Correcting Professor Lisa North: Chavismo has destroyed Venezuela

Venezuelans looking for food in trash bags: the legacy of chavismo (Photo: AFP)

I wrote a letter to the Editor in response to Professor Lisa North's article in The Hill Times of Ottawa. Professor North said in her article that “…Venezuela’s much touted pre-Chávez democratic history and economic development patterns were deeply flawed. Precisely because today’s problems are rooted not only in recent but in past decades of corruption, mismanagement, and rights violations (albeit of different kinds), regime change will not solve them. It may even make them worse if widespread violence breaks out in the current situation of acute polarization between pro-government forces and a divided opposition that has not been able provide a unified or credible leadership that might enjoy widespread popular support.”

Here is my letter to the Editor:

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Chavismo has destroyed Venezuela

PUBLISHED :Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2017 12:00 AM

Re: “Roots of Venezuela’s crisis run deeper than Chávez, Maduro” (The Hill Times, Nov. 8, p. 18). An op-ed about Venezuela by Liisa North, professor emeritus of political science at York University, repeated some of the half-truths and lies that President Nicolás Maduro’s regime reiterates ad nauseam. Her argument is that the 40 years of democracy that preceded the election of Hugo Chávez as president were not that different from the current nightmare that afflicts Venezuelans.

A majority of Venezuelans elected Mr. Chávez in 1998, rejecting the two-party system that prevailed in the country since the previous dictatorship was toppled in 1958. But the 40 years of the civilian republic were not the dark times depicted by Prof. North.
Corruption was certainly present, but it never had the same scope as the current corruption. It’s also true that towards of the end of the ‘70s, the Venezuelan economy started to show some signs of decline, but the mismanagement never grew to the current catastrophic levels.

The policies of the Maduro regime, following the same populist prescriptions instituted by Mr. Chávez, have caused the free fall of the economy: deep recession in the last four years, hyperinflation rising to three digits, maxi-devaluation of the currency, and the destruction of the national oil company PDVSA.

But the main problem with Prof. North’s text is that she forgot to mention the current tragedy that Venezuelans are facing. They are living a humanitarian crisis. Hunger is a real problem. Malnutrition among the poor, particularly children, has been widely documented. Venezuelans are also dying or suffering because they don’t have access to medication and basic medical services.
She forgot to say that in four months of protests against the Maduro regime, more than 100 people have been killed; or that there are almost 500 political prisoners, many of them civilians submitted, illegally, to trials in military courts. She did not say that the political police of the government, Sebin, does not comply with judges ordering the release of prisoners, and extorts them and their families, asking for large sums of money in United States dollars to “buy” their freedom. She also didn’t say that the poor are enslaved through the CLAP system, a perverse program of social control through the distribution of food bags. She forgot to say that crime is out of control. More than 20,000 people are murdered each year. Prisons have become the paradise of criminals, under the control of gang leaders, thanks to the complicity of government officials.

The main political challenge of the democratic opposition is to rebuild its leadership and propose a consensual vision that will appeal to Venezuelans.

In the meantime, the international community and Canada should maintain the pressure on the Maduro regime to restore democracy, the respect of the constitution, and human rights.

Isaac Nahón-Serfaty
Venezuelan journalist and associate professor
University of Ottawa
Ottawa, Ont.