With flags and voting receipts in hand, thousands of Venezuelans have taken to the streets in Caracas and worldwide to protest Nicolás Maduro’s refusal to recognize his overwhelming defeat in the presidential election a month ago. The United States can do more to back them up.
The opposition party’s leader, María Corina Machado, recently came out of hiding to ride through the streets among throngs of demonstrators. Emerging from an armored truck, she urged her supporters to maintain their courage, defend the truth and ramp up defiance against Maduro’s fraudulent regime. Calling the protests the “greatest civic feat in the history of the country,” Machado warned that the movement would not relent.
After Maduro ordered his military leaders to respond to the protesters with an “iron fist,” at least 24 were found dead and 2,200 were imprisoned. Undaunted, opposition leaders plan to keep a critical mass on the streets, lure military leaders to their side and drain the dictator’s resources and power. But to achieve all that, they will need all the help they can get from Washington.
The Biden administration has expressed openness to negotiations with Caracas, but Maduro has shown he can’t be trusted to abide by his agreements. After talks with the United States in Qatar last year, Maduro’s government promised to allow free and fair elections. It turned out to be another bluff: Not only was the election stunningly unfair, but Maduro responded to the result by cracking down on opposition leaders and their supporters.
Waiting for intervention by Maduro’s fellow leftists in Colombia, Brazil and Mexico, meanwhile, will only buy the dictator more time for deception and repression.
The Biden administration has alluded to the possibility of offering Maduro amnesty from prosecution on drug trafficking charges if he agrees to a peaceful transfer of power. But given his past failures to comply with international agreements, and with four long months left in his term, that “carrot” probably won’t be enough to dislodge the strongman. The United States and other foreign powers will have to threaten him with “sticks,” imposing economic and diplomatic consequences to push him out of power.
The harshest possible sanctions must be leveled against Maduro and all state-owned industries to make an exit plan his best option. Hector Briceño, a Venezuelan postdoctoral researcher at Germany’s University of Rostock, told me that although sanctions on private business could hurt ordinary Venezuelans, targeting state-owned enterprises such as the country’s petroleum industry can be effective when the regime is as cash-starved as it is now.
“Profits from the petroleum industry don’t reach the people,” Briceño said. “Maduro spreads them between his allies among the military and other top officials.”
Maduro’s regime, like that of his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, operates on a top-down system of bribes and threats. The threats alone work for only so long; at some point, Maduro’s minions will expect to be paid.
In April, responding to Maduro’s interference with and intimidation of the opposition ahead of the election, President Biden reinstated some of the Trump-era sanctions that had been eased following the Qatar deal. But the administration indicated that it would allow certain foreign oil operations to continue in the country.
The Maduro government’s objections to the reimposition of sanctions showed that they have an impact, but his continued intransigence also reveals that they haven’t gone far enough to affect his behavior. And this is the worst moment to be generous with the regime. Why not hold up authorizations of the remaining low-yield, risky and environmentally hazardous foreign oil ventures, at least until a democratic government is in place?
Washington should also officially recognize Edmundo González Urrutia as the country’s rightful incoming leader. The Biden administration has joined a few other countries in acknowledging that González won the election, but it stopped short of calling him the president-elect.
The administration can’t necessarily ensure that Venezuela’s valiant struggle for liberty prevails. But doing less than it can will only help Maduro and his cronies get richer and bolder in prolonging their hold on political power.
The stakes couldn’t be higher. Nearly 8 million Venezuelans have migrated to the United States and other countries in search of a better future, and 40% of those remaining say they plan to leave if Maduro doesn’t. A once-thriving economy has been devastated by years of inept and corrupt rule, and the country has become a haven for institutionalized crime and terrorism and a security threat to the entire hemisphere.
The brave Venezuelan resistance isn’t giving up, and the United States shouldn’t either. This is a golden opportunity to end 25 years of misery under Chávez and Maduro.
Kristina Foltz is a researcher and writer based in California and Colombia. @kristinafoltz1
