In Talks on Venezuela’s Crisis, the Cuban Gov. is Missing

Interview with former Mexican Foreign Minster Jorge Castañeda

Jorge Castañeda: Cuba is the only government that truly has influence over Maduro and the Venezuelan Armed Forces.

By Carlos F. Chamorro (Confidencial)

HAVANA TIMES – After the validation of the electoral fraud in Venezuela, decreed on August 22 by the Supreme Court controlled by Nicolas Maduro, the diplomatic efforts of Latin American presidents Luiz Inacio Lula, Gustavo Petro, and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador “have been truncated.” The demand that the National Electoral Council present the breakdown of the electoral results has been practically rejected, according to former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda.

“The current situation favors Maduro; time works in his favor, while Lula, Petro, and Lopez Obrador, to a lesser extent, are somewhat frustrated,” summarizes the political analyst and former diplomat, who also does not believe that an “ultimatum or sanctions from Latin American countries could have any effect.”

In a conversation with the program Esta Semana to be broadcast on Sunday, August 25, on the CONFIDENCIAL YouTube channel, Castañeda argues that a fundamental actor has been missing in the negotiation to find a solution to the Venezuelan crisis: the Cuban government, which is the only one that truly has influence over (Nicolas) Maduro. While “Cuban military personnel control the security and intelligence rings of Maduro’s government,” it is impossible to create “a division within the Armed Forces, which is the only possibility of an internal change in Venezuela that could lead to a democratic outcome.”

Given the severity of the economic crisis in Cuba, the former Mexican Foreign Minister suggests offering Cuba “full normalization with the United States or at least to the level reached by Obama in 2015, to incentivize a negotiated solution in Venezuela,” with the participation and cooperation of the Cuban regime.

The Supreme Court validated the electoral fraud of July 28 without presenting any evidence. The United States, the European Union, and ten other Latin American countries reject the ratification of Maduro as the alleged winner of the elections and demand the publication of the detailed voting results by the Electoral Council. What happens to the diplomatic initiative of Lula, Petro, and Lopez Obrador?

Well, it’s truncated because the insistence of these three governments, especially by Lula and Gustavo Petro in Colombia, on the publication of the detailed voting records has obviously been rejected, though not explicitly by Maduro. We are almost a month past the elections, and the precinct results have not been published, and it’s obvious they won’t be.

Lopez Obrador made a somewhat strange statement when he claimed that the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court recommended the publication of the precinct tally sheets. This is not true. It recommended the publication of the results.

So, the internal legal channels in Venezuela regarding the elections are exhausted. What can leaders like Lula, Petro, or Lopez Obrador do? Maybe set a deadline, a kind of ultimatum to Maduro: publish the records by such a date or something. And then, what’s next? Invoking the Inter-American Democratic Charter in the OAS could be one option, but it’s a somewhat futile gesture because, ultimately, as Venezuela is no longer part of the OAS, it doesn’t matter if the charter is invoked. More sanctions, including from Latin American countries, the United States, and the European Union, might have some effect.

But it’s important to remember that the previously imposed sanctions didn’t achieve much. So, to some extent, the current situation favors Maduro, which was always anticipated. Time works in his favor, while Lula, Petro, and Lopez Obrador are somewhat frustrated.

Lula’s adviser, former Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, has suggested calling for new elections. Petro once talked about creating a sort of coalition government, but no one, not even Maduro himself, let alone the opposition, has given any credit to this initiative.

That’s correct, and with good reason. When Maria Corina Machado says, for example, if we have already agreed to participate in elections under the conditions imposed by the government, that is, these were not elections held under circumstances agreed upon with the opposition or with the European Union or the United States, then, if Maduro didn’t like the results, why would he like the results of a new election?

What guarantees that a new election would be fairer, freer, more observed, monitored, and internationally recognized than the previous one? Moreover, the effort to organize a campaign would be enormous. And who would it be? Would María Corina be allowed to run in the new elections, or would she be disqualified, and not only her, but also Edmundo Gonzalez?

It’s a somewhat strange proposal from Celso Amorim, who is indeed looking for a way out, but a way out that is acceptable to Maduro. And nearly a month after the elections, Celso Amorim hasn’t found that way out.

There are a little more than four months left until the new president’s inauguration on January 5. Is there any room for civic resistance in Venezuela, which continues to call for protests, and, on the other hand, for more effective diplomacy with some teeth to impact this crisis?

I don’t have the means to measure the intensity or breadth of the protests in Venezuela. One can abstractly state that as long as protests continue in the streets, there will still be challenges for the government. But there are several indications that suggest that the intensity of the protests has decreased for very logical reasons: repression, the imprisonment of more than 2,000 opponents, 25 dead, and the disappeared. It is perfectly logical that under these circumstances and over time, the strength of the protests diminishes.

Regarding the diplomatic effort, I have always thought that a fundamental actor has been missing in this entire negotiation: the Cuban government. In reality, the only government that truly has influence over Maduro is Havana’s. So far, at least publicly, there has been no indication that Brazil, Mexico, or Colombia have sought Cuban cooperation in these efforts to find a solution, a negotiation.

I think the most important thing now, given the failure of all other efforts, would be to try to enlist Cuba’s cooperation in exchange for genuine detente between the United States and Cuba. At least while Biden is in the White House and understanding that Kamala Harris could be the next occupant of the White House, something that remains to be seen. But it seems to me that without incorporating the Cubans into this process, it will be impossible for a very simple reason. As you and many others know very well, as long as the Cubans are in Venezuela, constituting the security and intelligence rings of Maduro’s government, there will be no rift, no division in the Armed Forces, which is the only possibility of an internal change in Venezuela that could lead to a democratic outcome.

The Venezuelan Armed Forces are not entirely Venezuelan; they are partly Cuban, and it is the Cubans who oversee everything.

But what incentive could the Cubans have? You talk about detente with the United States, but what incentives could they have to facilitate a democratic transition in Venezuela, which could even have a counterproductive effect on Cuba, which has depended so much on its alliance with the regime of Hugo Chavez before and now with Maduro’s regime?

It largely depends on the severity of the economic and social situation in Cuba, which, by definition, those of us outside Cuba do not know in detail. But it occurs to me that the situation is so dire that for Cuba, full normalization with the United States or at least to the level reached by Obama in 2015 would be something for which the Cubans would be willing to pay a lot, and that a lot could involve a negotiated solution in Venezuela that does not harm them. That is, one that allows part of Venezuela’s cooperation with Cuba to continue, which certainly would not happen if there were an outcome that was not negotiated.

If Maduro imposes himself by force, and there are already signs of criminalization against Edmundo Gonzalez, Maria Corina Machado, and other opposition leaders, can a Maduro regime be sustained without legitimacy, without international recognition after January? What Ortega did in 2021? Or is there another kind of impact on the Venezuelan crisis that could question its sustainability?

In principle, the survival of a regime under such conditions is exemplified by the case of Nicaragua and, in a certain way, by the case of Cuba, which has survived the US embargo for more than 60 years.

The big difference with Venezuela is the migration factor towards the rest of Latin America and the United States. The difference is that the volumes of the Venezuelan exodus are far superior to those of Cuba in the 1960s, in Mariel (1980), in rafter crisis (1994), even in the last two years, and certainly of Nicaragua from 2018 and 2021.

For many countries in Latin America and the United States, the internal status quo in Venezuela is unacceptable due to citizen flight, not for reasons of principle or scruples, the rule of law, democracy, or human rights, but because of the migration issue.

But the problem is that no one knows what to do. Colombia cannot support another exodus of 2 million Venezuelans. But then, what will it do? What can it do to find a solution?

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First published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.

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