Venezuela’s volatile situation
Editorial
Stabroek News
August 2, 2002
While crowds were assembling in Caracas in mid-July for yet another massive demonstration of opposition to President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s Ambassador to Guyana Jean Francois Pulvenis was starting a round of farewell visits in preparation for demitting office half-way into a normal tour of duty.
Several other senior Venezuelan officials have left office prematurely for one reason or another since the 11-14 April upheaval in Caracas and some of these changes are likely to have a middle-term impact on Guyana-Venezuela relations.
Jose Vicente Rangel, a loyal associate of the President (known as a chavista) and former Minister of External Relations was removed from the Defence Ministry under pressure from the generals of the National Armed Forces (FAN), and appointed Vice-President. He was replaced by General Luis Rincon Romero, FAN’s former Inspector General, who retired a few weeks later on 5 July, only to be replaced by General (retired) José Luis Prieto Silva.
Luis Alfonso Davila Garcia, another chavista, who replaced Jose Vicente Rangel as External Relations Minister only in February last year and saw Guyana’s accession to the Caracas Energy Co-operation Agreement, has now been replaced by Roy Chaderton-Matos, an experienced career diplomat. These changes mean that Guyana’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs will need to familiarise itself with the behaviour of a new Ambassador, Defence Minister and External Relations Minister, and comprehend Caracas’s changing politics, all at the same time.
The one constant factor, as far as Guyana is concerned, is the survival of President Chavez who, in his whirlwind three and a half years in office visited over three dozen countries but has not yet accepted President Jagdeo’s invitation to come to Guyana. Given President Chavez’s present preoccupation with economic stability, military uncertainty and domestic security, he is unlikely to come to Georgetown soon, if ever. Nor does it seem that President Bharrat Jagdeo (or Foreign Minister Rudy Insanally who has not yet paid an official visit to Caracas), is likely to go there soon.
That may not be a good thing in these troubled times. Relations with Venezuela are high priority and personal rapport between the two Presidents and Foreign Ministers could promote international friendship more quickly than diplomats and bureaucrats. Regardless of who will be selected to replace Ambassador Pulvenis, or what will be the policies of External Relations Minister Roy Chaderton-Matos, it is expected that the behaviour of FAN’s generals will now have a greater influence on Guyana-Venezuela relations than before the upheaval.
FAN played the decisive role in the coup d’etat which deposed and reinstated Chavez in the turbulent April events, and is still in a state of restlessness.
Much of the generals’ unease has been caused by President Chavez himself who is busy purging the army’s officer corps, from the top down, in an effort to neutralize conspiracy, remove opponents, install loyalists and prevent another attempted coup. This has destabilised the armed forces mainly because scores of senior officers suspected of supporting the coup have been replaced by juniors who seem to have been promoted to higher positions on political, rather than professional, grounds.
Clandestine conspiratorial groups of middle - and lower-ranking officers are still springing up in the FAN and one such group issued a statement threatening to resist Chavez’s attempts at politicisation. In addition, Chavez’s continuing friendship with states such as Cuba, Iraq and Libya which are regarded as adversaries of the USA, Venezuela’s traditional military ally, is strongly resented.
Although another coup attempt is unlikely in the short term, the army has become wary of Chavez’s Bolivarian revolutionism and is jealous of its historical place in society. In particular, the FAN regards itself as the guarantor of Venezuela’s borders and territorial integrity. A strong FAN, which has diminished regard for the civil power and is guided by a like-minded Defence Minister, could damage the delicate UN-sponsored diplomatic process which is now in place between Guyana and Venezuela.
The embattled President, too, may feel safer if the army’s attention and resources were to be diverted towards external territorial issues and away from the unsettled internal political situation in which it became dangerously embroiled last April. President Chavez has already expressed his impatience over the results of the 13-year UN Good Officer process and vetoed Guyana’s attempts to grant licences to foreign companies in the Essequibo coastal and maritime zones.
Many things have changed in Caracas since April and Guyana needs to review its foreign policy in light of those changes. Military stability and political tranquility in Venezuela are in Guyana’s best interest. Since April, however, there has been precious little of either in Caracas.