The little scene that happened yesterday at the OAS is turning out to be more interesting than what you may think. Note: if you are a fervent opposition leader stop reading now as you will probably do not like what comes next.
I did not want to write about the Cochez-Chaderton exchange because for one thing I am so embarrassed that Venezuela has an ambassador like Chaderton at the OAS that I would prefer people to think that I am not aware of the existence of such a vile character. "Pena ajena" we call it in Venezuela, of difficult translation if we want to carry the real meaning.
The scene was OAS predictable except it went one step further than usual, and brought a rather indecent turn around of the Panama foreign ministry. In short: nobody in the OAS is really wanting to get involved in the Venezuela debacle. Two lone voices were raised, the one of Panama's ambassador Cochez (video) who did not say anything that is not true and the Canadian ambassador who suggested to send a fact inquiring commission to Caracas that infamous, and on Chavez debtors list, OAS secretary Insulza promptly dismissed on a technicality. The "further" I referred to above is to the reply of Chaderton to Cochez which will remain in the annals of anti diplomatic vulgarity (video) and on how low a human being can descend when it accepts to submit to a El Supremo (the one rotting in Havana or any other Supremo in LatAm history).
But let's not dwell on that OAS fight. Let's consider instead why the hemispheric organization is so mute on what is happening to Venezuela these days. I posit that the main guilty party is the opposition and not only the MUD but the opposition "reply system" since at least 2003.
The main, the real problem of the opposition is that it has absolutely no follow up. Abroad or at home. For example, who talks today about Antonini's 800K? Or Pudreval? Or the political prisoners outside a regular pious prayer for them? Has the book on Afiuni revived support for her?
As for constitutional direct violations the opposition vocal score is hardly better. Outside of Diego Arria bothering to take the time to submit a voluminous dossier against Chavez in The Hague International Court, where are the law suits against Tascon's list? Is anyone still talking about the constitutional coup of 2010, in my opinion worse than what happened on January 9? Excepting a few bright private initiatives at the IACHR like the one of Leopoldo Lopez, the opposition prefers to turn the page fast and worry about elections that in fact they cannot win but pretend they can. You know, telling the truth about chavismo could turn off chavista voters.....
All of this is duly noted by foreign observers who in private cannot hide their contempt for a rotten regime but in public cannot be bothered with even slight criticism of Chavez and chavismo. The few that dared to do so were simply left out to hang and dry by all including the US of A who has not lifted a rose petal against Chavez since he came to office, not even in 2002 no matter what the chavista propaganda would like us to believe. Of course, there is the occasional updated version of "por que no te callas" but they sound much more like a warning that "if you keep annoying me I may have to write a line down the sand" than any actual warning. Meanwhile Venezuela has become a major drug hub of the world, and we know that behind this other aspects of organized crime and terrorism are sure to follow.
So, why is the world not paying more attention?
True, there is that wish to make business with Venezuela but the main reason is that Venezuelan opposition simply is unable to make its case because it is unable to have follow up, to prioritize the issues, to act outside of self interest, self interest being rather low in our case as a town hall here and there seems to make it happy. In Venezuela the opposition leadership is very reluctant to put its actions where its words are. True, we have had Capriles go to jail unfairly for quite a while but this year, this December, he went on vacation outside Venezuela. No one denies him the right of a vacation, but given the Venezuelan circumstances and the huge loss of December 16 of which he shares part of the blame, could a week in a local posada not have been good enough a vacation?
In short, people may sympathize with us but I doubt they respect us.
When you go to the OAS to claim that you Constitution has been violated you need to also bring the evidence on how this is affecting your life and unfortunately the opposition has not done that in 2003, in 2004, in 2007, in 2010 and others.... If you fail to do so, you start looking like a brat and no one will pay you attention even if all know that you are right. At least, if they do nothing about Syria they talk about it. In our case, Cochez, the one that dared talked about the issue, was promptly disowned by his president....
PD: tonight we learned that the Panama government has fired Cochez. They waited a few hours to see if the guy would resign but Cochez is of a different mettle: he wanted to be forced it seems, to make sure that whatever happens to Venezuela could not be blamed on him.... Of course Maduro congratulated himself for Panama caving in his pressure. Certainly he has been given a blank check by the OAS to commit yet new constitutional violations. While he does that he took the opportunity to qualify the Canadian government of "miserable" and "ultra right wing". Funny, Canada, one of the most democratic countries in the world and a welfare state if any....
Maduro is an ignoramus, and an idiot because he should not have attacked Canada, a country that is truly out of reach for him and certainly no lesson whatsoever to receive from the bolibana fraud. Canada would be such an alien land for a chavista, and I am not speaking of the weather.
