A national guard member patrols a supermarket in Caracas in February of last year. (Juan Barreto/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/Getty Images)
Moisés Naim is a distinguished fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and served as Venezuela’s minister of trade and industry from 1989 to 1990. Francisco Toro is the founder and editor in chief of the Caracas Chronicles news site.
Today, Venezuela is the sick man of Latin America, buckling under chronic shortages of everything from food and toilet paper to medicine and freedom. Riots and looting have become commonplace, as hungry people vent their despair while the revolutionary elite lives in luxury, pausing now and then to order recruits to fire more tear gas into crowds desperate for food.
Surveillance camera footage shows violent looting take over a bakery in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas as the country battles widespread shortages of basic goods amid a reeling economic crisis. (Reuters)
Not long ago, the regime that Hugo Chávez founded was an object of fascination for progressives worldwide, attracting its share of another-world-is-possible solidarity activists. Today, as the country sinks deeper into the Western Hemisphere’s most intractable political and economic crisis, the time has come to ask some hard questions about how this regime — so obviously thuggish in hindsight — could have conned so many international observers for so long.
Chávez was either admired as a progressive visionary who gave voice to the poor or dismissed as just another third-world buffoon. Reality was more complex than that: Chávez pioneered a new playbook for how to bask in global admiration even as he hollowed out democratic institutions on the sly.
Step one was his deft manipulation of elections. Chávez realized early that, as long as he kept holding and winning elections, nobody outside Venezuela would ask too many questions about what he did with his power in the interim. And so he mastered the paradoxical art of destroying democracy one election at a time.
Venezuelans have gone to the polls 19 times since 1999, and chavismo has won 17 of those votes. The regime has won by stacking the election authorities with malleable pro-government officials, by enmeshing its supporters in a web of lavishly petro-financed patronage and by intimidating and marginalizing its opponents. It worked for more than a decade — until it didn’t work anymore.
After every election, another little piece of the constitution would be chipped away: Courts and oversight bodies were stacked high with supporters, checks and balances stripped, basic freedoms eroded.
The key was the torrent of oil dollars that poured into the country during the long oil boom of 2003 to 2014, complemented by massive debt now estimated at $185 billion. (Argentina defaulted on a $100 billion debt.) An enormous import-led consumption boom created an illusion of harmony even as the economy crumbled just out of sight.
When oil prices fell, the illusion ended, and the government fell back on Plan B: Allow elections to go on, but strip virtually all power from every institution it lost control of.
When Caracas elected an opposition mayor, his powers were stripped out from under him, and he was eventually jailed. When voters mischievously gave the opposition a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly, a newly packed Supreme Tribunal took to overturning its acts. The government’s faith in democracy lasted exactly as long as its majority.
Something similar happened with the media. The government learned early on that shutting down dissident media carried major political costs. So it turned to cronies to buy up critical outlets and rein in their journalists. As dozens of critical journalists who’ve been intimidated or forced out of their jobs can attest, media freedom in Venezuela today is a sham: The airwaves have been scrubbed clean of dissent.
Under Fidel Castro’s tutelage, Chávez successfully cultivated a pro-poor, anti-American posture . Endless professions of concern for the poor followed furious denunciations of gringo imperialism.
But this, too, was a charade. We now know that the fiery speeches professing unconditional love and support for the poor were a ruse to deflect attention from the wholesale looting of the state. In fact, more than $100 billion in oil profits stashed in a “National Development Fund” were simply never accounted for.
The regime’s actions reveal a deep, even cruel contempt for the poor. This year, the protests of the destitute have been met with open violence and repression while regime-connected politicians run their luxury yachts aground after drunken romps. While newborn babies die for lack of simple medicines at state hospitals, the stacked Supreme Tribunal censures the opposition-run parliament for asking for international humanitarian assistance.
You would think that preying on the world’s largest oil reserves would be enough for even the most voracious of kleptocratic elites, but no. The regime is also deeply involved in drug trafficking. The DEA has put multiple high-ranking officials on its wanted lists.
Late last year, a sting operation in Haiti recorded two of the first lady’s nephews offering to sell hundreds of kilos of cocaine to “buyers” who turned out to be undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agents. The two sit in a cell in New York, awaiting trial. Their aunt, the first lady, has responded by accusing the United States of kidnapping them.
You’d think the international community would have run out of patience for these kinds of shenanigans long ago. Sadly, the Venezuelan crisis is also highlighting a cruel reality of the 21st century: The international community wrings its hands, but its professed solidarity is thin. Talk is cheap; the millions of innocent Venezuelans who fell victim to chavismo’s long con need more than declarations.
For the newborns who have died from medicine shortages, it’s already too late. The least we can do to honor their memory is to say it loud and clear: Venezuela’s democratic facade has crumbled altogether, and the predatory dictatorship it used to cover up is now plain for all to see.
Venezuela will do fine after most of its population has died from starvation and disease.
As will be the case for most of the other socialist countries after they finish consuming the resources that they produced before they became socialist and are currently living off of.
Screw them ,they were stupid enough to vote these people into office knowing they were socialist/ communist. All socialist are not but thieves using the ballot box to get into positions to plunder .Their motives are always lust for power , then envy and greed.Same here in America. Fuck the Obama supporters . Fuck half the population of this country. Fuck the stupid people who will vote for Hillary Clinton.Let them all eat cake….or shit.
Chilling report! The parallels to the direction our country is taking is spot on. Vote accordingly. If we have the chance.
ya they always cheer the workers revolutions for a while, until it falls apart and they slink away, so far the Venezuelan’s have been spared, luckily there leaders are not true communists. See the killing fields of Cambodia for a true workers paradise.
Ya! I think you’re right. Thankfully, Viet Nam put an end to Pol Pot. It should have been us. We were suppose to be the moral policeman of the world weren’t we? After we destroyed Viet Nam in a senseless war, Viet Nam did the right thing, the moral thing.
Remember the ‘Domino Theory’? Started by Eisenhower and carried to fruition by McNamara and Johnson, an excuse for interfering in the lives of others for our selfish gain.
That term could appropriately apply to US. Spreading ‘democracy’ through out the world at the point of a gun. Something about a gun that takes choice out of the equation.
Two questions about the video.
1) Doesn’t it seem like that bakery is very well stocked?
2) Why don’t any of the “starving” looters actually look like they are, you know ….. STARVING??? Some are actually fatfuks.
I think that for Venezuelans this all just an excuse to not work, riot, and continue the freeshit gravy train.
Those poor, dumb bastards. Ignorance will kill you.
Viva la SOCIALISM! The political system that promises you something for nothing. They didn’t realize that it was a prediction. Now they have NOTHING. hahaha so sad!
It’s a shame that most people can’t extrapolate into the future or learn from the experiences of others who have tried to make a success of political stealing called SOCIALISM. The problem is that people think that tomorrow is going to be like today, until it isn’t.
“Thou shalt not steal”. I read that somewhere. hmmmm, I wonder where? Oh well. You will notice that it is written in legalese as mandatory. God is not mocked! It’s a universe of consequences. If you want good consequences, ‘choose wisely’.
A compassionate person doesn’t rescue another who makes bad choices, but lets them experience their bad choices so that it becomes a learning experience. Another name for a rescuer is enabler.
I think a compassionate God does this, too. That’s why evil exist in the world. We create it and then we have to live it.
If a few/all of the commoners have to suffer for the greater glory and wealth of Chavez, Maduro, Clinton, etc. it is a small price to pay. Socialism is just a way to fool the stupid into letting a few elites take what they want. Even worse are the true believers who think it would actually work, but while Bernie and Warren seem to be true believers they are probably not, only the idiots who vote for them are that naive.
They should eat the fat people.
Very interesting analysis coming from people so close to the realities. I would argue however that democracy itself suffers from the same underlying problems, namely that it is fundamentally a state with the ultimate monopoly of decision making and use of coercive force.
Unfortunately, whatever happens in Venezuela will probably be some kind of new state popping up – rather than a state-less society with private law and true freedom. To get to that point is very hard, but at least we can educate ourselves and our fellow human beings and maybe one day, we will experience the blooming of a truly free human society.
AP posted a fascinating story about how a middle-class couple is surviving things; it’s a good indication of how people in the U.S. would have to survive. That is, after the already-destitute lower classes here riot, loot and otherwise chimp out. I hope these two can appreciate how their former lifestyle and likely their political views got them into this situation.
Jul 18, 2:28 PM EDT
MIDDLE-CLASS VENEZUELANS LIQUIDATE SAVINGS TO STOCKPILE FOOD
BY HANNAH DREIER
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela (AP) — Tebie Gonzalez and Ramiro Ramirez still have their sleek apartment, a fridge covered with souvenir magnets from vacations aboard, and closets full of name brand clothes. But they feel hunger drawing close.
So when the Venezuelan government opened the long-closed border with Colombia this weekend, the couple decided to drain what remained of the savings they put away before the country spun into economic crisis and stocked up on food. They left their two young sons with relatives and joined more than 100,000 other Venezuelans trudging across what Colombian officials are calling a “humanitarian corridor” to buy as many basic goods as possible.
“This is money we had been saving for an emergency, and this is an emergency,” Ramirez said. “It’s scary to spend it, but we’re finding less food each day and we need to prepare for what’s coming.”
Gonzalez, 36, earns several times the minimum wage with her job as a sales manager for a chain of furniture stores in the western mountain town of San Cristobal. But lately, her salary is no match for Venezuela’s 700-percent inflation. Ramirez’s auto parts shop went bust after President Nicolas Maduro closed the border with Colombia a year ago, citing uncontrolled smuggling, and cut off the region’s best avenue for imported goods.
The couple stopped eating out this year, abandoned plans to buy a house and put a “for sale” sign on their second car. There is no more sugar for coffee, no more butter for bread and no more infant formula for their 1-year-old son.
When Ramirez, 37, went to get a late night snack on Friday, he found nothing in the refrigerator.
So Sunday, the couple donned their nicest clothes and hid fat wads of bills in their bags. Before heading to the border, they surveyed the stocks in their renovated granite kitchen: An inch of vegetable oil at the bottom of a plastic jug. A single package of flour. Some leftover cooked rice. No coffee.
Then they set off in a 2011 Jeep SUV onto darkened highways, the lights of hillside shantytowns glinting in the blue darkness like stars.
At the crossing, scowling soldiers with automatic weapons patrolled a line that wrapped around more than a dozen blocks. The couple considered turning back. But within minutes, people started shouting that immigration officials were waving everyone through, and the line broke into a stampede.
Gonzalez and Ramirez ran with thousands of others toward a bridge barely wide enough for two cars to pass. Soon, it was packed as tightly as a rush-hour subway train. Some people cradled newborns, others toted dogs as they headed to a new life in Colombia. Most carried suitcases and backpacks to fill with groceries.
The couple held hands to stop the crowd from pushing them apart. Two hours passed. People sang the national anthem. Gonzalez’s feet ached in Tommy Hilfiger wedge heels and they had barely reached the middle of the bridge. People who couldn’t stand the claustrophobia and heat doubled back to try to swim across the river, but soldiers stopped them.
At last, the Colombian flags came into view. Soon, the bridge opened out onto a road lined with officials waving, cheering, even doling out cake.
No one checked ID cards. Beyond the reception line, music played and kiosks sold products that have become treasures in Venezuela: rice, toothpaste, detergent, and sacks of sugar.
Gonzalez cried behind her oversized aviator glasses.
“I thought the crossing would be easier. It made me feel so humiliated, like I was an animal; a refugee,” she said.
“But look how different things are on this side. It’s like Disneyland,” responded Ramirez. Not only was the town filled with prized groceries, but everything was much cheaper than on Venezuelan black market, now the only alternative for people who don’t have time to spend in the hours-long lines for scarce goods that have become the most salient feature of the oil country’s economic crisis.
They changed their Venezuelan money into Colombian currency at a mall, where Gonzalez luxuriated in the clean, air-conditioned space as she window-shopped for watches and handbags.
As she browsed past the shoes, a TV report flashed on the store television: It was an aerial shot of the bridge she had crossed over, crammed with people. “Humanitarian crisis,” the headline said.
“Oh no,” Gonzalez whispered.
Other shoppers were indignant.
“That isn’t Venezuela. That isn’t us,” said a woman who was looking at sneakers.
Gonzalez crossed herself and left. It was time to go food shopping and get home.
The variety at the mall supermarket felt unreal after so many months of scrounging in near-empty stores.
The couple debated over the best baby toothpaste. Gonzalez ran her hand over seven varieties of shampoo. She examined each option in an aisle of pasta.
But while things were cheaper than in shortage-hit Venezuela, they were pricier than they had expected.
They decided to skip the flour and sugar, instead choosing 10 packages of the cheapest pasta. They went for cloudy soy oil instead of the more expensive canola. Every price was checked and rechecked as the couple spent three hours deciding how to allocate their emergency fund.
“It’s more expensive than we had hoped, but what matters is that it’s available at all,” Ramirez said.
Other Venezuelans in the store – teachers, small business owners and office workers – pored over prices and reluctantly put things back.
In the end, the couple bought enough food to fill two suitcases and a duffle bag, then slipped into the stream of exhausted shoppers filing back to Venezuela. It hasn’t been announced if Maduro will lift the border closure again next weekend.
Colombian soldiers shook hands with the departing Venezuelans. But the kindness didn’t lift their spirits the same way it did when they entered Colombia hours later.
At home, Ramirez and Gonzalez stacked their hard-won supplies into gleaming white pantry cabinets. They still looked pretty bare.