Venezuela's marathon peace talks: long on debate but short on results

Posted on Friday, 04.11.14
Venezuela Crisis

Venezuela's marathon peace talks: long on debate but short on results
By Jim Wyss
jwyss@MiamiHerald.com

BOGOTA, Colombia -- For more than six hours, Venezuelan President
Nicolás Maduro and the opposition traded barbs and recriminations during
a nationally televised event aimed at ending the country's nine-week
long civil conflict. But by the time the meeting ground to a halt early
Friday, no concessions had been made except a promise to meet again on
Tuesday.

Both sides had gone into the session with low expectations, but there
was hope that tangible results might come out of it. Maduro had told the
country that the meeting would bring positive "surprises" for the
opposition. But as the 8 p.m. session dragged into early Friday, the two
sides remained predictably at odds.

Even so, some saw the encounter as a positive step in a country where
the government and opposition rarely meet, much less exchange ideas.

"We have the obligation to know each other and recognize each other,"
Maduro said at the end of the session. "I believe in the good faith of
all you.… I'm not trying to flatter you. On the contrary, it would be a
political win for me if I destroyed you at this moment."

The meeting, which was brokered by South American foreign ministers,
comes after two months of anti-government protests have left at least 39
dead on both sides of the political divide. Even as the reunion was
taking place there were reports of barricades and demonstrators in
opposition strongholds of eastern Caracas.

Gathering at the presidential palace and flanked by portraits of Latin
American liberator Simon Bolivar, both factions stuck to their well-worn
arguments. The opposition accused the government of hijacking public
institutions, squelching dissent and ruining the economy during its 16
years in power. The administration accused its foes of trying to win
through violent protests what they've been unable to achieve at the polls.

Foreign Minister Elías Jaua said the opposition had been trying to
undermine the government since 2002, when the late President Hugo Chávez
was ousted in a short-lived coup that the administration maintains was
backed by the United States. The protests against Maduro — 12 years
later — are another sign of the opposition's anti-democratic bent, Jaua
said.

"Once again, they're calling for the rejection of a president, elected
by the people, through violence," he said.

Two-time opposition presidential candidate and Miranda Gov. Henrique
Capriles was the last of the delegates to speak. He blasted the
administration for the country's soaring crime and crumbling economy.
Venezuela has the second-highest murder rate in the world after
Honduras, and is being rocked by food shortages and record-high inflation.

Capriles, who narrowly lost to Maduro last April, said the president
needed to tone down his rhetoric and recognize that he was also the
leader of almost half the country that didn't vote for him.

"How are you going to ask for respect if you are so disrespectful?"
Capriles asked. "How are you going to ask for the country to accept you
when you call them fascists and threaten them? They're not going to
respect you. And it's very difficult to govern a country with half of it
against you."

As Capriles spoke, National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, at the
other end of the table, chastised him on Twitter.

"This fascist murderer Capriles has problems," Cabello wrote. "He
doesn't understand that he lost the elections in April."

Not everyone thinks the opposition should be at the table. On Friday,
former opposition Deputy María Corina Machado, who was stripped of her
seat last month, called the talks a "farce" and said that democracy
could only be won through street protests.

David Smolansky, the opposition mayor of El Hatillo, part of greater
Caracas, said those who attended the meeting were playing into the
government's hand.

"We were not there last night because we have conditions to participate
in the supposed dialogue that ended up being a debate," he said in a
statement. "We're not against dialogue but the government has to
demonstrate its good faith."

Those at the meeting said they will use future meetings to push for
concessions, including the release of jailed protesters, the return of
political exiles and the establishment of a truth commission to study
allegations of human-rights abuses.

For its part, the government has said the talks are not a "negotiation"
or a place to make "deals," but simply a forum for dialogue.

Even so, Henry Allup, the head of the opposition Acción Democrática
party, told Televen television Friday that it had been a positive event.

"I honestly think the country got a complete picture from both sides,"
he said. "Now the people can evaluate and make their own decisions."

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