Latin America silent on Venezuela as U.S. airs rights concerns
The U.S. action is also breathing new life into Maduro’s government just as a plunge in oil prices looked set to deepen economic turmoil marked by widespread shortages and soaring 68 percent inflation. He has promised to deliver Obama a petition signed by 10 million Venezuelans calling on the U.S. to repeal the sanctions.
The pushback from the region seems to have caught the U.S. off guard.
“I was a bit, I will confess, disappointed that there weren’t more who defended the fact that clearly this was not intended to hurt the Venezuelan people or the Venezuelan government even as a whole,” Roberta Jacobson, the top State Department official in Latin America, said last week about the sanctions.
It was no surprise that leftist allies such as the governments of Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua would leap to defend Caracas. All have a history of vocal opposition to Washington. But even more moderate governments and traditional U.S. allies in the region have been reluctant to criticize Maduro.
“It’s seen as going against your own,” said Eurasia Group analyst Risa Grais-Targow.
Some governments are protective of deep economic ties to Venezuela, including Argentina and more than a dozen nations that have received subsidized oil under the Venezuelan-led Petrocaribe alliance.
Others worry about regional instability. In Colombia, President Juan Manuel Santos is trying to protect important trade with Venezuela, repair relations that nearly collapsed under his combative conservative predecessor, Alvaro Uribe, and retain Venezuelan support for complicated peace talks with leftist rebels.
Meanwhile the presidents of regional heavyweights, Mexico, Brazil and Chile are dealing with their own domestic crises brought on by slumping economies and government corruption charges, so are reluctant to antagonize left-wing constituents who still revere the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Mexico’s Enrique Pena Nieto has been forced to slash spending and reign in much-touted energy reforms due to plummeting oil prices. He is also fighting scandals over alleged cronyism and the disappearance of 43 students who authorities say were detained by police, handed over to a drug gang and murdered last September.
via NorthEast Calling http://ift.tt/1ybj5DS
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