Among the various diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis in Venezuela, there is one very notable absence – that of an autonomous regional effort to heal the political strife in the oil-rich nation.
Just as South America faces its biggest diplomatic challenge in decades, its principle international organisation is undergoing its death rattle.
When the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) was created in 2008 it did not lack for ambition. South America’s first truly continental body, it was set up at a moment of intense diplomatic efforts to deepen integration and, looking to the example of the European Union, there was even talk of common passports and single currencies to go with a regional parliament.
Comprising all 12 South American nations, Unasur had some initial eye-catching successes such as its mediation in the 2008 dispute between Colombia and Ecuador after the former bombed a Colombian guerrilla base on the latter’s territory.
But since 2017 it has been consumed by internal disputes that have now provoked the desertion of most members. Symbolic of the organisation’s disintegration was this month’s decision by Ecuador’s president Lenín Moreno to pull his country out of the group, while demanding it hand back its striking new modernist headquarters located in the Ecuadoran capital Quito.
Disintegration
Unasur’s disintegration means that outside powers such as the EU, Canadaand Russia have instead emerged as key diplomatic players in the Venezuelan drama. Meanwhile the US, whose influence had waned in the region after the millennium, is now threatening military intervention against Caracas, while US national security adviser John Bolton has even cited the controversial Monroe Doctrine, viewed as justification for US hegemony in Latin America, to defend Washington’s approach to the crisis.