The Atlantic-<\/p>\n
It’s hard to pick the Venezuelan president\u2019s greatest flaw. Which is more serious: his cruel indifference to the suffering of his people, or his brutal autocratic behavior? Which is more outrageous: his immense ignorance or the fact that he\u00a0dances on television<\/a>\u00a0while his henchmen murder defenseless young protesters in the streets? The list of Nicolas Maduro\u2019s failings is long, and Venezuelans know it;\u00a0over 80 percent<\/a>\u00a0of them oppose him. And it’s not just Venezuelans. The rest of the\u00a0world has also discovered<\/a>\u2014at last!\u2014his despotic, corrupt, and inept character.<\/p>\n And yet \u2026 Maduro doesn\u2019t really matter. He is simply a useful idiot, the puppet of those who really control Venezuela: the Cubans, the drug traffickers, and Hugo Chavez\u2019s political heirs. Those three groups effectively function as criminal cartels, and have co-opted the armed forces into their service; this is how it is possible that every day we see men in uniform willing to massacre their own people in order to keep Venezuela\u2019s criminal oligarchy in power.<\/p>\n The most important component of this oligarchy is the Cuban regime. Three years ago\u00a0I wrote<\/a>: \u201cVenezuelan aid is indispensable to prevent the Cuban economy from collapsing. Having a government in Caracas that maintains such aid is a vital objective of the Cuban State. And Cuba has accumulated decades of experience, knowledge, and contacts that allow it to operate internationally with great efficacy and, when necessary, in a way that is almost invisible.\u201d Havana\u2019s priority remains controlling and plundering Venezuela. The supply of oil from Venezuela to Cuba is no longer as steady as it once was, due to the production troubles of the state-run oil company PDVSA. But the flows, while intermittent,\u00a0have<\/a>continued. Moreover, \u00a0Cuban companies are the intermediaries of choice for many critical imports of foods and medicines to Venezuela.<\/p>\n And Cuba\u2019s leaders know how to keep their Venezuelan allies in power\u2014namely by exporting their own successful military-control strategies to Venezuela. Cubans have perfected the techniques of the police state at home: constant but selective repression, extortion and bribery, espionage, and persecution. Above all, the Cuban regime knows how to protect itself from a military coup: That is the main threat to any dictatorship, so controlling the armed forces is an indispensable requirement for a self-respecting dictator.<\/p>\n But, in addition, Cuba\u2014in stumbling across Venezuela\u2014happened upon one of the most unprecedented gifts in the annals of geopolitics: Maduro\u2019s predecessor Hugo Chavez, the president of a petro state who happily invited a bankrupt dictatorship to exert enormous influence in some of his country\u2019s vital functions, from elections, economic policy, and politics to, of course, military and citizen surveillance. Cuban \u201cadvisers\u201d\u00a0were deployed\u00a0<\/a>at critical government agencies and soon started vetoing the decisions of the Venezuelan officials and in some instances imposing their views. The Venezuelans who resisted them were transferred or fired. The surprising influence that Cuba gained in Venezuela was essentially due to the close political alliance and deep emotional attachment that Chavez developed toward Fidel Castro. But even today, more than four years after Chavez\u2019s death, the Venezuelan government makes few important decisions that are not stealthily influenced by the Cuban regime.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n Another important player in today\u2019s Venezuela is the drug traffickers, whose power is also a constraint on Maduro.\u00a0Venezuela is one of the main drug routes to the U.S. and Europe<\/a>. This status is worth billions of dollars, and the country is home to a vast network of people and organizations that control the illicit trade and the enormous amount of money it generates.\u00a0According to U.S. officials<\/a>, one such person is Vice President Tareck El Aissami, and so are a large number of military officers and other relatives and members of the ruling oligarchy.<\/p>\n This oligarchy, made up of Chavez’s political heirs, is the third major component of the real power in Venezuela. Of course, Maduro; his wife, Cilia Flores; and many of his relatives and associates are part of that oligarchy. In this elite there are different \u201cfamilies,\u201d \u201ccartels,\u201d and groups that compete for influence on government decisions, for political appointments, and for the control of illicit markets\u2014ranging from\u00a0human trafficking<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0money laundering.<\/a>\u00a0The smuggling and selling of food, medicines, and all kinds of products are just a few of the many other corrupt activities that enrich the Maduro oligarchy as well as the Cubans, the military, and their civilian accomplices.<\/p>\n Getting rid of Maduro is necessary. But it’s not enough as long as three criminal cartels\u2014who are intermingled in business, corruption, and the exercise of power\u2014continue to control Venezuela.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Atlantic- It’s hard to pick the Venezuelan president\u2019s greatest flaw. Which is more serious: his cruel indifference to the suffering of his people, or his brutal autocratic behavior? Which is more outrageous: his immense ignorance or the fact that he\u00a0dances on television\u00a0while his henchmen murder defenseless young protesters in the streets? The list of Nicolas Maduro\u2019s failings is long,… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":799,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798\/revisions\/799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}