Venezuela, the Latest Obama Foreign Policy Failure

While the world is watching Ukraine, violent street protests are increasing in another hot spot. Yesterday and today, police in Venezuela detained 80 student demonstrators demanding the release of 200 fellow protesters arrested in anti-government marches last week. The current protests began with hundreds of students marching peacefully through the streets of the capital Caracas, but security forces clashed with some of the demonstrators who threw stones and home-made explosives and tried to erect barricades. More than 40 people have been killed during three months of unrest in Venezuela, mostly in Caracas. Officials say that last week the security forces were trying to break up protest camps being used as bases to launch "violent attacks" and to hide "drugs, weapons, explosives and mortars." But a university student at the march told AP : "there was never a problem due to drugs, weapons or alcohol. We are demanding that they show us the reasons why they arrested them." Student leader Juan Requesens told the Efe news agency that they will continue to protest despite the arrests : "The government is trying to suppress us by continuing to detain students. We will not bow down and will continue our protests." ~~~~~ A wave of violent demonstrations triggered by high inflation, rampant crime and food shortages has swept over Caracas. The protesters are demanding that the government do something to alleviate the problems of neighborhood and campus security (Venezuela has the fifth highest murder rate in the world, with rampant crime in urban centers), record inflation (official figures show an annual inflation in December 2013 of 56.2%) and shortages of basic food items, such as cooking oil, flour and toilet paper. But the government of President Nicolas Maduro has labelled the protesters "fascist agitators" and accused them of fomenting a coup against his socialist administration. The protests began in early February in the western states of Tachira and Merida when students demanded increased security after a female student alleged she had been the victim of an attempted rape. The protests in Tachira turned violent, leading to the arrest of several students, which then led to demonstrations in Caracas calling for their release. The Caracas demonstrations started on February 12, and when three people were shot by gunmen following a largely peaceful march, the protests turned violent. Since then, a loose coalition of the original students has formed with political protesters from within the umbrella opposition group Table for Democratic Unity. Leopoldo Lopez, a former mayor, and Maria Corina Machado, an MP, are the main political figures in the movement. According to many observers and opposition leader Henrique Capriles, the protests are now made up of a middle-class majority, with middle-class concerns.The latest clashes between Caracas protesters and security forces come a day after the Venezuelan political opposition put a hold on ongoing talks with the government. The two sides began meeting last month in an attempt to find a way out of the current crisis. The government accuses the opposition of trying to stage a US-backed coup and has arrested a number of opposition leaders on charges of inciting violence. It has compared the protests to a brief coup against Hugo Chavez in 2002. The opposition has accused pro-government motorcycle gangs, as well as security forces, of shooting live rounds into opposition crowds. The government accuses the "fascists" of instigating the violence and riots and encouraging people to erect barricades. A number of motorcyclists have been decapitated by barbed wire strung across residential streets to hinder the security forces. ~~~~~ Wednesday, Venezuelan security forces arrested 105 people during a Caracas round-up as protests against the government increased in the turmoil of a widening split within the opposition over whether to back possible US sanctions. Political observers say that by halting the talks, moderate opposition leaders were bowing to pressure from their own more radical base, which is furious over the mass arrests and the confusing statements about sanctions by top US diplomat to Latin America, Roberta Jacobson, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs. Jacobson testified last week in the US Senate that some members of Venezuela's opposition urged the White House to delay action on a proposal to ban visas and seize the assets of Venezuelan officials who have committed human rights abuses since February. Sanction legislation has cleared a House committee with bipartisan support. And, in a heated exchange with Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, Jacobson said the delay is needed to avoid endangering the outcome of the government-opposition talks and that opposition politicians at the negotiating table had explicitly asked the State Department for more time before imposing sanctions. On Wednesday, Jacobson retracted her comment, telling reporters in Washington that she misspoke and that nobody participating in the talks had made such a request. But her comments have caused a political rift in the opposition. Ramon Guillermo Aveledo, the head of the Democratic Unity alliance, denied any such request was made, while students and hardliners, who are boycotting the talks, used Jacobson's comments, and Aveledo's failure to call for sanctions, as proof of betrayal. Divisions within the opposition have become apparent, with moderates objecting to the timing of street protests in February just two months after the government prevailed in mayoral elections. The strategy of hardline groups is to force Maduro's resignation by rallying international opinion against his government. But in contrast to the US, condemnation has been slow to materialize among Latin American governments. Moderate leaders support talks with the government. Others want sanctions to drive out Madura. ~~~~~ Dear readers, we may add to the growing list of Obama foreign policy blunders - Syria, Israel, Libya, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Russia, Ukraine and now Venezuela. And this time it was the loose tongue of an American diplomat who should have known better than to expose the Venezuelan opposition as the reason for any Obama sanctions decision in Venezuela. Closed-door briefings to Congress by an administration are commonplace. This approach was not used by Jacobson and her retractions are worse than dangerous - they are corrosive to the trust that must form the basis for any diplomatic activity. Here, it is all of Latin America that now will see the US as diplomatically untrustworthy. This will only add to the impression that the Obama foreign policy sees little value in its southern neighbors. This impression had already sent Russia and China scurrying around South America to fill the void. The Venezuelan gaff will only accelerate their activities. The Monroe Doctrine - respected by the world for almost 200 years - is in tatters and America's southern flank is now exposed to any non-western-hemisphere power that chooses to make use of Obama's latest foreign policy failure.What is particularly disheartening about Obama's latest failure is that Venezuelans are now feeling the full pinch of the socialist-Communist non-market economic programs of Hugo Chavez. Maduro, the handpicked successor of Chavez, has none of his charisma. He has only force. This could make an overthrow of the Venezuela socialists much more likely. Venezuelans have a democratic tradition that could quickly put the country back on its feet. But, the clumsy actions of Obama's diplomatic messenger puts all this in jeopardy. One can only hope it was done in amateur naivety and not by deliberation.