Skip to footer

The power of truth-telling about Venezuela

After a sham election in Venezuela, most Latin American nations vote to declare the Maduro regime illegitimate. Their moral courage may translate into bolder steps for a solution.

|
AP Photo
Political prisoners wave in jubilation prior to their release June 1 from Helicoide prison in Caracas, Venezuela. Venezuelan officials said they are releasing 39 jailed activists in a gesture aimed at uniting a fractured nation.
  • By the Monitor's Editorial Board

A majority of nations in Latin America took an extraordinary step this week to solve a crisis in Venezuela that is literally spilling across their borders. At a meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS), they stated that a May 20 presidential election in Venezuela lacked legitimacy because it violated so many democratic norms.

In effect, countries representing most of Latin America’s population declared that President Nicolás Maduro is not the legitimate leader of Venezuela. The vote was a neighborly rebuke of a country drifting toward total dictatorship and economic ruin.

In the past two years, more than 2 million people have fled Venezuela to other parts of Latin America. The exodus has reinforced the idea that the region cannot ignore a loss of liberties in nearby countries. Mr. Maduro has jailed his main opponents and created a migration crisis out of his mangled management of a once-wealthy economy.

The vote against Maduro was made easier by the fact that the Lima Group, a body of 13 Latin American and Caribbean governments, plus Canada, was negotiating with him last year to hold off on an election until a free and fair process could be ensured. He ignored the request and called the election in May. Even though the election lacked “the necessary guarantees for a free, fair, transparent and democratic process,” as the OAS stated, Maduro claimed he won another six-year term.

The OAS vote on June 5 was not only a moral statement. It could now embolden a few Latin American countries to follow the United States and European Union in placing financial sanctions on top Venezuelan leaders. The EU, too, might stiffen its sanctions.

Latin America’s response is another example of how regional bodies – rather than the West or United Nations – can exert pressure on one of their own to follow democratic norms. Groupings in Africa and Southeast Asia, not to mention the EU, have sometimes shown the backbone to coax a neighbor away from an authoritarian path.

Calling out Maduro on his legitimacy as a ruler may also embolden his domestic opponents. While the regime holds the guns, the political opposition needs moral ammunition. With so many Venezuelans flooding the region, the OAS finally had to act. Telling the truth about a sham election may help puncture a big lie that keeps Maduro in power.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to The power of truth-telling about Venezuela
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2018/0608/The-power-of-truth-telling-about-Venezuela
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe