Andrei Sannikov: Venezuela’s Example Opens Window Of Opportunities For Belarus

The Belarusian opposition can use the experience of Venezuela at the presidential “election”.

Leader of the European Belarus civil campaign, presidential candidate at the election-2010 Andrei Sannikov told this to Charter97.org, commenting upon the events in Venezuela.

- There have been street actions in Venezuela before, due to the economic crisis. What is so different about today’s protests in the country?

- Indeed, the history of confrontation between the opposition and presidential power in Venezuela is very long. It began with the reign of Hugo Chávez, who tried to usurp more and more powers. The peculiarity of today's protests is that the Venezuelan opposition behaved quite competently. After the current squad of the National Assembly was lawfully elected in 2015, the opposition several times tried to unite efforts against Maduro who seized power. In 2018, the widespread opposition union “Round Table of Democratic Unity” was led by Juan Guaydo, who was also elected chairman of the National Assembly. He became the leader who took responsibility for changes in the country and helped the opposition find a legal solution to the Venezuelan crisis related to the confrontation to the authoritarian regime, which brought the richest country with the largest oil reserves in the world to poverty.

Such a decision of the opposition is based on those provisions of the Constitution, which allow the head of parliament to temporarily occupy the office of president in the event of incapacity of the current ruler.

It remains extremely important that such way to overcome the crisis was supported by the United States, which recognized the President of the National Assembly as interim president of Venezuela. I want to note that in this case it is impossible to speak of any “putsches” or “upheavals”, which the Russian media, actively supporting dictators around the globe, persistently do. Just because everything was done legally in Venezuela.

Quite serious negotiations took place between the leaders of the Venezuelan opposition and the United States. The United States considered the possibility of expressing its position only if everything is done according to the law. The National Assembly, referring to the Constitution, decided that it deprives the current head of state, who appointed himself to this post illegally, of his authorizations.

After negotiations and a comprehensive discussion of the situation by all US institutions related to foreign policy and security, President Donald Trump announced the decision to support the National Assembly President Juan Guaydo.

The current protests in Venezuela are also different in that the opposition has shown great determination and willingness to defend their rights. Another important feature is that the people in Venezuela have been driven to despair. The overwhelming preponderance of opposition supporters over Maduro supporters appears visually noticeable.

The peculiarity of the situation is also that it is the opposition that offers a way out for Venezuela in order to overcome the most severe systemic crisis in the country, which has led people to poverty. Millions of refugees, the million-percent inflation, starvation — these are the usual results of the rule of dictators in any country.

- In your opinion, how the events will develop further on?

- It has to be said though that Maduro’s staying at power till this moment is also, to a certain degree, the result of the West’s policies in the last ten years.

The West has been playing with dictators for too long. If we look from the angle of the state’s laws, the situation in the country, and the international law, then the dictator who brought the country to such a state after he had been legally removed from power, and the leading democratic states expressed their support to the legitimate power presented by the National Assembly, must leave.

In a normal situation, if there had been no support for the dictators, no flirting with tyrants by the West, then Maduro would have been removed from power back in 2014 after the mass protests, and no one would rush to save him. And now he is supported not only by the ususal buddies of all dictators – Russia, Turkey and Iran, but also by other countries.

As for the development of the events, there are intensive talks going on between the US and its allies on the continuation of the coordinated policy. The United States are considering the option of depriving Maduro of an opportunity to use the oil money. Such opportunities indeed exist in the legal field: this money should not go to the direct support of the opposition, but remain in the savings account. Negotiations are under way with American businesses in Venezuela, for example, with Chevron and Cisco, with international financial institutions.

That is, the United States will now use financial and economic leverage, because both the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Finance are involved in the negotiations and discussion of the situation in Venezuela. I believe that such support matters.

The most important factor, of course, is the determination of the opposition and its support by the people in Venezuela. If all these factors preserve, Maduro will be removed from power in the near future.

Well, Russia continues to torpedo the decisions of the international community on Venezuela. Now Russians are blocking a meeting of the UN Security Council in New York, which the Americans have asked for, and will continue to do so.

I think Russia is trying to push Maduro to the use of force, to bloodshed.

Such an approach is logical for the current Kremlin regime: Putin, like Lukashenka, has invested money in the Venezuelan regime. During his last visit to the Russian Federation, Maduro received more multi-billion promises, and certainly not only promises.

- How will the downfall of Maduro reflect on the friendly regimes of Lukashenka and Putin? Will they manage to return the money spent on their “far away friend”?

- This is not dictatorial moiney, this is our money, that had been stolen from us, from the people, and invested in some crazy projects and in support of dictatorships.

Let us recall the transportation of super-expensive oil from Venezuela, construction projects, in which the Belarusian special services have also been involved.

And this madness continues. Now the authorities are frantically trying to save the money invested, including those sums that may have been hidden in Venezuela. But this is impossible: no dictator will simply give up money, even to his brother-dictator.

At the same time, the Belarusian authorities continue to develop even more “promising” directions: for example, Zimbabwe or Sudan, where the situation will inevitably resemble the one we see in Venezuela.

It’s good that there are fewer and fewer financial shelters for dictators in the world. Too bad they continue to plunder our money.

- Apart from financial losses for the dictators, how will the change of power in Venezuela affect the situation in the world, including Belarus?

- Of course it will affect it. The situation is very inspiring, because for the first time in many years the USA and other major states clearly took the side of the democratic changes which are conducted in a legal and, I want to stress that, peaceful way.

Besides, both the opposition in Venezuela, and the democratic states which support it, consider the conduct of the new legal election the best way out of the crisis.

This inspires democratic oppositions in other countries and serves as an example for Belarus. We have so far failed to agree with the world leading states on the serious support of democratic changes, and they are still trying to flirt with Lukashenka, disregarding their own image and economic losses.

Unfortunately, we don’t know the authors of all the insane strategies of development of relations with the dictator to the disadvantage of the Belarusian people, especially those in charge of their putting into practice. After yet another failure they disappear in the dark, which they came from, and bear no responsibility for their mistakes.

However, I hope there will be authors of the victory of democracy in Belarus both inside the country and abroad.

- You wrote on Facebook about Venezuela: “I wish we had such Trump in 2010”. What other conclusions can be made after the Venezuelan events? How can the Belarusian opposition use this experience?

- Of course, this experience can and should be used. In connection with 2010, I want to remind you that four foreign ministers literally one day after the dispersal of the peaceful demonstration on December 19 wrote an article in the New York Times, where they stated that Lukashenka had lost the election.

These are the foreign ministers of Germany, the Czech Republic, Sweden and Poland. But it did not go further than this article.

It would seem that the leading European states called Lukashenka illegitimate - let's take the following steps. Introduce instant sanctions, insist on negotiations, on discussing the situation, demand a second round - there was a rich set of tools. But they seemed unwilling to.

How is today’s position of the US on Venezuela different? Probably, it was also difficult to make such a decision. But in order to help the country overcome the crisis peacefully, this was done.

The political situation in 2020 in Belarus at the “presidential election” is well known to us in Belarus, Europe, the United States, our neighbors, and Lukashenka. It is as follows: Lukashenka has not won any elections honestly, after 1994. He is unable to win any democratic elections in Belarus, but he is able to unleash even greater repression against the people, and continue to destroy the country's economy.

So maybe everyone, including official institutions, should stop pretending and think about preventing new crises. If the authorities are not ready to negotiate with us before the “election”, then we will show serious strength during the election campaign.

There is an opportunity, first, to insist on registering a real opposition candidate. As I am a member of the Belarusian National Congress, so for me this is Mikalai Statkevich, whose candidature we supported.

Second, it is necessary to organize observation, real observation, not formal one. In our country, unfortunately, even domestic observing is not fulfilling its function now. In 2010, both international and domestic observers, I believe, simply showed cowardice. They had to record the defeat of Lukashenka, and not electoral procedural violations. Who needs reports on violations, if all these violations are known in advance. Even the slightly objective observation would record Lukashenka’s defeat.

Third, we must be prepared for the possibility of negotiations to open up during a political crisis. The opposition, in particular, the BNC, has long been proposing to negotiate - only this means serious negotiations, not an imitation, which the KGB is doing today.

This will open a window of opportunities. And if we manage to reach an agreement with leading democracies, then this window of opportunities will not close as it did in 2010.

The determination of the opposition, with the support of the people and the firm stance of democratic states in favor of peaceful transformations, is a universal recipe for success, applicable in Belarus.