The Cubanization of Venezuela began a long time ago, but it took another large step in early February, when Cuban general Ramiro Vald茅s arrived in Caracas to serve as a government consultant. Vald茅s, 77, has been one of the most brutal enforcers of the Castro regime, beginning in the 1960s when he was responsible for crushing popular protests over energy-use restrictions. He established Castro's ruthless G2 intelligence service and is currently number three in the Cuban hierarchy.
According to Venezuelan president Hugo Ch谩vez, Vald茅s and his retinue are thereto help the South American country solve its dire electricity crisis. Cuba has been experiencing major electricity problems for 50 years, so it's unclear just what assistance its advisers would be able to provide on energy policy. (Writing in the Venezuelan newspaper El Universal, journalist Nelson Bocaranda noted that the Cubans have actually damaged several Venezuelan power generators.)
And Vald茅s is no energy expert. He is an expert in managing the repressive organs of a police state. He's been sent to Venezuela to help Ch谩vez suppress the popular revolt and further consolidate his autocracy. It's part of a broad Cuban effort to prop up the Bolivarian revolution and ensure that Ch谩vez keeps providing the Communist island with generous shipments of cheap oil.
Havana has good reason to be worried about Venezuelan stability. Recent months have seen massive anti-Ch谩vez demonstrations, with tens of thousands of angry Venezuelans filling the streets to complain about, not just electricity shortages, but also water rationing, high crime rates, runaway inflation, corruption, and the erosion of democracy. Venezuela is suffering from a lengthy drought, which isn't Ch谩vez's fault. But the rest is. As Venezuelan exile Gustavo Coronel has written, "For the last ten years the infrastructure generating both hydroelectric and thermal electricity in the country has been badly neglected, in favor of Ch谩vez's demagogic programs of handouts to poor Venezuelans and to friendly politicians in the region."
Anti-Ch谩vez protestors have been wearing T-shirts emblazoned with a blunt message: "3 Strikes: Blackouts, Water Rationing and Crime. Ch谩vez, You've Struck Out!" On January 9, Ch谩vez announced that he was devaluing the bol铆var (Venezuela's national currency) and vowed to use the military to prevent price increases. Venezuela already has the highest inflation rate in Latin America聴Morgan Stanley projects it will rise to 45 percent this year聴and its economy is crumbling under the weight of Ch谩vez's "21st-century socialism."
A few weeks ago, several former Ch谩vistas (referring to themselves as the "Constitutional Axis") published a letter that enumerated these problems, noted that the Venezuelan president has failed to address them, and called on him to resign. The letter denounced Ch谩vez as "autocratic" and "totalitarian" and argued that he "has neither moral nor material authority to rule the country, since he can not meet people's demands satisfactorily." One of the signatories, Ra煤l Isa铆as Baduel, was Venezuelan defense minister from 2004 to 2007. He has been in prison since 2009 as punishment for opposing Ch谩vez. Two others, Yoel Acosta and Jes煤s Urdaneta, helped Ch谩vez spearhead an unsuccessful military coup in the early 1990s.
The letter lamented that Venezuelan institutions have been "distorted by the incursion of outside elements." They meant the Communist apparatchiks sent from Cuba. According to the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, about 30,000 Cubans hold posts in dozens of ministries, state bodies, and public enterprises. Cuban officials now occupy senior positions in the Venezuelan armed forces and secret police. The Economist reported that Cubans "are helping to run Venezuela's ports, telecommunications, police training, the issuing of identity documents and the business registry." In January, Venezuelan vice president Ram贸n Carrizales and his wife, Yubir铆 Ortega, the environmental minister, both resigned in protest at the increasing Cubanization of the military.
Cuba's Communist rulers聴including 83-year-old Fidel Castro, who is still very much in control聴have been unnerved by the growing unrest in Venezuela and the possibility that the Ch谩vez regime could be headed for collapse. The Cuban government is utterly dependent on Venezuelan oil subsidies. Ch谩vez currently sends Cuba more than 36 million barrels of subsidized oil a year聴roughly half of all that Cuba consumes. The oil subsidies include de facto payments for the tens of thousands of Cubans working in Venezuela. Havana's strong support for Ch谩vez is driven far more by economic necessity than leftist ideology. Without Ch谩vez, the weak Cuban economy would collapse and the Castro regime along with it.
Preserving the Bolivarian strongman is thus a top priority for Havana, which is why the Castro brothers have been flooding Venezuela with highly accomplished practitioners of repression and censorship. Ch谩vez is relying on them to fortify his revolution. With each passing day, the two countries become more and more interdependent, and Venezuela gets more and more Cubanized.
Does the Ch谩vez-Castro relationship affect American foreign policy? As the U.S. intelligence community notes in its 2010 threat assessment (which Dennis Blair presented to Congress in early February), the Venezuelan and Cuban governments聴along with their allies in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua聴"are likely to oppose nearly every U.S. policy initiative in the region, including the expansion of free trade, counterdrug and counterterrorism cooperation, military training, and security initiatives, and even U.S. assistance programs."
But even if Vald茅s and his henchmen help stabilize Venezuela in the short term, they can't undo the heavy consequences of Bolivarian socialism. Surveys show that Ch谩vez is increasingly unpopular; he will grow even more so if the electricity and water shortages persist. Venezuela's infrastructure is crumbling, as is its public health system. Crime has reached unimaginably high levels聴especially in Caracas聴and inflation is having a devastating impact on the economy.
Yet Ch谩vez aggressively plows forward, aiming to create a Cuban-style dictatorship. And what is the response from Latin America's democratic leaders? Silence. Rather than stand up for democracy, most have stayed quiet and sought to accommodate a dangerous autocrat. In that sense, they bear a share of responsibility for what is happening in Venezuela.