Democracy Is Not a Commodity

As the West imposed wide-rang­ing sanc­tions on Rus­sia in response to Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, reports emerged that the Unit­ed States might con­cur­rent­ly lift sanc­tions on the regime of anoth­er bru­tal dic­ta­tor: Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro. A sur­prise vis­it by a U.S. del­e­ga­tion to Cara­cas, Venezuela’s cap­i­tal, in March prompt­ed imme­di­ate spec­u­la­tion that Wash­ing­ton was poised to ease sanc­tions on Venezue­lan oil exports despite Maduro’s ongo­ing human rights vio­la­tions, polit­i­cal oppres­sion, and cor­rup­tion. 

While the White House sub­se­quent­ly quashed rumors of such a deal, Maduro and his allies seized the oppor­tu­ni­ty to side­line demo­c­ra­t­ic forces and cast his dic­ta­tor­ship as the only path to sta­bil­i­ty in Venezuela. Ten­sions between Maduro and the oppo­si­tion had been esca­lat­ing for years but came to a head in 2019 when Venezuela’s par­lia­ment, known as the Nation­al Assem­bly, declined to rec­og­nize the results of the 2018 pres­i­den­tial election—which were wide­ly con­sid­ered to have been unfree and unfair—and declared Nation­al Assem­bly Pres­i­dent Juan Guaidó inter­im president.

Inter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion of the inter­im gov­ern­ment, in which I serve as deputy for­eign min­is­ter, varies, and many coun­tries main­tain rela­tions with both Guaidó and Maduro. The Unit­ed States, for its part, rec­og­nizes Guaidó as Venezuela’s right­ful pres­i­dent. But after years spent dec­i­mat­ing Venezuela’s polit­i­cal insti­tu­tions, arrest­ing and impris­on­ing polit­i­cal oppo­nents, and tank­ing Venezuela’s econ­o­my, Maduro seems to have now cal­cu­lat­ed that Wash­ing­ton might aban­don its com­mit­ment to Venezuela’s demo­c­ra­t­ic forces and drop the sanc­tions that it had imposed on Venezuela’s state-owned oil indus­try. It is imper­a­tive the Unit­ed States makes clear that this is not on the table and instead con­di­tion sanc­tions relief on demo­c­ra­t­ic reforms.

As the West imposed wide-rang­ing sanc­tions on Rus­sia in response to Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, reports emerged that the Unit­ed States might con­cur­rent­ly lift sanc­tions on the regime of anoth­er bru­tal dic­ta­tor: Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro. A sur­prise vis­it by a U.S. del­e­ga­tion to Cara­cas, Venezuela’s cap­i­tal, in March prompt­ed imme­di­ate spec­u­la­tion that Wash­ing­ton was poised to ease sanc­tions on Venezue­lan oil exports despite Maduro’s ongo­ing human rights vio­la­tions, polit­i­cal oppres­sion, and cor­rup­tion. 

While the White House sub­se­quent­ly quashed rumors of such a deal, Maduro and his allies seized the oppor­tu­ni­ty to side­line demo­c­ra­t­ic forces and cast his dic­ta­tor­ship as the only path to sta­bil­i­ty in Venezuela. Ten­sions between Maduro and the oppo­si­tion had been esca­lat­ing for years but came to a head in 2019 when Venezuela’s par­lia­ment, known as the Nation­al Assem­bly, declined to rec­og­nize the results of the 2018 pres­i­den­tial election—which were wide­ly con­sid­ered to have been unfree and unfair—and declared Nation­al Assem­bly Pres­i­dent Juan Guaidó inter­im president.

Inter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion of the inter­im gov­ern­ment, in which I serve as deputy for­eign min­is­ter, varies, and many coun­tries main­tain rela­tions with both Guaidó and Maduro. The Unit­ed States, for its part, rec­og­nizes Guaidó as Venezuela’s right­ful pres­i­dent. But after years spent dec­i­mat­ing Venezuela’s polit­i­cal insti­tu­tions, arrest­ing and impris­on­ing polit­i­cal oppo­nents, and tank­ing Venezuela’s econ­o­my, Maduro seems to have now cal­cu­lat­ed that Wash­ing­ton might aban­don its com­mit­ment to Venezuela’s demo­c­ra­t­ic forces and drop the sanc­tions that it had imposed on Venezuela’s state-owned oil indus­try. It is imper­a­tive the Unit­ed States makes clear that this is not on the table and instead con­di­tion sanc­tions relief on demo­c­ra­t­ic reforms.

As a long-stand­ing defend­er of Venezue­lan democ­ra­cy, I strong­ly believe that ignor­ing Maduro’s dic­ta­tor­ship in the hopes of low­er­ing domes­tic U.S. ener­gy prices is not only eth­i­cal­ly prob­lem­at­ic but coun­ter­pro­duc­tive and inef­fec­tive. Venezue­lan oil won’t reduce U.S. fuel prices in the short or medi­um term nor will it serve Venezue­lans’ long-term goals of secur­ing a free and demo­c­ra­t­ic coun­try. Stand­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Ukrain­ian patri­ots does not require aban­don­ing Venezue­lan democ­rats. On the con­trary, now is the moment for the Unit­ed States and its allies to show­case its com­mit­ment to defend­ing human rights, jus­tice, and dignity—and to make clear that democ­ra­cy is not a com­mod­i­ty that can be bar­gained away.

There are many rea­sons why the oil-for-dic­ta­tor­ship dilem­ma should be a non­starter for the Unit­ed States. First, Venezue­lan crude oil pro­duc­tion is at his­toric lows. After years of mis­man­age­ment and cor­rup­tion under Maduro, the nation­al oil indus­try is in tat­ters. In the best of cir­cum­stances, experts say Venezuela could, in the short to medi­um term, only raise pro­duc­tion from 800,000 bar­rels to under 1 mil­lion bar­rels per day. Most of Venezuela’s oil is cur­rent­ly shipped to Chi­na. Even if Venezuela were to divert a por­tion of that oil to the Unit­ed States, this would not com­pen­sate for the near­ly 700,000 bar­rels per day that the coun­try was pre­vi­ous­ly import­ing from Rus­sia. More impor­tant­ly, it would not have an impact on the price of crude oil in the world mar­ket, which in turn deter­mines costs in the Unit­ed States.

Most impor­tant­ly, strik­ing a deal that looks past Maduro’s crimes will prove to be coun­ter­pro­duc­tive in secur­ing a sta­ble, demo­c­ra­t­ic Venezuela. Part­ner­ing with a bru­tal dic­ta­tor who is allied with Putin will back­fire. As is evi­denced by the con­duct of Putin’s troops in Ukraine, dic­ta­tors become embold­ened when the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty fails to set and enforce red lines. Sure­ly, Maduro will also dou­ble down on repres­sion if his human rights vio­la­tions, cor­rup­tion, and vio­lence are met with impunity.

There are already indi­ca­tions that Maduro is head­ed down this path. Last fall, Maduro aban­doned the Nor­way-medi­at­ed Mex­i­co City polit­i­cal nego­ti­a­tions aimed at reach­ing a com­pre­hen­sive solu­tion to the Venezue­lan crisis—talks the Unit­ed States and the Venezue­lan inter­im gov­ern­ment firm­ly sup­port. He instead embarked on a so-called nation­al dia­logue, a series of state-spon­sored con­sul­ta­tions with local stake­hold­ers osten­si­bly aimed at con­sol­i­dat­ing peace and eco­nom­ic recov­ery. In real­i­ty, the nation­al dia­logue is an unveiled effort to dic­tate the com­po­si­tion of the nego­ti­at­ing table and divide the oppo­si­tion, side­step­ping these inter­na­tion­al efforts.

Cred­i­ble, inter­na­tion­al­ly medi­at­ed nego­ti­a­tions offer Venezuela its best chance at a diplo­mat­ic way out of this cri­sis. But to achieve progress through diplo­ma­cy, it is not enough for Maduro to sim­ply show up for talks. He must also be pre­pared to nego­ti­ate in good faith. Mak­ing progress through nego­ti­a­tions will require greater coor­di­na­tion among key stake­hold­ers in the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. Inter­na­tion­al coali­tions on Venezuela—like the Lima Group and Inter­na­tion­al Con­tact Group—have gone dor­mant and are plagued by divi­sions. Maduro has also worked hard to build alliances with lead­ers across Latin Amer­i­ca because he under­stands that if he divides the inter­na­tion­al community—just as he seeks to divide Venezue­lan democrats—he will emerge stronger.

To make progress through inter­na­tion­al­ly medi­at­ed nego­ti­a­tions, it is imper­a­tive that coun­tries like the Unit­ed States and Cana­da work with allies in Europe and Latin Amer­i­ca to rein­vig­o­rate the talks. But it is not enough for Maduro to just come back to the table. Sanc­tions relief for his regime must be con­tin­gent on progress at the nego­ti­at­ing table as well as con­crete and irre­versible demo­c­ra­t­ic reforms and out­comes in Venezuela.

Maduro must imple­ment reforms that cre­ate the con­di­tions for free, fair, and ver­i­fi­able elec­tions as well as the rein­state­ment of the rule of law. This includes imple­ment­ing the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Euro­pean Union Elec­tion Obser­va­tion Mis­sion, releas­ing polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, address­ing the struc­tur­al defi­cien­cies that have under­mined the country’s lack of judi­cial inde­pen­dence, autho­riz­ing inves­ti­ga­tions into alle­ga­tions of human rights vio­la­tions, end­ing the ille­gal destruc­tion of Venezuela’s Ama­zon and exploita­tion of its Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties, and imple­ment­ing the dozens of rec­om­men­da­tions issued by the Unit­ed Nations Office of the High Com­mis­sion­er for Human Rights and the inter­na­tion­al, inde­pen­dent fact-find­ing mis­sion, which span the gamut from steps to secure an inde­pen­dent Supreme Court of Jus­tice to cred­i­bly inves­ti­gate human rights abuses.

But pres­sure on Maduro can­not just be exter­nal. Those of us in the Venezue­lan oppo­si­tion must also do our part to secure our country’s demo­c­ra­t­ic tran­si­tion. This means stay­ing focused on the issues that unite us—democracy, human rights, polit­i­cal inclu­siv­i­ty, free and fair elec­tions, and equi­table eco­nom­ic growth—rather than let­ting our dif­fer­ences divide us. We can­not achieve our vision for Venezuela if we tear one anoth­er down or put our egos before our coun­try. Venezue­lans have suf­fered the whims of strong­men, con­vinced of their own pow­er and legit­i­ma­cy, for too long. We must be guid­ed instead by the will of the people.

As we reaf­firm our unit­ed defense of demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples, Venezuela’s democ­rats must also be frank about what is no longer pos­si­ble. No one side will emerge total­ly vic­to­ri­ous. A nego­ti­at­ed solu­tion will require com­pro­mis­es on all sides, some of which will undoubt­ed­ly be dif­fi­cult. We must be open to con­sid­er­ing pow­er-shar­ing arrange­ments with regime ele­ments and insti­tu­tions, so long as they have not com­mit­ted human rights vio­la­tions or crimes against human­i­ty. The for­ma­tion of a new Nation­al Assem­bly that rep­re­sents both sides could offer an exam­ple of a fea­si­ble compromise.

Many Venezue­lans are already con­sid­er­ing these options and work­ing behind the scenes to achieve demo­c­ra­t­ic change. Groups like Women for Democ­ra­cy in Venezuela, an inclu­sive move­ment of women com­mit­ted to democ­ra­cy and women’s rights, which I co-found­ed late last year, are tak­ing con­crete steps to cross par­ty lines, build bridges between pol­i­tics and civ­il soci­ety, and devel­op prac­ti­cal solu­tions that can break the country’s polit­i­cal impasse.

Just as we work to over­come our divi­sions, so too must the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. Venezuela’s democ­ra­cy deserves a fight­ing chance. Our inter­na­tion­al allies must ensure that Venezue­lans’ strug­gle for free­dom is not trad­ed away for elu­sive cents on the gal­lon, but that sanc­tions relief instead form the basis for true demo­c­ra­t­ic renewal.