ANALYSIS: TRUE. Wrong, Rep. Omar: Socialism, not America, caused Venezuela’s suffering.
Any European immigrating to Venezuela today, or Cuba for that matter, should consult a headshrinker or spiritual adviser. From 1999 to the present, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) has run the country into the ground, first with Hugo Chávez, who at least had charisma, and since his 2013 death by his successor, Nicolás Maduro, who doesn’t.
Yet somehow, Omar saw fit to assure viewers of the far-left television show “Democracy Now” that responsibility for the mayhem we see there today rests with the US.
“A lot of the policies that we have put in place has kind of helped lead the devastation in Venezuela, and we have sort of set the stage for where we are arriving today,” she claimed. “This particular bullying and the use of sanctions to eventually intervene and make regime change really does not help the people of countries like Venezuela, and it certainly does not help and is not in the interest” of the US.
No. The bullying hasn’t come from Washington. It has originated from the Miraflores palace, the Venezuelan version of the White House, and from Havana, where the Castro family has been pulling the strings of both Chávez and Maduro for decades.
Slowly at first, the PSUV took control of all of Venezuela’s institutions. The judiciary, the Supreme Court, the military top brass, the electoral council — all fell into the maw of the PSUV. This meant that there were no checks and balances, no electoral accountability. The top officials and generals Chávez and Maduro surrounded themselves with became more interested in narco-trafficking than in serving their nation.
Their economic mismanagement eventually caused GDP to shrink, from an estimated $331.6 billion in 2012 to $96.3 billion today. The breadbasket of Latin America became its beggar.
But what do facts matter when there’s an America-hating narrative to push?