Venezuela

Venezuela is currently used as America’s main distraction from the Trump-Epstein files, but it turns out many people have very little idea what kind of country it is, so let me tell a bit about it. I’ve been in Venezuela three times (in 1995, 2007 and 2008) and traveled over pretty much all of it, except for offshore islands. I know a few people who live there and a few who used to travel there regularly.

Venezuela is a magical place. It’s a country a bit more than twice the size of California, with great climate and population of just over 30 million. Its southern part is tepui country, where humongous table mountains rise from savanna or pristine rainforest, each one with a unique “lost world” on the summit plateau, with weird caves, breathtakingly beautiful waterfalls (one of them almost a kilometer tall), bizarre rock formations, clear lakes, and alien-looking plants and animals. There is more rainforest in the northeast, and more savanna in the center, plus a branch of snow-clad High Andes in the west, another bunch of gorgeous mountain ranges in the north, picture-perfect Caribbean coastline, the mighty Orinoco river with a wild delta, a patch of cactus desert in the northwest, and ridiculously high biodiversity, much of it unique, everywhere. I’m pretty sure under competent government Venezuela could do very well even if it didn’t have oil, just on tourism. Unfortunately, it never had a competent government.

Venezuela had a difficult and bloody history of European colonization, first by Germans in Spanish service, then by Spaniards themselves, followed by equally difficult and bloody 24-year fight for independence (the first two attempts squashed by rural armies loyal to the Spanish king) in which half of the population of European descent lost their lives. Then an endless chain of dictatorships followed. In 1958 the country became democratic and enjoyed a brief period of prosperity during the oil boom, but corruption and falling oil prices quickly plunged it back into poverty and social unrest.

When I first traveled there in 1997, the country was poor, but not particularly bad by South American standards of the time. People were still driving huge American cars from the 1960s, but tourism was rapidly growing, and everything was more or less working.

Just two years later, Jugo Chavez came to power. He was a leftist and initiated a long list of social reforms that made him immensely popular in the country, except among the elite. In the first few years of his rule, oil prices were very high and things looked great. But that didn’t last. When I returned to Venezuela in 2007-2008, I immediately saw the warning signs that reminded me of the last years of the Soviet Union: lots of stores and offices closed with no explanation, empty shelves in supermarkets, people not interested in any work whatsoever. Gasoline was subsidized so much that many people kept their trucks and buses running all night for no reason. Chavez kept moving the country further and further to the left, well beyond anything reasonable. He also failed to normalize relationships with the US (an essential trade partner for reasons I’ll explain later), and made friends with Cuba, Iran, China and Russia. The only things those countries could teach him were violent suppression of dissent and building crony capitalism.

Chaves died in 2012, late enough to see the country unraveling and plunging into poverty. His death was kept a secret for a few months. By that time all branches of government were fully under the control of the dictatorship. His chosen successor was Maduro, a former bus driver and a Cuban intelligence agent. Maduro didn’t even try to make things better for the people of Venezuela, who by that time were living in desperate poverty and emigrating by millions. He stole all subsequent elections and stayed in power by inviting Russian experts in state terrorism, bringing in Cuban security forces, and sharing profits from drug trafficking with his generals. His government gradually lost control of huge swaths of the country: the west is now ruled by Colombian guerillas turned narcocartels, the south by rural self-defence forces, and the capital mostly by street gangs. Moreover, many government functions were taken over by hundreds, if not thousands, of Cuban “advisors”.

It’s pretty obvious some of Maduro’s generals sold him out; it’s also obvious the Cubans were not informed. I hope Maduro rots in prison or is someday extradited to free Venezuela and executed – the fate every dictator deserves. But it remains to be seen if his removal will change life in Venezuela for the better. So far, Trump, a fellow dictator/criminal, has left the rest of Maduro’s gang in power, and, of course, he is the last person to be expected to restore democracy and the rule of law. Trump will probably insist on kicking out Cubans and cutting the supply of free oil to Cuba, which will immediately leave the island without electricity and transportation (Mexico helps them a bit but not enough). That might lead to Cuban regime falling, but not necessarily, and if it does fall now, it will most likely be replaced by a collective dictatorship of American billionaires favored by Trump.

Venezuela has world’s largest oil reserves, but its oil infrastructure has mostly fallen apart and will take many years to rebuild. Moreover, its oil is very dense, and needs additives to be of any use. The only countries with large refining capacity for such oil are the US and, to lesser extent, China. But the only reason the US is interested in that oil is Trump’s dementia. Increasing oil output from Venezuela would immediately undercut American shale oil producers, because shale oil is even more expensive to pump and refine. Oil companies not invested in shale oil could conceivably profit from it in the long term, but with demand for oil peaking and cheaper deposits being developed elsewhere, it’s not a particularly attractive long-term investment.

So the future of Venezuela (and Cuba… and the rest of the world) really depends on one thing: our ability to rid our own country of the criminal gang ruling it – the so-called Republican Party.