It was ideological déjà vu all the way during the three day duration of the Organization of American States (OAS) General Assembly in Cancun that closed Wednesday night. The same old rant of capitalists versus communists similar to that of the old days when Cuba got kicked out of the OAS in 1962, only this time Venezuela replacing Cuba.
During three days Venezuela’s Foreign Affairs Minister Delcy Rodríguez lambasted just about everyone who questions or disagrees Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s socialist government and played victim all the way through walking away seemingly with an ideological victory.
But Venezuela’s was a pyrrhic victory. The first casualty of her victorious performance at the OAS summit in Cancun was Delcy Rodríguez herself, who on Wednesday night was removed from the Foreign Affairs Ministry so that she can become a candidate for the national assembly. Of course, she knew this move was coming as she mentioned during one of her press conferences, but perhaps did not expect to pull her out of the continental turmoil so quickly.
The alleged “victory” was also pyrrhic because it was evident that the Maduro presidency has very few supporters other than Venezuela’s own army which is close to going out on the streets to quench the literally by now out of control political rebellion.
On the OAS floor, Venezuela literally got battered badly. A whopping 20 votes of the 34 available ones went for calling upon Maduro to liberate political prisoners and allow actions that ease down the economic tension his nation is undergoing.
It terms of numbers, the defeat Delcy Rodríguez walloped Maduro with was overwhelming. Take into consideration that those 20 nations that are calling for clean elections in Venezuela represent 90 percent of the 983 million people who live in the American continent. The five countries who voted against the resolution or the eight that abstained barely represent seven percent of the continent’s population.
Indeed what the Nicolás Maduro apparently now totalitarian communist regime tried to do was to save face given the resounding defeat at the OAS meeting. About the only thing Maduro can do now is continuing on the confrontation path against the “empire” meaning the U.S. “political and economic” domination over the rest of the continent’s nations.
There’s only one line of thought wrong with this old Cold War tirade against “the empire.” Over the years all those Latin American nations have become politically and ideologically competitive democracies that move in the direction voting trends aim at.
Particularly in Latin America the history of brutal dictatorships is a long one and most nations have tried the military coups or the socialist revolutions and including Mexico’s “perfect one party system dictatorship” which allowed a flow of ideologies and individuals who proposed them though the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) during a hefty 70-year period.
Of course, Venezuela comes very much from the Cuban Castro regime that got Cuba’s communist dictatorship – the longest living one in the world – and to quote now ousted Foreign Relations Minister Delcy Rodríguez, “Venezuela will not accept undue intromissions that attempt against international rights.”
But what is clear is that the OAS proposal sponsored by Canada, the United States and Mexico, did not seek direct intervention in Venezuela’s internal affairs which in the OAS charter are exclusive domain of Venezuelans.
But the barrage of news of devastating food and pharmaceuticals shortages, Nicolás Maduro’s current attempt to rewrite the Constitution to custom suit it to his now perhaps not so democratic eternal dictatorship (or should I say presidency?) and indeed the daily repression of street demonstrations are of true concern of all neighboring nations.
Definitely the OAS will now keep on trying on a half-hearted way to cope with the sprawling regional crisis Maduro’s disastrous economic policies are creating because the sure fire outcome will be a massive migration from Venezuela.
And Venezuelans are not looking either to the Caribbean of Central America as a future destination, but Mexico, the United States and Canada just the way when the Cuban crisis almost shattered world peace back in 1962.
Upon removing Delcy Rodríguez from her post as chancellor, Maduro also sang the pyrrhic victory song claiming that Delcy “fought like a tigress” at the OAS meet in Mexico.
But if Maduro wants trouble all he’s got to do is look around Venezuela where ever growing majorities would like to democratically remove him out of power.
The question now is when a regime fails to establish democratic elections, what’s the next step to take?
U.S. intervention is clearly not an option. But a civil war, undesired by all, is.
Have a fine weekend and a not so sweaty summer.
