How Opening Cuba Helped Isolate Venezuela

How Opening Cuba Helped Isolate Venezuela
Karl Vick @karl_vick March 9, 2015

On Monday, Obama signed an Executive Order freezing the U.S. assets of
seven midlevel Venezuelan officials over their handling of protests last
year. In years past, many Latin American officials would have viewed it
as more of the same from America, whose policy of punishing Cuba with
sanctions was widely seen as anachronistic at best.

Now, thanks to the ongoing rapprochement between the U.S. and Cuba,
Washington is less easy to ignore, especially on matters of morality and
fair play. So it was that Monday's executive order naming Venezuelan
security officials turned out to be aiming what U.S. officials called "a
spotlight" onto a government that other Latin American nations are also
watching with concern.

"Until very recently, most countries in the region were reluctant to say
anything about Venezuela," says Daniel Wilkinson, managing director of
the Americas division at Human Rights Watch. "If this is just U.S.
sanctions, and the U.S. is doing it on its own, then it's much easier
for Venezuela to play the victim card. That's why it's really important
for the U.S. government to be working with other democratic governments
in the region to make this more of a collective."

On Friday, the President of Colombia publicly despaired over Venezuela,
even though he has staked his legacy on peace talks being hosted by
Maduro's strongest ally in the region, Havana. "It interests, hurts and
worries us, all what's going on in Venezuela," President Manuel Santos
said in a speech.

What's going on in Venezuela is a mess. The collapse in oil prices last
autumn sent the economy into free fall, 95% of its export revenue
flowing from petroleum sales. President Nicolás Maduro, who was elected
after his mentor Hugo Chávez died in office two years ago, is struggling
to remain in control amid economic chaos and shortages of heavily
subsidized staples. The cascade of indignities includes a shortage of
necessaries that led the government to take over a toilet-paper factory
— and the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago to offer an
oil-for-toilet-tissue deal.

Maduro, in what economists call a strategy of diversion, blames the U.S.
for waging "economic war" on the country. He has ordered most U.S.
diplomats out of the country — the ambassador was expelled five years
ago — and abruptly required visiting Americans to obtain visas. None of
which was lost on the White House, which took pains to emphasize that
the new sanctions were aimed at individual officials, and not "the
people or the economy of Venezuela."

"The point of these sanctions or policies is really to shine a light," a
senior Obama Administration official said Monday, speaking in a
not-for-attribution conference call shortly after the Executive Order
was released. Obama's actions went beyond the law passed by Congress,
the Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act of 2014, to
draw attention to the abuses of Venezuelan officials who authorized
surveillance of opposition leaders, "hundreds of forced entries and
extrajudicial detentions," and the use of excessive force, including
sexual assault and using live ammunition, against protesters and
journalists. Prosecutor Katherine Nayarith Haringhton Padron is named
for charging a former lawmaker and the mayor of Caracas with conspiracy
"based on implausible — and in some cases fabricated — information."

"You go back a year ago, when there was this wave or protests that was
met with very aggressive and violent response by the government," says
Wilkinson, who was expelled by Venezuelan authorities in 2008. "This was
a sustained process over more than a month of nonviolent protesters
being severely beaten, in some cases tortured, being shot point-blank
range with rubber pellets … Protesters would be held for two days
without access to a lawyer, then summoned to a hearing in the middle of
the night, with a lawyer having five minutes to prepare."

Whether the sanctions will work remains to be seen. Under the Executive
Order, U.S. financial institutions have 10 days to report any holdings
controlled by the seven officials, and longer still to see if freezing
them alters the behavior in what Transparency International calls the
most corrupt country in the western hemisphere. But in diplomatic terms,
the effects might be felt sooner. Before Obama and Cuban President Raúl
Castro announced their plans to reconcile, the Summit of the Americas,
set to convene April 10 in Panama City, was sizing up as an awkward
occasion for the U.S. leader. Instead, it may be Maduro who draws the
sideways glances

Source: How Opening Cuba Helped Isolate Venezuela | TIME -
http://time.com/3737595/barack-obama-cuba-venezuela/