Stephen Kinzer of Brown University USA, who has chronicled a century of USA regime change and whose video has recently been doing the rounds on social media in Guyana, claimed that the lesson his research teaches is that Americans love democracy when it throws up leaders that do their bidding. The video speaks to generality and Guyana’s history between 1953 and 1990 is a good example.
However, today I want to speak to the issue of economic sanctions, with some emphasis on sanctions upon Venezuela. In an article in the Boston Globe on 12th July 2020, Kinzer argued that, ‘American politicians have been sanctions-crazed …. Having already sanctioned every country we could possibly consider an adversary, we are beginning to sanction our friends’ (https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/07/10/ opinion/sanctions-mad-america-turns-its-friends/).
He found it remarkable that the US Congress was moving to sanction Germany, for generations a major ally, because it is building a gas pipeline to Russia. One sponsor of the law, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, said the pipeline ‘poses a critical threat to America’s national security.’ According to Kinzer, ‘Sanctioning adversaries can be good or bad policy, depending on circumstances. Sanctioning friends can only be bad. We may need them someday.’ The Trump Administration is highly transactional and friends and foes alike must seriously consider the likely impact on their specific interests if they do not follow its lead.
This column has historically been against external intervention in the internal affairs of Guyana. When the call was made – largely by coalition supporters – for sanctions to be placed on the PPP/C government, I said that, ‘Dealing with the PPP/C government is the task of the Guyanese people, albeit with support from its internal and external friends, and unless the regime becomes unusually brutal and grossly neglectful of our human rights, direct foreign intervention of any sort should be avoided’ (‘The LEAD project: Direct foreign intervention should be avoided:’ SN: 29/01/2014). That position has not changed: if by 2014, the PPP/C regime was not ‘unusually brutal and grossly neglectful of our human rights’, in my view the present Granger regime cannot be so characterized.
As it relates to Venezuela, America has sanctioned Mexican companies for seeking to supply food to Venezuelans. The Mexican president denounced the sanctions and escalated the problem, saying that in spite of US sanctions his government would now consider supplying gasoline to Venezuela. ‘Mexico is a sovereign and independent country. We make our own decisions’ (Ibid). Cuba being a Venezuelan ally, three senators introduced a bill in Congress designed to punish countries, including Italy, Ukraine, Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, and South Africa, that accept help from Cuban doctors. The prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, protested that his country relies on Cuban doctors and ‘Those who would like us to do otherwise should undertake to fill the breach.’ More than 50 countries that depend on Cuban doctors will be affected by this law when a global health pandemic is raging. However, the bill is likely to win support during the November 2020 US elections among Venezuelan migrants in the key US state of Florida, for the Republican party and two of its sponsors, Senators Rick Scott and Marco Rubio.
On Friday 10th July, President Donald Trump flew in for a visit to Doral in Florida, nicknamed Doralzuela because it is home to the largest Venezuelan community in the USA. Reportedly, he was there to visit the U.S. military’s Southern Command (Southcom) to publicize his new Caribbean drug-interdiction policy that is largely designed to deprive the Venezuelan government of what the US believes to be substantial drug-trafficking cash that is propping it up (https://www.wlrn.org/post/expats-ask-trumps-venezuela-campaign-under-control-or-under-chaos#stream/0). As indicated previously, Florida is a must-win state for the Republicans and among Venezuelans the Trump regime is widely blamed for destroying Venezuela’s economy without being able to get rid of the Nicolás Maduro government. Trump tried to reassure the Venezuelans that his pressure campaign will soon bring down the regime. ‘Venezuela, we have it very well under control.’ However, critics claim that ‘Maduro seems stronger now than when Trump first vowed to help overthrow him 18 months ago’ (ibid) and the administration policy is in chaos as the November election nears.
In May, a group of Venezuelan and U.S. mercenaries failed in their attempt to invade Venezuela and kidnap Maduro. Last month, President Trump claimed that he was willing to meet with Maduro and this caused such alarm in the US Venezuelan community that he later claimed that he meant only to discuss Maduro’s ‘exit from power.’ Furthermore, in an interview in Doral, Trump said he was losing confidence in the ability of his alternative president Juan Guaidó to lead the movement against Maduro: he wants someone who has the support of the Venezuelan people.
Last Friday, President David Granger suggested that his regime was under pressure from the US administration because it ‘rejected a request by the United States to use the medium wave radio frequencies … to broadcast Voice of America programmes to Venezuela’. The president claimed that Guyana turned down the request because of the security, health and political risk it poses to Guyana ‘Given the length of an unpoliced western border, the influx of refugees, the unsettled territorial question and the public health risks, it would not be in our national interest to do anything to contribute to destabilizing relations at this time.’ However, according to Demerara Waves, a US Embassy spokeswoman said that it was important that the people of Venezuela have access to uncensored news from credible Venezuelan and international journalistic news sources. ‘Guyana has shown leadership in the past, in defense of representative government by joining other Lima Group members from the Americas to strive for a democratic resolution to the crisis in Venezuela.’ The embassy also stated that the American government was no longer interested in the project and the US government’s position on the 2nd March 2020 elections has nothing to do with Venezuela but is about democracy in Guyana.
If not indispensable, propaganda such as the request to Guyana would have provided can be critical in the kind of confrontation taking place in Venezuela, and given the snippets we have seen above of the US propensity for sanctioning those who fall out of line with its Venezuelan policy – in May 2020 the Trinidad and Tobago government came in the line of fire for supposedly having a meeting with a high Venezuelan oil official – it would be truly remarkable for the Guyana government to have gotten off scot free. The sheer bullishness of the US premature interventions in the electoral process of a sovereign state even when such interventions could credibly be viewed as attempts to intimidate the judiciary made me and a few of its own congressional people suspect that there was more in the mortar than the pestle.
Guyana is a small poor country permanently attached to Venezuela and thus whatever the veracity of Granger’s claim it should not be dismissed or sacrificed at the altar of political expediency for it may have serious implications for the population and any successor government. Unfortunately, as the electoral quarrel has again exposed, Guyana is not normal; there is no ‘Guyana’ interest and no possibility of our arriving at one in the near future! Whatever the outcome of the current elections quarrel I only hope that it sets the stage for the day when things are no longer this way.
