“Venezuela is in one of its worst moments. Nicolás Maduro’s regime is not heading towards a dictatorship like that of Nicaragua, but it is already there,” says Tamara Taraciuk Broner, lawyer and law teacher. His words come by phone from Uruguay. It is difficult to decipher his accent, at times neutral, at other times slightly Caribbean. He was born in Caracas, raised and educated in Argentina, lived in the US and now resides in Río de la Plata.
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Despite the increasing repression suffered by Venezuelans since the July 28 elections, which led the elected president Edmundo González to seek refuge in Spain, For Taraciuk, the dictatorship in Venezuela does not have an inevitable destiny. The scenario is complex, he admits, but a negotiated solution towards a democratic transition is possible if coordinated international pressure is increased, if the opposition remains united and if a program is implemented that includes reductions in sentences for crimes not considered crimes against humanity. . That is why she works as director of the Peter D. Bell Rule of Law Program at the Inter-American Dialogue.
Taraciuk is the daughter of Argentine parents exiled in Venezuela during the seventies. His family history marked a vocation and an academic and professional interest: “Work so that people can choose where they live and how they want to do it.”
Do you think that Maduro underestimated what was going to happen with these elections, the scale of the mobilization, the minutes held by the opposition that proved the fraud?
Two things happened: one, for some time Venezuela had been trying to impose the idea that the situation was not so bad to re-enter international markets. For that they needed a certain legitimacy that they could only obtain with moderately credible elections. That is why they signed the Barbados Agreement in 2023 for the elections; They allowed the opposition to present themselves and for there to be some international electoral observation: they did not allow the European Union to enter, but they did allow the United Nations and the Carter Center. And the other factor is that they miscalculated two things. One, the opposition’s margin of victory was very large, making the official announcement clearly a fraud. And the other thing that they did not foresee was the organizational capacity of the opposition to prove that they won, because it is not the first time that the opposition says that they won, but it is the first time that there was a coordinated strategy to obtain the records and prove that They had the most votes.
In Venezuela there are three simultaneous crises. There is an attack against opponents that varies in intensity, there is a humanitarian emergency where a United Nations periodic report says that there are millions of people who need humanitarian assistance, and there is a consequent crisis of refugees, exiles and migrants, with almost eight million people who left the country.
It is interesting that the combinations of these three issues mark the differences with respect to previous experiences.
Yes, there have been three simultaneous crises in Venezuela for years. There is an attack against opponents that varies in intensity, there is a humanitarian emergency where a United Nations periodic report says that there are millions of people who need humanitarian assistance, and there is a consequent crisis of refugees, exiles and migrants, with almost eight million people who left the country. None of that is new. But the Venezuelan people are deeply democratic. On July 28 they had the option to go to vote. And everyone tried to do it. I say we tried because I wanted to register to vote in Uruguay and I couldn’t.
Why couldn’t you vote?
I went to the consulate to register and they asked me for three requirements. The Venezuelan passport, the Venezuelan ID and my Uruguayan ID. And when I gave him the Uruguayan ID, the consular officer told me: “You need a document that is valid for at least three years and at least one year until it expires, a total of four years of validity.” And I told him: “Well, here the IDs are valid for three years. In other words, you are asking the impossible of me.” And he answered me: “Do you know that I can’t vote either?” With 83 percent of the votes, Edmundo González won by more than three million votes. If the millions of citizens outside had been able to vote, the difference would have been greater.
Broadly speaking, there could be two paths: on the one hand, a dictatorship similar to that of Nicaragua and on the other, a negotiated solution. Which path is the one that could prevail? Or in any case, how to build a transition to democracy?
I do not believe that the regime is going in the direction of Nicaragua. It’s already there. Today they are acting as if the scenario of entrenching themselves in power was their best alternative. I do not believe that a pure, harsh and permanent dictatorship in Venezuela is an inevitable outcome. Circumstances today are very different from those of the past for many reasons. First, because there is a clear demonstration of massive popular discontent, even among people who traditionally supported the Government because the opposition won in popular areas that always voted for Chavismo. The opposition got 83 percent of the minutes because the military let them get them. And if they got that many votes it is because there are soldiers, police, public officials who went to vote and voted for the opposition.
And second?
The opposition has remained united in the electoral process as it has not done for a long time. The thing about Edmundo González is a fact, but María Corina Machado demonstrated a political charisma that was very surprising because she was expected to boycott the elections if she was not a candidate and she has been making decisions that are more institutional than personal, time and again. Finally, what Maduro has done was so crude, both the fraud and the repression, that it made it difficult for the leftist governments that traditionally turned a blind eye and supported him. So there is no democratic government that has recognized the electoral results. That whole context is very different.
In any case, the regime does not seem very willing to give up positions and deepened an already brutal repression.
I don’t think it will be easy to get out of this context, but the only way to do it is if there are two parallel paths. One is to urgently activate greater international pressure. The regime today believes that what it is doing is its best path and its best alternative. And it has to be clear to you that all the options you have are bad and that this is not the best, it has costs. And those costs have to begin to be felt: individual sanctions for those in power and their families, measures to close their access to markets – and make it more difficult for them to govern and have access to funds – and to put forcefully on the table credible threat of criminal prosecution outside Venezuela, both for human rights violations and for drug trafficking, corruption and money laundering crimes in which they are involved. If those at the top see that the cost of staying on this path is not free, there will be a movement towards some type of negotiation. On the other hand, it is very important to understand that today power is not monolithic in Venezuela. Chávez united, he had charisma. People respected him. Maduro buys loyalties.
The regime today believes that what it is doing is its best path and its best alternative. And it has to be clear to you that all the options you have are bad and that this is not the best, it has costs.
Let’s go to the crimes perpetrated in Venezuela, which cover crimes against humanity and violation of human rights, corruption, drug trafficking and money laundering.
When you see the map of power and the international standards that apply, there are people who are involved in crimes against humanity: these crimes are imprescriptible and the threat of criminal sanctions for those responsible for these crimes will follow them wherever they go. and there is no way to offer a guarantee of impunity according to international law. So, that group is small, because the legal standard to approve that is very high, the best alternative it has is to ask for refuge in a non-democratic country that is not governed by international law. But in Venezuela there are many more people who stole than people who committed crimes against humanity. This offers an opportunity because legally, although it gives many of us a stomach ache, benefits can be offered that are legal and sustainable over time: reduction of sentences, even closure of criminal investigations in those cases in exchange for measures concrete steps for a democratic transition. And in the case of human rights violations, if you emerge from the most serious cases of crimes against humanity, international law does allow you to offer certain benefits. So, what I believe is that the only way to get out of this is, on the one hand, by strongly increasing international pressure, raising the cost of what they are doing and, on the other hand, offering a bridge out to those who do not They are involved in crimes against humanity and are not on a blacklist. They have to understand that, if they adopt certain measures, and I mean within the electoral power, the judiciary, the security forces, the armed forces, they will not be on that black list and they can see a better future for them in a democratic transition than by clinging to power and blindly following the orders of those who are in that situation that has no way out.
He mentioned some qualities of María Corina Machado. Could you describe your leadership?
She has been a political leader for decades and was always very hard on Chavismo, which earned her a reputation as a radical. And in the last year she has shown that she understands politics far beyond the interest of appearing. And that has made her a key piece of this transition and of this entire moment. When the primaries were, people thought that she was going to abandon the electoral route if she didn’t win. Won. People thought she was going to abandon the electoral route if she was not the candidate. Continuous. The one she suggested as a candidate could not be written down and she supported Edmundo González. And today it continues to be the visible and active face within the country. And I think the most important thing he’s done recently is connect with people. I don’t remember a leader since Chávez who has managed to connect like this with the people of Venezuela. Her campaign largely focused on the fact that she is a mother, her children are abroad and she wants to reunify Venezuela. And with almost eight million people gone, that touches everyone’s heart. So she managed, despite being an elite, bilingual engineer, to connect even in the most rural areas. And he did it because of the message and because he toured the country in very adverse and difficult circumstances.
With Edmundo González in Spain, Maduro will try to demoralize the opposition and show it broken, broken.
I believe that this is the time for the opposition leadership to show that, despite the change in circumstances, María Corina continues to lead this from within and Edmundo González is going to do the same from the outside. Because the Maduro government is trying to show the exile of Edmundo González as a victory that dismantles the opposition. And that is one more obstacle that the opposition has to overcome moving forward. It is a moment of opportunity in the opposition if you manage to articulate it well. It is the opposition’s time to be able to show that strength.
ASTRID PIKIELNY
FOR THE NATION (ARGENTINA) – GDA
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