Given the complex crisis that Venezuela is going through, it is difficult to evaluate the difference that the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights visit can make.
In June 2018, Global Americans launched our news monitoring initiative to flag false or misleading articles by extra-hemispheric state-owned media reporting in the Americas. This is what we learned.
Juan Guaidó’s swearing in as interim president on January 23, 2019 and his recognition by more than 50 countries as Venezuela’s legitimate president has consolidated him as the leader of the opposition. But real power remains elusive for the young leader. What must happen to finally trigger change in Venezuela?
Despite ongoing mass mobilizations, Venezuela will likely remain in flux for the foreseeable future. Backed by powerful external (illiberal) allies, the Maduro regime doesn’t have to play by the rules.
Countering democratic backsliding driven by powerful executives is as relevant as eliminating corruption, the deficit of the rule of law and the scourges of inequality and violence that plague Latin America’s democracies. Yet the latter issues still dominate public debate.
Since the mid-nineties, a majority of established democracies have fallen victim to an autocratic wave. And while each country’s trajectory to autocracy is different, the tactical model of the aspiring dictator is evident in all of them.
Aspiring autocrats in Latin America and around the world are increasingly taking pages from the playbooks of the Chávez/Maduro regime in Venezuela and Vladimir Putin in Russia.
As the standoff continues without much sign of a plan B from the White House, the Maduro government is threatening to arrest President Juan Guaidó. It’s time for the other members of the 50-plus international coalition to put some muscle into the game.
Latin America needs to forge alliances in a complex, changing world, but betting on extra-continental autocracies will not bring greater social equity and respect for human rights to the Americas.
Though often neglected in coverage of the political battle between Guaidó and Maduro, restrictions to digital freedoms have become an important means for Maduro to silence his critics.
