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Brazil & Southern Cone - October 2015 (ISSN 1741-4431)

Silence over Venezuela speaks a thousand words

Uruguay's opposition political parties have torn into the left-wing government led by President Tabaré Vázquez for shrinking from condemning the Venezuelan government for the heavy prison sentence handed down to one of the leading lights of the country's opposition movement, Leopoldo López, on 10 September. They accused the ruling left-wing Frente Amplio (FA) of subordinating their human rights credentials to its ideological affinity with the Bolivarian Revolution. While such solidarity runs deep, especially on the radical wing of the FA, there are more pragmatic reasons for Uruguay’s silence. The government was putting the finishing touches to a massive trade accord with the Venezuelan government, whose sensitivity to criticism is axiomatic, at the time of the sentence; an accord which could save key dairy companies from going to the wall and that comes at a time when Uruguay’s economic growth is screeching to a shuddering halt.

The FA used its wafer-thin majority in the senate to block a motion presented by Senator Pablo Mieres, the leader of the small opposition Partido Independiente (PI), which condemned the sentencing of López and called on the Venezuelan government to release him ahead of key legislative elections on 6 December. The motion was backed by the opposition Partido Colorado (PC) and Partido Nacional (PN; Blancos) but it fell one short as the 16 FA senators voted as a bloc to oppose it.

Mieres slammed the government for a “hemiplegic” vision, a severe form of paralysis when it comes to condemning the abuses of left-wing governments in the region. He was especially scathing of FA Senator Rafael Michelini, who just days earlier had branded López a “political prisoner”, while his moderate faction of the FA, Nuevo Espacio, had issued a statement criticising López’s imprisonment. Another FA senator, Daniela Payssé of Asamblea Uruguay, had also stated in the days before the vote that Venezuela was “concerning the whole of Latin America”. Blanco Senator Jorge Larrañaga, meanwhile, called for Venezuela to be expelled from the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) for “failing to comply with the [bloc’s] democratic clause”.

There was no prospect of the FA backing the motion still less calling for Mercosur to throw out Venezuela. Michelini made it clear that he had no choice but to set aside his principles, not out of ideological solidarity but rather economic pragmatism. He referred obliquely to “pending issues with Venezuela” making it “an inopportune time for the senate to address the [López] issue”.

He did not specify what the “pending issue” in question was but on 18 September the agriculture and livestock minister, Tabaré Aguerre, was in Caracas signing by far the most important trade accord since President Vázquez came to power last March. This included the reduction of the debt Uruguay’s State energy company Administración Nacional de Combustibles, Alcoholes y Portland (Ancap) held with Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) from US$434m to US$267m. The accord also confirmed Venezuela’s commitment to buy 265,000 tonnes of food products from Uruguay, a huge import order of US$300m. The ailing dairy industry was one of the main beneficiaries of this accord, with powdered milk and cheese producers given a big lift.

Uruguay needed this trade deal not just to prop up the dairy industry but also the wider economy. The central bank (BCU) published figures last month showing that the economy contracted by 0.1% year-on-year in the second quarter and by 1.8% quarter-on-quarter. Although the economy & finance minister, Danilo Astori, was quick to point out that rather than these negative figures the media should have headlined with the fact that the economy expanded by 2.2% year-on-year in the first half, there is no getting around the fact that Uruguay’s stellar growth of recent years and enviable record of 12 consecutive years of GDP growth is in jeopardy. Maybe not this year but certainly next year. Uruguay’s main trading partners, Argentina and Brazil, face tremendous economic and political uncertainties. Uruguay has diminished its dependence on both but it remains reliant, especially with China’s economy slowing down.

Given this context, the government clearly calculated that antagonising Venezuela at such a delicate juncture was not an option. It will have noted the vehement Venezuelan response to the comparatively mealy-mouthed criticism of López’s heavy sentence by Chile’s foreign ministry.

The significance of two open letters
While the Uruguayan government was doing its level best to stay out of the López debate, Luis Almagro, the secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS), did not so much walk on eggshells as stomp through them. Almagro served as Uruguay’s foreign minister under the administration of José Mujica (2010-2015) and although the Venezuelan government suspected that he was behind an attempt to keep the country out of Mercosur, until very recently he was carefully adhering to the FA line of being careful not to offend Venezuela. Since taking up his position at the head of the OAS six months ago, Almagro had not veered very far from this position. That is until he received a letter from Elías Jaua, one of the main Bolivarian ideologues whose time as foreign minister in Venezuela coincided with much of that of Almagro in Uruguay.

In a letter dated 9 September Jaua called Almagro “a proconsul” of the US and ally of the “Colombian oligarchy” who was “erecting himself as a judge of our Revolution for which you don’t have the political or moral stature”. Jaua’s criticism was based upon Almagro’s decision to meet Henrique Capriles Radonski, an opposition figurehead in Venezuela, and to travel to Cúcuta in Colombia to assess the humanitarian crisis triggered by Venezuela’s decision to close part of its shared border and deport more than 1,000 Colombians.

Almagro responded in a six-page open letter on 18 September (after the sentencing of López). “No revolution worthy of the name, Elías, leaves people with fewer rights than they had, poorer in values and principles, more unequal in judicial recourses and representation and more discriminated against depending upon your thinking or political affiliations. All revolutions mean more rights for more people,” Almagro said in his letter, published on Twitter.

Almagro defended his meetings with the Venezuelan opposition; his visit to Colombia to obtain first-hand information on the border crisis with Venezuela; and his offer to send a team of electoral observers from the OAS to monitor Venezuela’s forthcoming legislative elections. “Democracy is government of the majority but it also about guaranteeing the rights of minorities. There is no democracy without guaranteeing the rights of minorities.”

If this open letter laid bare what many FA politicians think but would never dare to express, another open letter published two days later sought to stir the FA into action. It was from Antonietta Ledezma, the young daughter of the former mayor of Caracas, Antonio Ledezma, addressed to now Senator José Mujica. Antonietta urged Mujica to intercede to secure the release of her father, who was arrested last February on suspicion of plotting a coup and remains under house arrest, and other political prisoners in Venezuela.

Praising Mujica for his “warmth, good humour, marvellous humility, defence of democracy, equality and respect for human rights,” Antonietta said that reading Mujica’s biography ‘A Black Sheep Comes to Power’ inspired her to write to him. She drew parallels between Mujica and her father, who she said came from humble origins before rising to become a national deputy, governor and twice metropolitan mayor of Caracas until his “unjust imprisonment…by an inefficient and repressive dictatorship”. Mujica, while he might be moved by the letter, is also a pragmatist at heart. But if anyone could get away with condemning “so many arbitrary actions” in Venezuela it is probably him.

  • Diplomacy

There were other factors behind the Uruguayan government’s silence. As pro tempore president of the Union of South American Nations (Unasur), President Vázquez had been playing a role in reconciling Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro and Colombia’s Juan Manuel Santos, eventually persuading them to meet in Quito on 21 September to discuss the border crisis. A forthright statement over Leopoldo López would have undermined his efforts.

  • “In every case you mention in your letter what is a motive for attacking me is for me a source of pride. With every action that I have carried out I have tried to guarantee the rights of all, this doesn’t make me less Bolivarian or less left-wing. Quite the contrary… He who considers himself left-wing and is not sensitive to the painful humanitarian reality [on the Colombian border] doesn’t deserve to be called left-wing and does not have the moral authority to criticise me.” - OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro.

End of preview - This article contains approximately 1433 words.

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