It is impossible for a negotiation between two sides in conflict to satisfy all sectors waiting for its solution. And although the gloating of Nicolas Maduro With the release of Alex Saab generating automatic nausea in us – even more so after having appointed him governor of Essequibo – it is good to remember that his tragedy is still alive and runs through him. Who can assure you that Saab did not betray him to the Americans?
Sentiment aside, the statements of the spokesman for the White House Security Council, John Kirby, explain everything. Kirby makes it clear that it is a priority for President Joe Biden to guarantee the safety of Americans abroad, especially those unjustly detained, which is why he is always willing to make the most difficult decisions to guarantee their return home.
It is absurd to demand that Biden (or any other president) place the Venezuelan situation above his own country. Biden, of course, is pressing to reduce the painful number of political prisoners in Venezuela, as well as for free elections. To achieve this, much of that pressure is exerted through the negotiation table that has been activated in Barbados.
The regime, for its part, will continue capturing American citizens to maintain its quota of hostages and will apply the revolving door to keep the high number of political prisoners at a convenient level for extortion.
These are situations that will possibly be repeated and we will not like them, and yet I see as a positive sign of this exchange that the negotiation is alive. Movement at a political table is always better than shots blinding the lives of young Venezuelans. And although it is a slow and complex process that as viewers sometimes causes us to hold our nose, it is an alternative with possible results.
Furthermore, those of us who fight for the recovery of freedom, for the restoration of democracy, are not the only side in need. Maduro has sat down to negotiate sunk in his fragility, overwhelmed by the contempt that the people feel for him – endorsed in the recent consultation on the Essequibo -, in need of money and paranoid about internal conspiracies activated by his worn-out image.
Another recent occasion in which the reduction of Maduro’s world became evident was in the handling of the conflict with Guyana, a situation inundated by war epithets marked by a discourse that deliberately sought to keep the country in anxiety. The spectacular mobilization of troops to Tumeremo (they reached there reluctantly because they couldn’t even get to the Essequibo jungle with sticks), or the modification of the Venezuelan map were part of the show.
His problem is that no one believed him and no one wanted war. Maduro’s natural friends, his party partners like Cuba and Brazil, were uncomfortable with the air of conflict.
Under these conditions, international pressure organized the meeting with the president of Guyana, Mohamed Irfaan Alí, where Maduro was exposed for having recklessly fueled a dangerous situation thinking of gaining ground, confident that the path of aggression would stir up nationalism and it turned out the other way around. . He ended up weakened internally and externally. The international agencies were precise: Venezuela backed down. Foreign policy specialists summarized subsequent events as a major failure for Nicolás Maduro.
So there is no doubt about the volume that Maduro will give to the delivery of Alex Saab. He will shine a light on it, he will embrace it, he will decree that he has humiliated the United States, he will shout about the naivety of the opposition to which he will repeat the insults.
Ultimately, the triumph of a corrupt president like Maduro is the return of his thieving partner. He has no more.
I remember the details that General Hugo Carvajal told me about the show that Maduro put on at the end of July 2014 to receive him after having achieved his release a few days after being detained in Aruba accused of drug trafficking by the justice of USA. The former counterintelligence director had been appointed consul general in Aruba as a way to keep him away from the country because Maduro did not want him. In fact, they hate each other. Carvajal, now imprisoned in the United States, was received as a patriotic hero upon his return. They will do the same to Saab, who, like El Pollo, will be deeply moved.
The point is that Maduro may have bought his own nightmare. How to banish the doubt that his soul brother sang loud and clear for the Americans?
In the meantime, let the negotiations continue.
