Maduro charmed at Sharm El-Sheikh

The big discussion today at least for those interested in Venezuela is the handshake and hallway chit chat that Maduro had with France's Macron yesterday at the COP 27 being held in Egypt.  Besides the nauseous images, at least for yours truly, it is necessary to try to figure out what is really going on.

First, what the hell was Maduro doing at Sharm El-Sheikh? He could go there because he did not risk to be detained. Hopefully his two airbus will not be forced to land in a country where there is no dictator like Egypt's Al Sisi. And yes, Maduro went with two big CO2 producing airplanes to Egypt whereas normal head of states go there in a single small plane or, god forbid, fly commercial. The COP 27 is set to deal with climate change and environment. Maduro blamed capitalism in his speech conveniently forgetting to mention that Venezuela has been a major producer of oil for capitalism, under Chavez in particular. He also forgot to mention the considerable environmental damage that the wrecked state oil company PDVSA has done under his tenure, in particular. And never mind the destruction of Venezuela's share of Amazonia due to savage gold prospection, directed by the Venezuelan army in particular.

But I digress, back to the handshake. It seems that there was a part of improvisation and part of manipulation in that fortuitous (?) encounter. From one of the videos I saw it seemed clear that the president of Guinea Bissau was sort of directing Macron towards Maduro. Guinea Bissau is one of the stopping points for drug trafficking between Venezuela and Europe. Just saying. So they met and talked for about one minute. Not to be accused of cheap anti Maduro I will give you the pro regime feed of Telesur:

#COP27 | Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro and France's President Emmanuel Macron hold a dialogue at the 27th United Nations Climate Summit in Egypt. pic.twitter.com/XLHKOODxMq

— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) November 7, 2022

Now the question is why Macron was so "friendly". Before I go on let me reassure everyone reading this, mostly if there is by happenstance a chavista: the profound distaste of Macron (or almost any western leader) towards Maduro has not changed. In fact it is probably worse than ever now that Maduro is trying to gain leverage with the little bit of oil Venezuela could produce soon.  Blackmail by any other name. Thus what we witnessed there is real politik at its worst, just like Biden visiting the journalist slayer meat processer Mohammed ben Salman (little good it did him but well...)

The Ukraine war happened; energy transition cannot be done in a day; Russia is to be punished; oil and gas must be found somewhere. Even though Venezuela is no condition to double its meager oil output in a year, it is still necessary to ingratiate yourself with the Venezuelan regime since the boycott of Russia will go on for as long as Putin will hold. And lo and behold, the French surely must know about the maneuvering of Chevron to recoup its lost investment, all this supported by the Biden administration willing to trade prisoners with Maduro.  Macron had to run before France's oil giant Total is locked out of a possible reopening of Venezuela. By the way, Total has also a lot of investment to recoup in Venezuela.

So that explains why Macron allowed himself or was forced to be seen with Maduro. I will also remind folks that the Maduro regime was very abusive a year ago with the French embassy in Caracas, cutting off for weeks water and electricity. But that humiliation seems to have been forgotten. Now, about the consequences.

Macron has started getting flack from French press, after years of saying that Maduro is a criminal (Maduro is still a criminal, a hand shake cannot cure this, it just dirties the other hand).  Of course, ever the chavista hard core supporter Jean Luc Melenchon went with his own gleeful tweet saying that oil made people [Macron] polite.  Macron just trashed one of the main political points against the extreme left Melenchon which was his inability to condemn human rights abuse in Venezuela.

But the bad press of Macron really does not register much in France. After all it did not make it in the nightly news that I eagerly awaited yesterday. Only today some comments, not favorable, started appearing though l'Opinion thinks that it was a trap set for Macron who dealt with the best it could.. No, the worse of the whole fiasco is that Maduro got for almost free what he so craved for: recognition, some form of legitimation. That the French president shakes hands with a criminal undoes years of work of US presidents, British prime ministers, German chancellors, etc.

The fact of the matter is that Russian invasion of Ukraine has changed everything causing among other things a panic rush for oil survival [rather than telling the truth to the people about why we must suffer a cold winter at home this year: 1940 heroism is not fashionable anymore]. The big game is barely getting started and for all that we know if given cover we might even see Maduro abandon Putin! Chavismo is venal enough for that if the price is right. Then again Maduro and Putin may be laughing their heads off at Biden and Maduro. 

To end this distasteful moment in a sourer note, there is another reason besides oil why Biden and Macron and soon others, are to talk with Maduro. This one has apparently won his fight with the Venezuelan opposition which is more divided than ever.  They all coalesced to support Guaido against Maduro 3 years ago. From the start the regime through corruption and violence has managed to divide the opposition to the point that now it offers a sickening panorama to observers. Not only many spend more time attacking Guaido than Maduro, but the opposition looks unable to prepare for upcoming presidential elections that on paper it should win. It is simply dumbfounding seen from DC or Paris.  

There may be a vote in a year and yet the opposition is unable to come up with a primary system to pick a unity candidate. We even have the sorry sight of more and more once upon a time believed strong opposition figures meekly calling for the end of sanctions against the higher ups in the regime.  And Biden, Macron et al. should get cold this winter to help such a bunch of incompetents?  I cannot bring myself to blame them.

____________________________

added later, further hunting trophies for Maduro

And finally, here's exchange with @antoniocostaps.

For all of of Maduro's charm offensive, he missed an opportunity to talk up Venezuelan oil when the Portuguese prime minister complained about high energy prices.

"Visit whenever you want. We have lots of Portuguese," he says. pic.twitter.com/xnTIPkMcRU

— Joshua Goodman (@APjoshgoodman) November 8, 2022

The Portuguese Prime minister with Maduro telling him to visit "'cause we have a lot of Portuguese in Venezuela". Classy....

And next with John Kerry who apparently forgot that his country has a 15million$ reward for bringing in Maduro. Though admittedly Kerry does not seem as cheerful as Macron or Costa seemed to have been.

PS/ gets better, State announced that Maduro crashed a meeting where Kerry was participating. It seems more like in line for Maduro: the only people that agree to meet with him are those receiving a stipend in oil from Venezuela.

A kleptocracy starts facing reality?

In the past few weeks a few strange signs have been happening for a regime that supposedly has all controls in hands. A regime that has made a point to sabotage any negotiation, to deny the existence of its political opposition, a regime ready to do anything for its survival has given timid signs of negotiating. Before you get your hopes up keep in mind that until now the small concessions made are easily reversible without much damage toward the inner base of the regime.

These first sign was related with Covid, in spite of the heartless approach of the regime towards its victims. Namely it was about agreements to obtain help for Covid testing and vaccines. This is still a work in progress but that the regime accepted to hold discrete talks with the opposition was already something.

Then a couple of days ago some US citizens, directors at Citgo, were released from their Caracas jail to be held in their homes.  These men were held as hostages against the Trump sanctions. But it did not work. Sanctions held.

And a greater surprise was the acknowledgement by the regime of some of its crimes. Selected few of course, but those that had quite an echo outside of Venezuela. Though these admissions were limited on context, just as "worthy of further examination". But that the regime accepts to even talk about these crimes is progress.

The biggest surprise may have been the agreement between the World Food Program and Venezuela. See, both Maduro and Guaido appeared with its chair, David Beasley. BOTH had their tweet pic. And thousand of Venezuelan children may soon receive lunch at school, hopefully lowering the dropout rate.

Tremendous breakthrough in #Caracas! @WFP will soon establish operations to provide school meals to 1.5 million of the most vulnerable children. All parties agree that we must always show up together for the people and the children of #Venezuela. Let's get to work. pic.twitter.com/LKuOpapgJj

— David Beasley (@WFPChief) April 21, 2021

En mí reunión con el Director Ejecutivo del Programa Mundial de Alimentos, @WFPChief, le agradecí en nombre de los venezolanos el esfuerzo para que el @WFP_es pueda iniciar operaciones en el país y se pueda combatir el hambre que padecen millones de venezolanos. pic.twitter.com/abtZPnDJJN

— Juan Guaidó (@jguaido) April 20, 2021

And then today's surprise, a new electoral board CNE has been named . Even though the regime could have had a 5 out of 5 names in it, it will be 3 chavistas and 2 opposition (well, we will see how much of an opposition they are). Clearly the regime is accepting to open up to elections that may have some meaning, though do not think that 2 out of 5 at the CNE is enough to ensure free and fair elections, far from it...

What gives? Rather than discussing the details of these developments let's look at the reasons why the regime is begrudgingly making marginal concessions.  Certainly there is the Covid crisis, the bankrut country, its economy in shambles, the loss of territorial control in large swaths of the country, sanctions and what not to force the Maduro gang to the table. But the regime has shown once and again its disregard for the well being of the Venezuelan people. The kleptocracy cum drug traffickers are strictly on survival mode in order to retain power at all cost. 

What gives in my opinion is Biden holding on the Trump line over China and doubling down on Putin. See, the regime has no notion on what state interests are: since Chavez all foreign policy was guided by the interests of Chavez.  But in spite of all its bravado, Trump expressed a bipartisan policy of confronting Russia and China. In his first 100 days Biden has talked tough on China and even called Putin a killer, pushing further that bipartisan agreement. The table has been set, the rivalry between China and the US is now #1 priority, with Putin close behind.

How does this affect Venezuela? Look at a world map and figure out how far from Beijing and Moscow Caracas is. And how close are Syria and Crimea to Moscow and how close the Indian and Pacific Oceans to essential Chinese trade routes. Neither China nor Russia will go to the front to defend Venezuela. In a real confrontation these countries have much more important priorities than Venezuela, a bankrupt and corrupt country whose only interest today is to be used to goad the US. Any LatAm country on the Pacific is way more important to China than Venezuela, and Venezuela simply too expensive for Russia to support non stop. This one, by the way, turns out to be not such a great ally of Maduro according to the limited supply of Sputnik V vaccine it is sending. But I digress.

Thus it is quite possible that someone inside the regime has realized that now automatic support from Russia or China is not guaranteed. Even Iran and Turkey may not be such reliable friends anymore. Time to shift gears? Maybe it is time to be serious about discussing some sort of arrangement with the US?

Biden's administration will have to face Maduro's regime

 As I type Biden is about to be sworn in and of course I am planning to watch it if French TV broadcasts it. One of the reasons that motivates me is that in the first hearings for his cabinet positions his nominees without a fault are quite willing to continue some of Trump's policies. Sure, the means and ways will differ here and there but on important questions such as the enmity of China or the Middle East moves, nothing much will change. And best of all Secretary of state nominee Blinken has said in his hearing that the incoming administration will recognize the interim government of Guaido and the remains of the National Assembly elected in 2015, considered the last democratically elected branch of government.

No negotiation, never

 So Maduro/regime/Cuba have everything: total control of the executive, legislative and judiciary; decisive support of the army; they count the votes; no private sector able to finance an opposition; decided support of all sorts of tyrants/strong men here and there; the acquiescent silence of a few; semi free propaganda from lefties a.k.a tankies.  Just a few democracies against and a few damning reports on human rights violations.  But who cares: any insubordination at home will be quickly snuffed now that new repressive laws will be easily enacted.

But there is one thing that the regime has that is a problem: international sanctions. I am not talking about the sanctions against PDVSA which is seen as diminishing the income on corruption schemes (the income for el pueblo is sill enough to fudge elections, and if they want more they can emigrate least they die from Covid before_1_&_2_).  The sanctions that the regime fears are those that are an hindrance to enjoy the loot in glamorous parts of the world. That is, it is becoming more difficult to hide the money or buy nice manses in the US or Spain. Never mind the risk of being arrested in doing so.