'It Is Not Enough to Simply Oppose US Military Intervention': A Response to WOLA on Venezuela

The following open letter is a response to a letter from the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) dated March 8, and published on Common Dreams here. That letter from WOLA was a response to an initial open letter by 124 academics and scholars posted March 5, also on Common Dreams, and available here.

Dear WOLA,

Thank you for your response to our letter of March 5. Unfortunately it did not address our most important concerns. And it contains some factual errors.

Our main point was summarized in the letter as follows:

WOLA should oppose this [Trump's] regime change effort unequivocally, just as progressives throughout the world opposed the Iraq War of 2003. But it has not done so. Rather, it has endorsed much of it. People may have differing personal opinions regarding the internal politics of Venezuela or how Venezuelans might best resolve their differences. But there is no doubt that the Trump administration's illegal regime change operation is greatly worsening the situation and should be opposed by all who care about human life and international law.

In its response, WOLA does not offer any explanation for why they do not oppose this illegal regime change effort, nor do they recognize the enormous damage that Trump and his allies have done and continue to do.

The financial embargo that Trump imposed by executive order in August 2017 has been killing people by depriving them of medicine, medical supplies, and other essential imports; and preventing a recovery from what has become the worst depression in Latin American history.

Yet WOLA has not opposed these ongoing sanctions, even in their response to our criticism of their stance. In fact, following the implementation of these sanctions, WOLA Senior Fellow David Smilde wrote in The New York Times that "Countries throughout the region and the United States ... should continue to pressure Mr. Maduro by deepening the current sanctions regime..." He also praised the [August 2017] "'debt sanctions' levied by the Trump administration that prohibit United States citizens or institutions from buying or issuing new Venezuelan debt," noting that they "have hamstrung the Maduro government's ability to raise new funds."

Contrary to WOLA's response to us, this position does not reflect that they "are in principle suspicious of" sanctions, even when these sanctions kill innocent people.

And does it matter that the vast majority of Venezuelans, according to opposition polling, have consistently opposed these sanctions by large majorities? Shouldn't their human rights and opinions be taken into account?

WOLA claims that they now "oppose the January 2019 U.S. oil sanctions." But as a factual, logical, and economic matter -- as we noted in the last letter -- they cannot oppose these new sanctions without opposing the recognition of Guaido.

That's because this action by itself -- aside from other sanctions such as those on PDVSA -- involved a transfer of the accounts of Venezuela's Central Bank and Republic of Venezuela to Guaido. This means that the government of Venezuela cannot make payments -- including those for life-saving medicines and essential goods -- in the US or European financial system. Furthermore, companies and financial institutions in countries outside of Europe or the US are inhibited from carrying out transactions with the actual Venezuelan government, because they too will be sanctioned for doing so. Even Gazprom of Russia closed a PDVSA account because of this threat.

The recognition of Guaido also leads to the imposition of a devastating trade embargo, since about 73 percent of Venezuela's oil goes to the United States and its allied governments who have recognized the parallel government. This means that the Maduro government cannot receive payment for oil, which deprives the Venezuelan economy -- both public and private sector -- of almost all of its foreign exchange. Perhaps these are the "oil sanctions" that WOLA claims to oppose. But again, these sanctions are the direct and inevitable consequence of recognizing a parallel government, which WOLA emphatically does not oppose. Smilde hasstated that "The opposition has finally put forward a fresh face that has courage, new ideas and leadership skills."

The recognition of Guaido, therefore, is provoking even greater economic damage and causing more deaths than Trump's August 2017 executive order. If WOLA staff lack a clear understanding of the consequences attached to the recognition of Guaido, then it is our sincere hope that they reconsider the position that they've taken.

OPEC data released for February shows a collapse of oil production since the recognition of Guaido and the resulting financial sanctions and trade embargo. Venezuela's oil production fell by 142,000 barrels per day. For the prior six months, it had fallen by an average of 20,500 barrels per day. This is another devastating blow to the people of Venezuela, who depend on the foreign exchange earnings of oil sales for necessary imports.

We also find it inexplicable that, as a human rights organization, WOLA did not respond to our argument that the US sanctions against Venezuela -- all of them -- are illegal under international law, including the OAS charter, the UN charter, and various international conventions against collective punishment. In our view, that alone should settle the debate over sanctions.

Most human rights experts believe that increasing compliance with international laws and treaties that protect human rights has a vital role to play in reducing human rights abuses. If WOLA shares that view, then they should explain why international law does not enter into WOLA's discussion of the US sanctions against Venezuela anywhere in their writings on this subject; and not even when it is presented to them directly in a criticism of their position regarding these illegal sanctions.

In our letter, we criticized WOLA for dismissing the mediation offers of neutral parties, including the Vatican, and the governments of Mexico and Uruguay, as a "non-starter," and supporting the International Contact group as the only place where negotiations can take place. WOLA responds with certain statements that are not true, and also by mischaracterizing our criticism.

First, it is not true that, as WOLA states, that "this initiative [by Mexico and Uruguay] appears to have been discarded." On the contrary, the initiative remains on the table and has been joined by most of the Caricom countries (see here and here). WOLA's assertion that Uruguay has abandoned the effort appears to be based on the fact that it is also a member of the International Contact Group, but of course the country can be, and is, part of both initiatives. WOLA presents no evidence that Mexico has abandoned its effort to promote dialogue.

WOLA also advances the illogical argument that the ICG is not dominated by Washington simply because the Trump administration didn't want it in the first place. The Trump administration does not want any negotiation at all, but that doesn't mean that they can't dominate this group after failing to prevent its creation. Every country in the group except for Uruguay and Italy has recognized Guaido as interim president of Venezuela. As explained above, this is equivalent to an economic embargo, which the Europeans -- both willingly and under open threat of US sanctions on European financial institutions -- are carrying out. This is not a neutral party by any stretch of the imagination, and the fact that one or two neutral countries have joined the group cannot change this reality.

In our letter we also noted that it is possible that, eventually, the Europeans might break with Washington and pursue a negotiated solution while adopting a more neutral stance. But many Venezuelans will likely die before that happens. We find it disturbing that WOLA would pretend that the ICG is neutral and be so eager to bury the efforts of neutral parties.

Furthermore, in the history of conflict resolution, it is both normal and more pragmatic to have negotiations without setting as a precondition the central issue that the opposing parties of a polarized country disagree on. In this case, that is the call for new elections, since the government and its supporters consider the May 2018 presidential elections to be legitimate and the opposition does not. Moreover, given the very polarized political environment in Venezuela, the Maduro government is highly unlikely to agree to new elections without prior agreement on basic guarantees ensuring fair treatment and protection from judicial persecution in the event of an electoral defeat. Those who do not want a negotiated solution -- including the Trump team and their allies -- would understandably set new elections as a precondition. It is not clear why a human rights organization that claims to be in favor of a negotiated solution would support such preconditions.

Finally, we must respond to what WOLA claims is

[our] most fundamental disagreement, and probably the one that explains our difference with the signatories of the letter, is in how we frame the problem.

For the signers, this is about the United States. The letter mentions the United States twice as many times as it mentions Venezuela. What is more, the letter's mentions of Venezuela are almost exclusively as a passive subject receiving action. The only real actor mentioned in the text is the Trump administration. Most specifically, there are no descriptions of the Maduro government's assault on democratic institutions and violations of basic human rights.

For WOLA, this is about Venezuela. As a human rights organization, WOLA's central focus is on the Venezuelan people and their rights.

Our central focus is also on the Venezuelan people and their rights. But our letter to your organization, which is based in Washington -- the first word of your institutional title -- is to question your conspicuous lack of opposition to concrete policies developed in Washington that are killing people on a daily basis in Venezuela right now. The U.S. sanctions and trade embargo against Venezuela, which undermine the rule of law, have been developed and imposed on the Venezuelan people by the Trump Administration without a modicum of democratic input from the American people or their elected representatives. These sanctions contribute to the lack of access to medicine, medical supplies, and other essential imports for Venezuelans, and prevent a recovery from what has become the worst depression in Latin American history.

WOLA faults us for not including "descriptions of the Maduro government's assault on democratic institutions and violations of basic human rights" in a letter about WOLA's positions on the Trump administration's illegal sanctions and attempt to overthrow the government of Venezuela. But that is simply because we do not believe that the Trump administration's regime change operation has anything to do with democracy or human rights, and indeed is likely to worsen the human rights situation. If WOLA believes otherwise, we would like to know how they might draw such a conclusion from the actions and statements of the leaders of this effort: Trump, Bolton, Rubio, Pompeo, and Elliott Abrams. We would also be interested in how the organization might reconcile such a belief with the past 17 years of US involvement in regime change efforts in Venezuela, which have been antithetical to advancing human rights or democracy in Venezuela.

It is not enough to simply oppose US military intervention in a situation where the Trump administration is using brutal collective punishment to prevent a negotiated solution and topple the government of Venezuela. As we noted previously, WOLA "should unequivocally oppose the whole sordid regime change operation, the violations of international law, and the illegal sanctions that are causing so much suffering."

Signed:

Greg Grandin, Professor of History, New York University

Noam Chomsky, Emeritus Professor, MIT

Laura Carlsen, Director, Americas Program, Center for International Policy

Sujatha Fernandes, Professor of Political Economy and Sociology, University of Sydney

Daniel Hellinger, Professor of Political Science, Webster University

John Womack, Robert Woods Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics, emeritus, Harvard University

Steve Ellner, Associate Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives

Elisabeth Jean Wood, Professor of Political Science, Yale University

John Mill Ackerman, Law Professor, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)

Guy Aronoff, Lecturer, Humboldt State University

Robert Austin, Honorary Associate, Department of History, School of Philosophical & Historical Inquiry, University of Sydney

William Aviles, Professor, University of Nebraska, Kearney

Alexander Avina, Associate Professor, Arizona State University

David Barkin, Distinuished Professor, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana Mexico City

Ximena de la Barra, Independent Consultant,

Nicholas Barratt-Crane, PhD Candidate, Kings College London

Marc Becker, Professor of History, Truman State University

John Beverly, Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Hispanic Languages and Literatures, University of Pittsburg

Cyrus Bina, Distinguished Professor Economics, University of Minnesota (Morris Campus)

Jules Boykoff, Professor of Political Science, Pacific University

Karen Breda, Professor, University of Hartford

Rosalind Bresnahan, California State University San Bernardino (retired)

Bob Buchanan, Professor, Ph.D., Goddard College

Guillermo Calvo Mahe, Universidad Autonoma de Manizales, Writer and political commentator; former Chair, Political Science, Government and International Relations

Barry Carr, Emeritus Professor, La Trobe University

Camille Chalmers, Executive Director of Civil Society organization network, PAPDA Haiti

Julie A. Charlip, Professor of History, Whitman College

James Cohen, University of Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle

Raymond Craib, Professor of History, Cornell University

Antonia Darder, Professor Emerita, University of Illinois , Urbana-Champaign

Marisol de la Cadena, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Davis

Francisco Dominguez, Faculty of Professional and Social Sciences, Middlesex University, UK

Elizabeth Dore, Professor of Latin American Studies, University of Southampton, UK

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Professor Emerita, California State University

Samuel Farber, Emeritus Professor, Brooklyn College de CUNY

Thomas C. Field Jr., Associate Professor, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Gavin Fridell, Assistant Professor, Saint Mary's University

Irene Gendzier, Professor Emerita, Boston University

Alfonso Goitia, Economista,Presidente del COLPROCE y Asesor economico en la Asamblea Legislativa de El Salvador, Colegio de Profesionales en Ciencias Economicas de El Salvador (COLPROCE)

Jeffrey Gould, Rudy Professor of History, Indiana University

Ronald Grele, Columbia University

Anna Grimaldi, PhD Candidate, King's College London

Bret Gustafson, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Washington University in St Louis

Robert Hannigan, Scholar in Residence, History, Suffolk University

Christopher Joseph Helali, Graduate Student, Dartmouth College

Forrest Hylton, Associate Professor of History, Universidad Nacional de Colombia-Medellin

Clara E. Irazabal-Zurita, Director of the Latinx and Latin American Studies Program, University of Missouri - Kansas City

Dale L. Johnson, Professor Emeritus, Sociology, Rutgers University

Temma Kaplan, Distinguished Professor of History, Emeritus, Rutgers University

Gregory Kealey, CM, FRSC, Professor Emeritus of History, University of New Brunswick

Sanford Kelson, lawyer, labor arbitrator, past president Veterans For Peace

Osamah Khalil, Associate Professor, History, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University

Daniel Kovalik, Adjunct Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh

James Krippner, Professor of Latin American History, Haverford College

Roger Leisner, Radio Free Maine

Bruce Levine, J.G. Randall Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Alan MacLeod, Glasgow University

John Marciano, Professor Emeritus, State University of New York

Luis Martin-Cabrera, Associate Professor of Spanish and Latin American Cultural Studies, University of California San Diego

Raymond L. McGovern, Veterans for Peace

Frederick Mills, Professor of Philosophy, Bowie State University

Pamela S. Murray, Professor of History, The University of Alabama at Birmingham

Paul Ortiz, Associate Professor of History, University of Florida

Tanalis Padilla, Associate Professor of History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Jo Paluzzi, Ph.D. Medical Anthropologist

Christian Parenti, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, John Jay College CUNY

Margaret Power, Professor of History, Illinois Institute of Technology

William I. Robinson, Professor of Sociology and Global and International Studies, University of California-Santa Barbara

Victor Rodriguez, Professor, California State University, Long Beach

Fred Rosen, Retired editor and director, NACLA

Emir Simao Sader, Professor of Sociology, Universidad del Estado de Rio de Janeiro

Joe Sammut, PhD Candidate Political Science, Queen Mary University of London

Kyla Sankey, PhD Political Science, Queen Mary University of London

T.M. Scruggs, Professor Emeritus, University of Iowa

Naoko Shibusawa, Associate Professor of History and American Studies, Brown University

Lewis H. Siegelbaum, Jack and Margaret Sweet Emeritus Professor of History, Michigan State University

Jeb Sprague, Lecturer, University of Virginia

Maryclen Stelling, Directora Ejecutiva del Centro de Estudios Latinoamericano, Celarg, Analista politico y de Medios de Comunicacion

Steve Striffler, Director of the Labor Resource Center, University of Massachusetts-Boston

Jessica K. Taft, Associate Professor Latin American and Latino Studies, University of California-Santa Cruz

Sinclair Thomson, Associate Professor, New York University

Pedro Vargas, Coalicion de Tendencias Clasista (CTC-VZLA)

Vilma Villela, Lecturer, California State University, Northridge

Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research

Clifford Andrew Welch, Professor da Historia Contemporanea do Brasil, Universidade Federal de Sao Paulo

Daniel Willis, PhD History and Latin American Studies

Julio Yao, Professor of Public International Law, Agent of Panama to the International Court of Justice and Foreign Policy Advisor of General Omar Torrijos during Canal Negotiations

James Young, Instructor, Montgomery County Community College

Kevin A. Young, Assistant Professor of History, University of Massachusetts Amherst