Opposition supporters protest the reelection of President Nicolás Maduro one month after the disputed vote, which opposition leaders claim they won by a landslide, in Caracas, Venezuela, on Aug. 28.Cristian Hernandez/The Associated Press
Ben Rowswell is convenor of the Circle for Democratic Solidarity. He served as Canada’s ambassador to Venezuela from 2014 to 2017.
In the month since Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has remained in power despite overwhelming evidence he lost the election, 27 civilian protesters have been killed. The number of political prisoners has also ballooned in that time, rising from 199 to 1,780, according to the judicial watchdog Foro Penal. Amid growing violence, these numbers are likely to grow significantly.
So this week’s appointment of Diosdado Cabello as Interior Minister sounded yet another alarm bell across Venezuela.
Mr. Cabello was one of the original coup leaders who fought alongside former president Hugo Chavez in 1992. As a frequent rival to Mr. Maduro, he has led the hard-line faction that advocates harsh measures to keep Chavismo in power. As speaker of the National Assembly, he regularly used his propaganda TV show Dropping the Hammer to identify which civil society leaders, journalists or political organizers should be punished. Now, with the police force known as SEBIN and a notorious interrogation facility known as “el Helicoide” at his command, he can direct the work himself.
The spike in human-rights violations in Venezuela poses a challenge for the “pragmatic” focus that Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly promised to bring to our foreign policy. In a speech last October, she said Canada would engage with autocratic governments as well as democratic ones, warning that “forcing states to choose one side over the other risks driving potential partners away.”
Meanwhile, the Trudeau government has still not implemented a promise from three successive Liberal election platforms to establish a centre to support democracy. Ottawa has apparently become more ambivalent about the priority our foreign policy has long assigned to supporting democracy.
However, this “pragmatic” turn has not generated any closer partnership with the Venezuelan government. Our trade and investment linkages are close to nil, and Canada’s embassy in Caracas remains closed five years after a spat over diplomatic visas. Mr. Maduro’s tight embrace of Iran, Russia, North Korea and other challengers of the international order leaves little for Canada and Venezuela to discuss at meetings of multilateral organizations.
In the case of Venezuela at least, Canada’s new hesitation over championing democracy risks leaving us with the worst of both worlds – neither engaging the Maduro government, nor the population it represses.
A truly pragmatic foreign policy focuses primarily on outcomes and allows for flexibility in how to secure those ends. When it comes to Venezuela, the outcomes that matter most to Canada are to reduce the tsunami of migrants, to prevent a military invasion of Guyana, and to end the growing pattern of human-rights abuses. A return to democracy would improve the odds of achieving these outcomes.
The number of Venezuelans fleeing their country became a flood in 2016, just as they lost hope of changing their government and its disastrous economic policies; a democracy would allow them to hold their government to account for economic policies that have impoverished them. In 2023, Mr. Maduro threatened to invade Venezuela’s tiny, poorly-armed neighbour, Guyana, as a bid to bolster his government’s legitimacy in the absence of an authentic mandate from the people; a government that enjoys the consent of the governed would not need to rattle the sabre. And the spike in human-rights abuses will end when victims can bring their cases to a judicial system that is not under the thumb of the presidency.
Rather than see democracy as a potential constraint on our pragmatism, Canada should view it as an essential step to advancing our interests in international security.
We should start by reopening our embassy in Caracas, which would allow us to resume our relationships with the full range of Venezuelan political actors. We must then raise the profile of political prisoners and other victims of the repression Mr. Cabello is preparing to unleash. International advocacy of cases such as those of Edward Ocariz and Kennedy Tejeda could help hasten their release, and would offer hope to others that they are not forgotten.
We should also work with as wide a set of our partners in the Americas to listen to the broad-based Venezuelan democracy movement. They are asking that delegations from across the Americas meet on the margins of the UN General Assembly next month to work out a common approach to helping Venezuela regain a government that enjoys the consent of its people.
The alternative path – watching from a distance as Venezuela succumbs to increased violence and higher emigration – carries real risks. Given all that Canada has at stake, accompanying Venezuelans on the path to democracy is the pragmatic thing to do.