Could Covid-19 be the End of Maduro?
Yesterday, the U.S. Justice Department indicted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his associates on various charges related to money laundering, drug trafficking, and narcoterrorism. These charges stem from the regime’s collaboration with Colombian guerilla groups to traffic cocaine out of Colombia for sale in the United States. President Maduro is only the second sitting head of state to be indicted by the United States, the first being Panamanian Dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega in 1988 that ultimately led to his capture and incarceration after a December 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama.
Maduro’s continued support from Russia would make his capture more difficult than Noriega’s. After two decades of wasteful war, the U.S. also lacks the political will to invade a large country like Venezuela. Nevertheless, the Maduro regime will be struggling to maintain power over the coming months with historically low oil prices and the Coronavirus pandemic. This article discusses how the current crises exacerbates significant problems with the country since he took over from Hugo Chavez in 2013 and provides a glimpse of what the future holds if he is eventually ousted.
Worse than Syria
President Maduro’s nationwide quarantine to slow the Coronavirus is just the latest unfortunate challenge for a country several years into one of the worst economic collapses in modern history. Since 2013, the Venezuelan economy has contracted by more than 65%, inflation has spiraled out of control, and one in three Venezuelans suffer nutritional deficiencies.
The crisis case has caused 4.6 million Venezuelans (about 16 percent of the population) to flee the country. The Venezuelan refugee crisis is one of the largest in modern history, and, if current trends continue, there could be as many as 6.5 million Venezuelans living outside of the country by 2020 (based on estimates from the U.N. Refugee Agency, UNHCR)—far outpacing the Syrian crisis.
To make matters worse, an oil price war and fears of a global recession have driven the price of oil—which makes up 98% of Venezuela’s export earnings—to an 18 year-low of $24 per barrel, less than half of what it was in February. This adds a significant strain on a petroleum dictatorship that uses oil exports as a blank check for populist programs when the price is high and then descends into chaos when the price is low.
The worsening economic crisis could encourage even more people to leave the country, but this is now severely complicated because of widespread border closures to combat the spread of Coronavirus. Countries like Colombia have borne the brunt of the refugee crisis, taking in over 1.6 million Venezuelans since the crisis began. Until the Coronavirus hit Colombia, it continued a program begun by prior President Juan Manuel Santos to welcome Venezuelans with open arms. The influx of Venezuelans into Colombia is a phenomenal reversal of prior migration patterns. Back in the 1970s and ’80s, the Venezuelan oil boom attracted as many as two million Colombian immigrants, most of them fleeing the violence of the war with the FARC and the drug violence brought by Pablo Escobar. Even after the peace agreements of 2016 in which the FARC reached an disarmament agreement with the Colombian government, Colombia has more displaced persons inside its territory than any other country in the world, except for Syria.
That history initially caused even right-wing Colombian president Duque to continue welcoming Venezuelans, but the situation has now changed not only with Colombia but also with other Latin American countries like Brazil that had also welcomed Venezuelans. Those countries’ borders with Venezuela are now closed, and other countries like Peru and Chile have placed increasing restrictions on the inflow of Venezuelans.
“Today our public services, not just health but also education and public security, are totally overburdened,” said Ricardo Amaral, a spokesman for the governor of Brazilian border state Roraima.
The problem has not been helped by the United States, which capped refugees from all countries at 18,000 this year. The U.S. not only has significantly more resources to absorb many Venezuelans and a labor shortage due to its aging population. If the U.S. will not step up to the challenge, there is diminishing hope that Latin American countries will do so under worsening global circumstances.
Venezuela’s Healthcare Crisis
Venezuelan’s economic and healthcare shortcomings are likely to make the Coronavirus worse than in many other countries, according to Kathleen Page, a professor of medicine specializing in infectious disease at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Latin America director at the Johns Hopkins Center for Clinical Global Health Education.
Despite President Maduro’s early quarantine order, Professor Page is doubtful that these measures will be sufficient. “Even with an authoritarian government, there’s only so much order they can impose in a place like Venezuela where—unlike in China’s lockdown—people can’t survive that long in their homes,” she said.
Local media have reported people breaking quarantine to work or get food. “Maduro doesn’t deliver food to my house,” a 68 year-old told news site cronica.uno.
It is this kind of sentiment that could cause much more widespread disorder and dissent that has been growing as Venezuela’s crisis has worsened.
The strain on hospitals is likely to be much worse than in the United States, whose healthcare system is already at the brink in crisis centers like New York City. A lack of vaccines has already led to the resurgence of preventable diseases like malaria and measles in Venezuela. According to local NGO Medicos Unidos, two thirds of Venezuelan doctors say they do not have gloves, soap, masks, goggles or scrubs, and only a quarter have reliable running water.
“For those who are critically ill, it’s hard for me to imagine, given the current situation, that going to hospital will make it any better,” Page says. “I fear that Venezuela is going to have one of the highest mortality in the world from this disease.”
The Future of Maduro
When the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases reached 30 on March 16, President Maduro ordered a nationwide quarantine to stop the spread. The following day, he requested a $5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, an institution his party has long railed against. The IMF quickly declined, saying there is “no clarity on [international] recognition” of Maduro’s regime.
Maduro’s unsuccessful appeal to the IMF suggests that his previously reliable support from China and Russia is drying up, and will continue to do so as those countries deal with the crisis and resulting economic contraction within their borders. The foreign financial backing has been essential to Maduro maintaining support for his military, even as the country has spiraled out of control over the past few years. According to risk analyst Moya-Ocampos, a lack of foreign backing could cause him to finally lose his military support.
Under the current circumstances, Maduro’s ouster by the military would not necessarily be an event that results in transparent democracy and economic prosperity. Moya-Ocampus says that any action by my military would require a catastrophic “trigger.” “We’re talking about massive casualties from the coronavirus, the collapse of the health system, and a surge in civil unrest in the form of looting,” Moya-Ocampos says. “If the military act, it will not be driven by altruistic efforts to restore democracy. It will be a matter of survival.”
Although Camino Aztlan always looks for silver linings in the challenges facing the Americas, Venezuela is likely in for a rough road on its way back to democracy and order. Our hope is that the global scope of the Coronavirus pandemic impresses on world leaders the need for greater cooperation. Once the United States gains its footing from its current woes, it has a moral duty to do more for its southern neighbors with whom it has such extensive and complicated history.
We are monitoring the situation in Venezuela and look forward to keeping you informed. Please subscribe to our newsletter below for future updates.