull western companies out of Venezuela and cut off that source of oil.
It’s a conundrum, and one I’m familiar with, having worked on energy projects in countries like Yemen and Nigeria at times when their autocratic leaders promised, profusely, to respect democracy, human rights and transparency.
The American interests are more important than the Venezuelan interests, right?
Ramirez predicts the Americans won’t suspend the oil export licences. “They’re going to be diplomatic, they’re going to talk about human rights, Maduro, this and that,” he speculates. “In Venezuela, the Maduro regime always gets what they want, because what happens, is at the table, it’s not the Opposition and Maduro. No. Who represents the people of Venezuela? The American government.”
At the end of the negotiations, Ramirez asserts, “The American interests are more important than the Venezuelan interests, right?”
I can’t disagree.
Ramirez continues, reflecting on the decisions of friends — Venezuelans living in Calgary — to go back to Maracaibo, to work for Chevron, in the oilfields of Venezuela. “It broke my heart,” Ramirez sighs, “I saw you at our rallies against the Maduro dictator, and now you’re going back with an oil and gas company that has a licence that’s going to support the dictatorship?”
Maybe I have different commitments than my friends, Ramirez concludes, “Maybe I don’t have a mortgage and you have a mortgage…. I’m not saying it’s a bad decision, but it’s a personal decision.”
We talk of Canada’s interests in Venezuela. Our prime minister may want Canada to be seen as a human rights leader but we have economic interests too. And in 2002, Ramirez recalls, when Chavez fired employees working for Venezuela’s national oil company (PDVSA), calling them traitors for taking strike action, Canada benefited from Venezuela’s brain drain.
“The only moment, honestly, the only moment in which Canada played an important role in Venezuela’s situation,” Ramirez continues, “was when Chrystia Freeland was the foreign minister.” Freeland played an instrumental role in bringing together a group of countries — the Lima Group — to recognize Juan Guaido, Maduro’s opponent in the 2018 election, as the president of Venezuela.
“She moved Canadians, and I think she moved Trudeau, to do something. Because I don’t think Trudeau cares about Venezuela,” Ramirez posits. “Freeland knows who Putin is,” Ramirez elaborates, “and she knows what they (the Russians) are doing in Latin America, trying to to control Venezuela because Venezuela has resources.”
Pulitzer-prize winning author, Anne Applebaum, says much the same. In her recent book, “Autocracy, Inc., The Dictators Who Want to Rule the World,” Applebaum describes how Russia loans money to Maduro, while Venezuelan police deploy Chinese-made water cannons, tear gas and surveillance equipment to attack and track street protesters.
As deputy prime minister, Freeland’s more restrained, Ramirez observes. “Her files are different,” he shrugs, “And I guess she’s more worried about what’s going to happen to them (the Liberals) in the coming election.”
Speaking of upcoming elections, Canada doesn’t have a “First Lady” tradition but if Pierre Poilievre is elected prime minister, could his wife Anaida’s inspirational “Canadian dream” story resonate with new Canadians, possibly bringing many into the conservative fold?
“I met her as Anaida Galinda,” Ramirez chuckles, “She’s a very smart lady, very organized.” Ramirez was grateful to see Conservative Leader Poilievre issue a press release calling for Canada to recognize a democratic vote in Venezuela only “if it is truly free and fair.”
As our conversation draws to a close, Ramirez rallies: “Venezuela has the worst exodus history in the western hemisphere — eight million people, and no war, no natural disaster, no nothing. Just hunger, just starvation, just a country that has been managed by a corrupt drug-trafficking mafia and supported by Iran and Russia and China.”
He’s not asking for the Organization of American States’ military forces to come into Venezuela, because that’s not going to happen. What he wants is the international community to pressure Maduro to negotiate his exit from power, and he believes that’s feasible if the U.S., Brazil and Colombia act together.
And if nothing happens? “I’m worried that Venezuela becomes the next Nicaragua,” Ramirez concludes, with a shudder.
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