Crisis in Venezuela

Anna Sutterer Jonah McKeown

Federico Maccioni Tomás Orihuela

1. Booked and confirmed guests. 2. Issue summary. 3. Key points of controversy and contention. 4. Must­read articles. 5. Pre­Interviews. 6. Organization of the show.

1. Booked and confirmed guests Guest One: Braulio Jatar Official Job Title: Documentary filmmaker from Caracas, Venezuela Location: Manhattan, NY E­mail address:brauliojatar75@gmail.com Twitter: @rc_caracas Phone numbers: 718 ­877­0302 Skype username: Braulio Jatar

Guest One: John Otis Official Job Title: NPR reporter and consultant for Committee to Protect Journalists Location: Bogotá, Colombia E­mail address: johnotis2002@yahoo.com Twitter: @JohnOtis Phone numbers: +57 310 259 9445 (Ven.) U.S. Tel: 1 713 893 7422 Skype username: johnbeeg Recent snapshot

Guest Two: Patrick Duddy Official Job Title: Former Ambassador to Venezuela and Director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Duke University Location: Durham, NC E­mail address: patrick.duddy@duke.edu Twitter: @AMBPatrickDuddy Phone numbers: 1­919­660­7866 Skype username: patrickdduddy Recent Snapshot

Guest Three: Jennifer Cyr Official Job Title: Assistant Professor of Government and Public Policy and Latin American Studies at University of Arizona Location: Tucson, AZ E­mail address: jmcyr@email.arizona.edu

Phone numbers: Mobile number: 520­465­7116. Alternate mobile number (husband's): 520­465­6548 Skype username: jenmcyr

Guest Four: Gabriel Hetland Official Job Title: University at Albany, SUNY professor of Latin American Sociology Location: Albany, NY E­mail address: ghetland@albany.edu Phone numbers: 585 755 1504 Skype username: ghetland1

2. Issue Summary

Venezuela has been in a state of economic decline for the past several years, despite

being home to the world’s largest known oil reserves. Inflation has soared 700 percent, and

citizens are lining up in the streets to get basic food and supplies. Last year, 8,946 people were

murdered in the capital Caracas, meaning 120 people for every 100,000 inhabitants. Detroit, the

most dangerous city in the United States, had a murder rate of 43.5 people killed for every

100,000.There is a widespread and growing opposition movement, made up of a coalition of

parties, that is seeking a referendum to remove President Nicolas Maduro, whose policies they

believe are the cause of the current crisis.

Nicolas Maduro has been the president since 2013, following the death of Hugo Chavez.

Chavez was a charismatic leader who was elected in 1998, and proceeded to reform the

government with a new constitution and socialist policies that focused on using the country’s oil

wealth to help the poor. Chavez was very popular in the country and his supporters call

themselves “Chavistas.” Maduro considers himself somewhat of a continuation of Chavez’s

socialist policies. He was elected by a narrow margin in 2013 and is now at only around 20%

support.

The socialist policies of Venezuela under Chavez included subsidies for food and other

essential items, as well as the fixing of prices and exchange rates. This was intended to help the

poor, and it worked for a time, but a combination of factors including the global collapse in oil

prices, combined with Venezuela’s failure to invest in infrastructure and means of production

apart from oil, now means that Venezuela must import nearly three quarters of all they consume.

Protests really started in earnest in 2014 and in that year turned deadly as at least three people

were killed.

Ever since Chavez’s time the government has been suppressing free speech through

economic pressure and intimidation, and the jailing or deportation of journalists. Maduro

has promoted military leaders to various positions within the government, broadening the

military’s influence within the country. One notable example is the announcement by Maduro in

July that General Vladimir Padrino Lopez, the Defense Minister, would take “command and the

absolute subordination” of all government ministries in an effort to cure the so­called “Common

Shortage” of basic goods.

In January 2015 the opposition party took control of the National Assembly legislature

after 16 years of socialist leadership. Opposition protesters staged a massive march in the

streets on September 1 to call for a referendum on Maduro’s presidency. According to the

polls, the majority of Venezuelans (64%) wouldn’t vote for him at the referendum. January 2017

is a crucial date for the opposition, because there is a Venezuelan constitutional amendment that

says that the people have the power to call for a revocatory referendum against the government,

However, if it happens before the half of the president’s term, there must be a new president. If

the recall vote takes place after the half term, the Vice President, Aristóbulo Istúriz (who is of the

same party), will finish out the presidential term for another two years.

3. Key points of controversy and contention

Shortage of medicines: 80% of hospitals are missing the medicines they need.

Obstacles for local and foreign journalists: Many have been arrested or intimidated;

many foreign journalists have not been allowed to enter the country: professionals from

NPR (John Otis), Radio Caracol Colombia (Cesar Moreno), Al Jazeera (Teresa Bo, John

Holman, Lagmi Chávez, Mariano Rosendi and Ricardo Lopez) Le Monde (Diane

Detoeuf).

Some in the government blame the US for the food shortages: Welfare Vice Minister

says Obama sent an organized mafia to Venezuela to make mass food purchases.

Venezuelans have to wait in line an average of 35 hours a week to buy food (forfeiting

work time). Many are flooding through newly opened Colombian borders to get

necessary items.

Censorship. In the last years, 25 media have changed their owner. They were bought by

private owners who are indeed supporting Chavismo. Self­censorship also plays an

important role. There are not any comedy TV shows anymore. In some cases it’s

prohibited to talk about daily episodes of lynching and robbery on television. 1

The timing of the potential recall vote. If the vote takes place before January 10, and

Maduro is ousted, there will be a new presidential election and a new president, more

than likely from one of the opposition parties. If the vote takes place after Jan. 10, then

Maduro’s Vice President Aristóbulo Istúriz would take over, effectively continuing

socialist leadership. The government is trying to buy time to prevent the vote from taking

place this year.

Protests. There are more opposition protests scheduled for Sept. 14.

1 Data collected from an interview with Luis Carlos Díaz, a Venezuelan journalist that agreed on sharing information with GJ.

4. Must-read articles 1. Chavismo fights for survival (August 2nd, 2016) The Guardian

The piece describes the Venezuelan context just after August 1st, when the opposition

reached the sufficient number of signatures to get the process for a recall referendum started.

However, the main theme of the article is the analysis of Chavismo socialism, and its possible

future perspectives. In a country suffering from an economic crisis to which the government

hasn’t been capable to respond, violence is spreading from the capital to the outskirts, and by

now, people cannot count on the government for the distribution of basic goods.

Maduro’s regime is also characterized by a brutal repression of political opposition, with

documented episodes of torture. After almost two decades of Bolivarian Revolution, Chavez’s

project seems to have failed, just like the attempts to blame the “forces of imperialism” for this

situation. Chavez’s charisma and esteem are far from being the current president’s features, and

the system that once professed an egalitarian vision, forces now its citizens to work on farms to

fight the food crisis. Maduro is trying to delay the Referendum and his allies have already filed

8,000 legal challenges to the process, but a new development of Chavismo seems unlikely.

2. Venezuela protests could trigger new stage in political shutdown (August 31st, 2016) Sibylla Brodzinsky, The Guardian

This article illustrates how Venezuela has been waiting for the protests of September 1st,

with the opposition trying to incite the greatest number of people to go to Caracas and

demonstrate against the government, and Maduro defining them as anti­democratic and the

march itself as a “coup.” The government has deployed soldiers on the streets of the capital and

has blocked some of the routes to Caracas. They also banned private aircraft and drones from

flying over Venezuelan territory for 6 days.

There’s also a common fear of a possible breakdown, as the one occurred in February

2014, when one of the leaders of the MUD (Democratic Unity Roundtable, the opposition

coalition), Leopoldo Lopez, was arrested. In this context, the increasing involvement of the

military in the government seems to be an intimidating strategy planned by Maduro, who aims to

put the Army against those who decide to join the opposition. However, Venezuela is starting to

feel international pressure, been criticized by OAS, Mercosur and several Prime Ministers of

other countries: all this gives strength to the entire opposition movement, which has to reach the

recall Referendum before January 10th, 2017.

3. Chavez’s little blue book (May 28th, 2016) Michael Reid, The Economist

This article focuses on the role President Maduro is playing in breaking the rules of the

constitution that Chavez implemented in Venezuela in 1999. This is partially caused by the many

problems that Maduro is facing, like the global drop in oil prices and the shortages of food and

medicines, as well as the loss of neighboring allies like Brazil, and worsening relations with the

Vatican. Almagro, the secretary general of OAS, as defined him a “pretty dictator.” After an

election in December 2015, when the opposition, leaded by Capriles, gained control of the

National Assembly.

Article 72 of the “little blue book” declares that all elected officeholders are subject to

recall via referendum after the halfway point of their terms, but Maduro, who, according to the

polls, would certainly lose the referendum, said that this possibility was merely “a constitutional

option,” not an “obligation.” His opinion was reaffirmed by Istúriz, the Vice President. If the

president is recalled after his fourth year of term, the vice­president, who is appointed by the

president, serves until its end.

4. Venezuela’s Risky Recall (June 14th, 2016) Joshua Spivak, Foreign Affairs

This piece concerns the possibility of a recall referendum in Venezuela, with the goal of

ousting President Maduro. It then focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of a recall, giving

past examples of this legal process. This process went into effect in California in 2003 and in

several European countries, like Poland and Germany. The problem is that this practice does not

always lead to a change in leadership, and it often enforces and strengthen the current

government, as in the case of Chavez in 2004.

This diffusion of the term “recall” is mainly due to social media’s ability to reach people,

at every social level and in every part of the country. However, in the case of Venezuela, even if

the opposition succeeded in achieving a recall vote, they would face several limiting measures

imposed by the government; for example, the stipulation that the opposition must reach a

minimum of 7.5 million votes. Maduro has also implemented an intimidating state of emergency,

and aims to delay the possible referendum, but can’t hide his current political weakness.

5. Thousands march in Venezuela to demand President’s ouster (September 1st, 2016) Nicholas Casey, The New York Times

The piece describes the march of Sept. 1st 2016, when the biggest demonstration against

Maduro’s presidency thus far, the so called “taking of Caracas,” took place. A crowd composed

of people from the whole country demonstrated in the streets of the capital, asking for the

President’s ouster: the economic crisis (worsened by spring’s droughts), a rising crime rate and

the political repression carried out by the regime have led to disastrous consequences for people.

Maduro has tried to respond by inciting his red­dressed military supporters to

demonstrate, and six international journalists were barred from entering the country. One of

them, Jim Wyss, was even imprisoned for a short time. In this chaotic context, food supplies are

transported under armed guards and many areas of the country are by now at the mercy of

criminal groups. However, none of the promises made by the opposition (free market, release of

jailed political leaders, referendum) have been accomplished, mainly because of the anti­reform

measures enforced by Maduro, who has also enforced his presidential powers despite the protests

of the Congress.

5. Pre-interviews Guest One: Braulio Jatar (interviewed by Anna Sutterer)

Relevance to issue

Filmmaker on the front lines of the opposition protests since 2014.

His father, Braulio Jatar Alonso, was arrested for his coverage of the opposition

protest on September 1 and for money laundering.

Has been a supporter of the opposition movement since before he could

remember; his father is an editor with the online newspaper, Reporte

Confidencial; he is currently attending the New York Film Academy in

Manhattan.

Political leaning

Definitely opposition

Venezuela has been getting worse and worse and these last two or three years

have been a catastrophe. We are at critical levels on everything, and have poverty,

inflation, crime rates are through the roof. We’re just in a horible state right now

and to me, there’s only one guilty party, or the most guilty party would have to be

the government, they literally control everything right now.

“I try to be as open­minded as I can because I’ve seen a lot these last two years,

and I know that both sides can be right and wrong at the same time. I try not to

have an opinion, per se, I just try to film what’s happening and try to show it as I

saw it, as it actually happened.”

How unified is this opposition movement? What happens if they get their election

recall?

“Right now it’s pretty united. I mean, it’s had its friction, but as of right now it’s

pretty united. There’s always going to be the “pro­vote” and the “pro­violence”

within the opposition, I mean the rift that there is between the different parties.

But right now everybody knows the best way out would be the recall. However,

you could see, like yesterday, they say there were about a million people on the

streets, and only a couple hundred or maybe a thousand actually tried to confront

the police and wanted that kind of exit to their problems. I’d say the majority of

the opposition is together and they know that their best way out is the recall.”

“The differences used to be a lot more noticeable, that’s the biggest change from

two years ago to now. Right now everybody has the mindset that this is the way

out and that they have to do it together.”

“As of right now, everyone is thinking about changing this government.”

He sees the difference on Twitter: The way the opposition members share things on

social media and talk about one another and talk about what they’ll do for the future.

Demographic makeup on the pro­Maduro side

“Chavez invested a lot of time and a lot of money in social programs, giving

people basic education and houses and whatever. He just made a very big political

capital, like an important number of people flocked to him. And it’s very difficult

for people in low­income, because it is mainly people in low­income and

low­resources people, that were and are with that movement. It’s very difficult for

you to change their mindset when they have no access to Internet and no access to

proper education. Their strongest point has been that demographic: the poor, the

hungry and whatever. So, right now, since there’s a very important problem with

food shortages, you don’t have to see TV to feel there’s something wrong and

things aren’t as they should be. You can talk to them and they will say, ‘Look, I

was a Chavista, I loved Chavez, but this is wrong, and this isn’t what he promised

me. Maduro is doing things wrong.’ So we’re at a point where you don’t need to

be the most educated or the most resourceful or attend to news. You just need to

be living.”

How does Maduro’s socialist/leftist government contribute to high inflation?

The government has hounded private companies from the start. Whoever

wouldn’t align with what they wanted to do would be seized. They’d take the

company away from them and make it public property, and those companies

would then just die out because they’d have bad administration.

So, when there were, like, 10 companies who did deodorant, now there’s only

one. And inflation because they just print money out like crazy when there’s

elections, because they need to pay everybody. They need to pay the cars that take

them and the billboards… They print out an absurd amount of money and there’s

no way to back it up.”

The current officials are used to having oil money backing up their campaigns,

but now an even bigger issue with the recall coming up because the price per

barrel is so low, they won’t be able to overcome the loss of trust in the people

(already lost pretty bad in these kinds of terms in parliamentary election on Dec 6

2015, opposition took 112 out of 167)

“I totally forgot about the government’s control of US Dollars, which is very

important. The only way to have access to money is by buying them from the

government, and you only have a limited number to buy. And you pay the price

that they determine. So prices are frozen at around 12bs a dollar, while in the

black market a dollar is worth 1000bs. This also creates shortages of basic needs

that are imported or used to produce here.”

Guest One: John Otis (interviewed by Jonah McKeown) Relevance to issue: Journalist for NPR and consultant for Committee to Protect

Journalists, was refused entry to Venezuela while trying to cover the Sept. 1 protests. Otis

is based in Bogota, Colombia and has covered the Andes region of South America for

NPR, The Wall Street Journal and TIME magazine for almost 20 years. He’s followed

Venezuelan politics since the start of Hugo Chavez’s regime in 1997.

What Chavez’s time was like, compared to now with Maduro

“I’ve been covering Venezuela since 1997 when Hugo Chavez was running for

president; I followed him around on his first campaign, and it’s pretty

understandable how he won back then, because the previous governments were all

just kind of upper­class Venezuelans who didn’t really pay any attention to poor

people, so it was very interesting to see Chavez take power and put his socialist

revolution in place. For nearly all the years I was covering him he was extremely

popular, so it’s quite interesting to see the new regime in place with Maduro’s

government, and just everything collapsing.”

Social, economic and political crisis examples

“There’s been a massive “brain drain” of educated Venezuelans leaving the

country because university professors are now earning the equivalent of $50 a

month.

Dependency on oil (around 95% of their exports) makes the country’s

economy vulnerable to price shocks.They don’t have the dollar income to

import things for production in­country. Hard­line socialist policies and strict

government control in the business world have created snowball effects.

Experience in Caracas airport on August 31

Foreign reporters have needed to get visas and apply for ID card accreditation to

enter the country for the last few years. Government was more paranoid in the

Sept. 1 protest environment, so they stopped busses and blocked many people

from getting into Caracas.

Otis and a few Colombian journalists and a French correspondent for Le Monde

were stopped at the airport. They were told to sign papers saying they were

“inadmissible citizens” and then were made to wait for six hours for the next

flight to Colombia

Journalism in Venezuela

“... the main problem is with Venezuelan journalists themselves because this

government wants to control the media, so there’s been all kinds of problems such

as the government not renewing TV and radio licenses, forcing these

broadcasters out of business for not toeing the official party line, there’s a

newsprint shortage and they don’t have the dollar for it, so the local media they

are really getting hit on all sides.”

How the United States is viewed by Venezuelans

“If you talk to people in the ruling socialist party, they see the United States as

this kind of overbearing neighbor to the north that’s always trying to intervene in

Venezuelan affairs, to some extent they have a point, the US was very hostile

toward the Chavez regime, they didn’t actively support the coup that almost

ousted Chavez in 2003 but they applauded it. But as more and more people turn

against the government, they’re a lot more sympathetic toward the US point of

view, and there’s a lot of people realizing that the Chavez revolution has really

gone off the rails, and there’s a lot of the things the US has said has turned out to

be true, not all of them, but the criticisms of the Chavez and Maduro governments

as being authoritarian and cracking down on press freedom.”

Venezuela relationship with Colombia

“The relationship up there on the border right now is really bizarre because you

have Venezuelans streaming across the border to buy food in Colombia. It

used to be the other way around because a lot of basic food items like rice and

beans were a lot cheaper in Venezuela but now you can’t get them any more

because of these big food shortages, so you have all these Venezuelans pouring

across the border to buy food in Colombia and bring it back.”

Colombia is concerned about the stream of refugees. Also hopeful that the peace

talks the Venezuelan socialist government has helped to promote in Colombia

with the FARC will be successful (peace deal to be signed Sept. 26)

Thoughts about the current political situation

Although Maduro is at 20% popularity, his government might prevail because he

controls the electoral council and his strategy is to hold the recall next year so his

vice president could take over. If that doesn’t happen, the other scenario is a

possible military intervention to force Maduro out and a transitional

government would come in.

Guest Two: Patrick Duddy (interviewed by Jonah McKeown) Relevance to issue: Was the U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela from 2007 to 2010 and is

now the director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Duke University.

Experience as ambassador to Venezuela Part of Chavez’s dialogue with his public and the people of the region was

antagonistic to the U.S. and President Bush. Duddy was expelled from Venezuela and proclaimed a “persona non grata” on Sept. 11, 2008.

“If you Google president Chavez’s speech in which he announced my expulsion, it was one of the most startlingly crude speeches by a head of state I’ve ever heard.”

“I was threatened with expulsion the first time because I regretted we were not able to follow up on that conversation, and I thought the drug traffickers were taking advantage of the gap that had opened up between the US and Venezuela.”

How much economic failure is due to the country’s policies, and how much is due to the oil prices dropping?

“At the heart of the difficulties was and is their failure to invest wisely during the period of windfall profits from record high oil prices.”

The model was never going to be stable: too much nationalizing and expropriating industries= “I think both suppressed their productivity and effectively spiked their productivity, but it also discouraged foreign direct investments, or even domestic investments.” So when oil prices dropped, the weaknesses have been revealed.

“Even some of the leftist ideologues who provided some of the frameworks for Bolivarian socialism in the 21st century, have admitted

that the gov is behaving in ways that appear to be catastrophically incompetent.”

“Why has the current dip in oil prices been so devastating for Venezuela, as it has not been so devastating for other oil producing countries? And that’s where we come back to the issue of capital investment. A country like Saudi Arabia, if the price of a barrel declines, they can simply pump more to keep revenue steady. They also have greater reserves. The one thing they can do that is related to their oil sector is they can simply open the spigot. Venezuela can’t because they haven’t invested in the oil sector appropriately, and according to their own numbers, they’re actually producing less oil today than they did when Chavez was elected in 1998.”

About Maduro’s attitude toward the U.S. Ironic because the U.S. continues to be Venezuela’s biggest market: “The

collapse of the currency, sky high inflation, the difficulty of accessing hard currency, have created difficulties in every sector. And many major international businesses have had to take immense write downs because they have simply not be able to make a profit.” So many have had to temporarily shut down operations or withdraw.

Maduro’s plan to fix the economic crisis Radicalize: double down on the economic approach they currently have.

What should happen to fix the economic crisis

Abandon the current approach Stabilize the inflation and currency Jump­start the private business sector

Foreign relations Recent international news suggests that countries that supported Chavista have

moved away from them Even Cuba, Chile and Brazil have lost faith in the Venezuelan government’s

ability to generate income to sustain themselves Guest Three: Jennifer Cyr (Interviewed by Jonah McKeown)

Relevance to issue Master’s Degree in Latin American Studies and PhD in Political Sciences. She’s

writing a book about old political parties in the new political era.

Lately been monitoring political parties that make up the opposition, antichavismo as a movement but also as a group identity, and government dynamics

Who are the opposition? Students, former political leaders, increasingly the poor, who are angry

about chavism. Mix of old parties and new ones: Primera Justicia (Enrique Capriles) and

Acción Democrática. Just had a major victory in January 2015; taken over a majority, close to two

thirds They were able to appoint the president of the National Assembly: Henry Ramos

Two primary opposition candidates: From Primera Justicia, Julio Jorges; and from Accion Democratica, Henry Ramos.

Ramos is seen as a relic of the past, because his party is older. But he has seen and endured more political adversity.

Primera Justicia is the more visible head of the opposition, while AD is more behind the scenes.

There are other parties/leaders who don’t think the democratic option is the best way to remove Maduro from power

Leopoldo Lopez, who is now in prison: María Corina Machado Lopez seemed to think by “martyring” himself he would advance

his cause, but it’s kind of pushed him back in a way. Roots of the current political conflict

Newer political party has its roots in a 1990s NGO Accion Democratica was rejected in the late 1990s

Represent a political elite from the past First electoral victory in the national assembly

To what extent are Chavez/Maduro’s socialist policies to blame for the various problems in the country?

Able to fund a lot of projects thanks to oil boom; became increasingly costly to continue socialist policies.

Chavez famously started giving away washing machines prior to one of his elections.

What needs to be done to help the current situation? We need to see it get worse before it gets better Maduro has not shown himself to be willing to negotiate Good will to work on a plan of dialogue; can we really sit down with the other

side? Worst case Maduro uses the military to put down the opposition

Encourages listeners to be critical of the news they hear about Venezuela “It’s tempting to view the government as bad, bad, bad and the opposition as these

heroes, but it’s much more complicated than that.”

Guest Four: Gabriel Hetland (interviewed by Anna Sutterer)

Relevance to issue: Wrote his dissertation on participatory democracy in Latin American politics, with a special emphasis on Venezuela. His work has been featured in news outlets The Nation and teleSUR .

Political leaning regarding Venezuela Interest in Chavismo has been longstanding because of the many social policy

gains his regime made: “They really dramatically reduced inequality, they really dramatically reduced poverty, Venezuela became the most equitable in the Latin America region.”

“I’m increasingly critical of the government right now for their sort of various errors that they have in terms of policy and their inability and unwillingness to do what it takes to solve the crisis. But I think that, given the current crisis and all the negatives going on, we shouldn’t lose sight of the positives that Chavismo was able to achieve for a number of years. The current crisis doesn’t discount those positives, it sheds light on certain underlying contradictions that weren’t addressed earlier on, but it doesn’t take away from the gains that Chavez was able to achieve while he was in office.”

Opposition movement’s level of unity Since 2013 there’s been a more violent faction rising with leaders like Leopoldo

Lopez. These groups have some blood on their hands (see violent protests in 2014)

Since the big victory for the opposition in the legislature in December 2015, there’s been more discussion about different strategies to get Maduro out of power, more legal measures like the recall referendum.

BUT “Behind the scenes there’s sort of this plausible speculation that many factions or certain leaders within the opposition don’t want to take power right now, that they’re perfectly happy to have the referendum next year. Because Venezuela is in the middle of a very difficult crisis, and it’s going to take quite a lot to get them out of this crisis, and it’s not going to be good for whoever’s in office at the time. So they think having two years in office in the middle of a very bad crisis with presidential elections coming up at the end of 2018 would be very difficult. The reason that speculation is plausible is that the opposition waited a really long time to actually get started on the recall process.

They could have gotten the groundwork going in December but they didn’t until April, when they filed the initial paperwork (only 9 mo. to get through the difficult/long process).”

“Unfortunately I think some leaders (speculation relates to them, the ones doing the political calculations, not the citizens in the street) in the opposition are gleeful at the horrible state of the nation, they wouldn’t say that, but politically it’s a huge opening for them.”

Any hopes for the future economic and political situation

Had some hope about fixing the currency policy with the ideas of the former Minister of Industry and Trade, Miguel Perez­Abad, but Maduro dismissed him in mid­August.

If the opposition takes power, he hopes there will be enough popular movement by the people who thrived under some of the Chavez policies to keep some of those practices and organizations: “I think there will be a really strong popular movement that will have some ability to prevent the right (the assumed faction to take power) from totally rolling back the gains that remained under Chavismo … but it’s going to be a difficult period for a number of years moving forward and I don’t have a tremendous amount of hope at the moment.”

Guest Four: Phillip Gunson (interviewed by Federico Maccioni)

Relevance: Andes Project Senior analyst, with more than 40 years of experience in South

America as a reporter for news media such as The Guardian and The Economist. At the

moment he resides in Caracas and generally focuses on Venezuela’s political context and

Conflict resolution.

Current situation in Venezuela

­ “The crisis itself is a very explosive combination of economic, social, political,

humanitarian crisis over rolled into one.”

­ “Perhaps more than 80% of the electorate want to get rid of the president as soon as

possible, and the government is doing everything possible through its control of the

institutions, particularly, the Electoral Council, the Supreme Court, to stop the election

happening, to delay.”

Unity of the Opposition

­ “The opposition is a coalition, an alliance of more than 2000 different parties, of which

four or so are the ones enabled to take the decisions. There are divisions within them, but

at the same time, they recognize that the less they remain united it’s going to be

impossible for them to challenge the government and every time they got into an election

divided, they suffered the consequences.”

­ “ The main thing that the opposition has in its favor is popular support obviously, with

the possibility to organize very important demonstrations.”

­ “It also has increasing support in the International Community, but these factors taken

together are not enough to force the government to act, because for Maduro, this is an

existential issue.”

Effect of Protests and concrete possibility of Referendum

­ “It’s very difficult for the opposition to force the Referendum because the government is,

institutionally, in a very strong position. It can use its control of Courts, of all institutions,

including the Security Forces to prevent that happening.”

­ “It did have an immediate effect in the sense that it demonstrated the enormous feeling

against the government, but the problem of the opposition is to maintain the momentum,

because Maduro simply ignores public opinion, and the only thing the opposition has to

do would be a kind of frontal attack on the government to get much on the presidential

palace.”

­ “However, in the past, that has led to injuries and deaths, like it happened in 2002, when

a lot of people were killed, and the government had shown that it was willing to send

security forces.”

Influence of Chavez’s former government

­ “This is the result of lots of very bad policy choices over many years, but Maduro has

also refused to change course and he’s stuck to his policies.”

­ “The most damaging thing Chavez did, was to strangle the economy with extremely

severe controls of all kinds: price controls, exchange controls, expropriation of private

property, millions of hectares of farmland.”

­ “Thousands of companies have disappeared, and now the government has to produce

everything, which is the main reason why at the moment, Venezuela’s people have

difficulties to eat, no medicines in the pharmacies.”

­ “It’s not entirely Maduro’s fault, but having said that, he has been perhaps the most inept,

incompetent president in Venezuela’s history. Several times, it looked as he was going to

modify policies to improve the situation, but every time he has failed in doing it.”

Relationship with Colombia

­ “There are important influences on Venezuela: guerrillas are going to be demobilized, but

politically, they will simply continue with the business that they have developed in over

70 years, which is essentially drugs smuggling.”

­ “This is going to worsen an already bad situation in Venezuela, with organized crime.”

­ “There is the political impact, in terms of the fact that Venezuela helped the FARC army

transportation for example. Now, maybe, the Colombian government can challenge the

government of Maduro, also because they are ideologically very different.”

Venezuelan context within two years

­ “I think there is a change coming, and is impossible for President Maduro to remain in

charge, because he doesn’t only face a tremendous opposition of the electorate as a

whole, but is also very unpopular in certain military ambiences.”

Role of the Army

­ “The question is, who will be managing the change? The logic is that the army is going to

be very influential in that set. I don’t think the vice­President will succeed Maduro,

because his figure is not an elective position, is appointed by the president. There are

many factions that are trying to get their man, their woman into the vice­president seat in

that moment, and I think that the people that have the best chances to do that are the

Army.”

6. Organization of the show Guest 1 (alone): Braulio Jatar, filmmaker at front lines of the opposition protests around

Caracas

Possible Questions:

Tell us about your goals when you enter a protest scene? How do you approach the

situation?

Describe the kinds of scenes you’ve witnessed in the last two years. Have many been

violent, or most peaceful? How many large and how many small gatherings? How do the

opposition and pro­Maduro citizens interact?

Who are the people on each side? What are their main tactics to persuade others or

express themselves?

Why have some stayed pro­Maduro?

How united is the opposition and is there a concrete possibility of reaching the

referendum, even though Maduro is trying to avoid it?

Can you give some examples of the Maduro regime’s lack of transparency or

wrongdoing?

Guest 1 (alone): John Otis, NPR foreign correspondent based in Bogota, Colombia

Possible Questions:

Give us just a sense of what it’s like for the citizens of Venezuela right now.

What is the situation like for foreign journalists who are trying to cover Venezuela?

What are some of the challenges faced by local journalists in Venezuela?

Describe your experience being turned away at the Caracas airport on Sept. 1. What are

your plans now for eventually re­entering the country?

How do Colombia’s recent peace talks with the FARC and opened borders connect with

Venezuela’s situation?

Guest 2 (panel): Patrick Duddy, former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela

*NOTE: ask for brief, simplified answers (tends to get very descriptive and technical in

explanations)

Possible Questions:

What has characterized relations between Venezuela and the US in past years and

currently?

How did Venezuela get to the point of ­8% economy growth and 700% inflation?

(Key Q. for Duddy)

How could the Chavez and Maduro governments have better invested the country’s rich

oil reserves?

What needs to happen short­term and long­term to fix the current economic woes,

including the food and health care shortages?

What’s the likeliest political development in Venezuela, if the movement for the recall

referendum succeeds? Fails?

Guest 3 (panel): Jennifer Cyr, Assistant Professor of Government and Public Policy and

Latin American Studies at University of Arizona

Possible Questions:

[Anything about the opposition movement, because this relates directly to her expertise]

How organized is the opposition movement?

What parties and leaders are a part of the opposition? Who are these people? (Key

Q. for Cyr)

How are the opposition and the government relating to each other at the moment?

Guest 4 (panel): Gabriel Hetland, professor of Sociology with dissertation research in how

citizens participate politically in Latin America/Venezuela

Possible Questions:

Talking about the former government, do you think that Chavez’s choices in the past,

like those regarding the management of oil reserves, are now influencing Maduro’s

mandate?

How unified is the opposition movement? What have been their biggest challenges

internally and externally?

What’s the future of Chavez’s socialism after these few years of demonstrations? Is it

possible for President Maduro to recover from this loss of credibility?

What needs to be done for the citizens to get their basic needs met, while the leaders of

the parties fight for idealistic change? Can the food and health shortage needs be met

while there is such a large political question mark looming?