Tillerson Makes Venezuela a Target During Latin American Tour.
| Autor | Gaudin, Andres |
While Nicolas Maduro's government and the opposition Mesa de la Unidad Democratica de Venezuela (MUD) slowly advanced toward a laborious agreement to allow presidential elections in Venezuela, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, during his first Latin American trip in February, worked to bring friendly governments to back Washington's anti-Venezuela policies (NotiSur, Sept. 15, 2017, and Jan. 12, 2018).
Tillerson's tour, which included Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Colombia, and Jamaica, crowned a process in Venezuela framed by a violent and critical domestic situation, the constant zigzags of a divided opposition that, in the long run, has benefitted the ruling party, and by US President Donald Trump's vacillating strategy. That strategy has evolved, from a threat of direct, armed intervention made on Aug. 11, 2017, to an exhortation to the Venezuelan military to intervene in civil matters, overthrow Maduro, and send him off to Cuba, which came on the eve of Tillerson's trip. In addition, there have been sanctions imposed by the US and the European Union (EU) against both individuals and institutions, and the persistent threat of an anachronistic blockade similar to that which Cuba suffered in the 20th century. It is a situation for which the great power of the West seems unable to find a satisfactory solution.
On the eve of departing for Mexico, his first stop on his first Latin American tour as secretary of state, Tillerson met with students at the University of Texas in Austin. There he suggested that the Venezuelan military should stage a coup d'etat and send Maduro to a golden exile in Cuba.
"I'm sure that he's got some friends in Cuba who can give him a nice hacienda on the beach, and he can have a nice life over there," Tillerson said in response to a question about a possible US role in regime change in Venezuela.
Secretary Tillerson made it explicitly clear that this would be the focus of his tour. This call for military intervention was judged as a serious error, even by the most loyal allies, including Argentina and Brazil. But in addition, Tillerson's trip to the region, began with a major setback: On the same day, Feb. 2, Thomas Shannon, a diplomat with solid prestige in Latin America, resigned as undersecretary of state for political affairs. Just three weeks earlier, Shannon had been Trump's man in Madrid, there to negotiate new sanctions against Venezuela with the conservative government of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy...
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