Dancing With Another Dictatorship

Dancing With Another Dictatorship
A U.S. official engages with a top Venezuela politician who is under
U.S. investigation.
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
June 21, 2015 5:31 p.m. ET

What was a senior U.S. diplomat doing in Haiti recently meeting with a
Venezuelan politician who is reportedly being investigated by the U.S.
Justice Department for running a giant cocaine-smuggling operation?

That's the question raised by photos that surfaced on the Internet last
week showing State Department counselor Tom Shannon posing with
Venezuelan National Assembly president Diosdado Cabello in
Port-au-Prince. Also in the photos: Haitian President Michel Martelly,
the Venezuelan foreign minister, and a French chavista with Venezuelan
citizenship who is currently posted in Washington.

Ambassador Thomas Shannon, counselor of the U.S. State Department,
testifies on U.S.-Cuba relations before the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington May 20, 2015.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The most plausible answer is that the Obama administration is once again
working to save a police state that is about to collapse under its own
weight. The trouble is that every time team Obama sits down at the poker
table with thugs—think Russia, Iran and Cuba—it gets cleaned out. The
region's democracy advocates are right to be nervous.

It's not surprising that Venezuela is ready to talk to the U.S. The two
countries have not had diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level
since 2010. Now the dictatorship is nearly bankrupt. Its singular
dependence on oil sales to generate foreign currency reserves worked in
the days of $100 a barrel oil. But falling prices and gross
mismanagement of the state petroleum monopoly PdVSA have crimped income.
China and Iran have their own problems and are not helping like they
once did. Nevertheless, Cuba, which runs Venezuelan intelligence and
state security, still draws on Venezuelan oil to survive.

Mr. Cabello also may have a personal interest in talking. On May 18 The
Wall Street Journal cited a Justice Department official who said Mr.
Cabello is "a main target" in what the Journal described as a probe into
charges that Venezuela has become "a global hub for cocaine trafficking
and money laundering." Mr. Cabello denies any link to drug trafficking.

Between the Justice Department investigation and the Venezuelan economy
one would think the U.S. would have the upper hand in any talks. But the
Obama administration hasn't demonstrated great skill in negotiating with
its adversaries and Mr. Cabello has a reputation for ruthlessness.

The 52-year-old is often described as the No. 2 man in Venezuela. But he
may be running the place. He is said to have more rapport with the
military than Hugo Chávez's successor, the charismatically challenged
dictator Nicolás Maduro. If Mr. Cabello is the top drug boss, that would
add to his power.

A State Department official told me last week that the issues discussed
with Mr. Cabello in Haiti included the treatment of the Maduro
government's political prisoners, the importance of setting a date for
parliamentary elections this year, and providing internationally
credible observation.

"We remain very concerned about the well-being of the political
prisoners. We have called publicly for their release and we believe that
in the case of someone such as [political prisoner] Leopoldo López,[a
former Caracas district mayor and an important member of the
opposition], he is too valuable a political leader to lose," the
official said.

Since April Mr. Shannon has traveled twice to Caracas for bilateral
talks with Mr. Maduro. Perhaps the conversation was moved to Haiti this
month to lower the profile. But on Monday, when asked at a State
Department briefing about Mr. Cabello's role in Port-au-Prince, State
Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said "I was not aware of a meeting with
him."

So either Mr. Cabello's participation in the talks was supposed to be a
secret, or he showed up uninvited. Certainly the photos were not in the
interest of the U.S. For Mr. Cabello they lend an air of legitimacy that
could counter his image as a narcotraficante. That possibility has
caused some observers to speculate that Mr. Shannon walked into a trap.

A State Department spokesperson told me in an email last week that the
meeting was "positive and productive." Translation: Nothing to see here;
move along. In fact there's a lot riding on these negotiations. The end
of the chavismo dictatorship would be a good thing. But a descent into
chaos of African proportions would take with it the frail democracy
movement.

Fair elections could produce a transition back to a democracy not unlike
the internationally monitored vote that removed Nicaragua's Daniel
Ortega from power in 1990. Yet it's worth remembering that Mr. Ortega's
Sandinistas never put down their weapons nor surrendered control of the
courts, making true democracy impossible.

Venezuela's chavista regime—with Cuba working behind the scenes—is not
about to let go of power. It wants the international legitimacy it has
lost due to human-rights violations and drug-trafficking. Mr. Cabello
also likely wants to get himself off the list of suspects in the drug
probe. Any promises he makes toward pluralism must be secured by more
than his word. If Mr. Obama expects to win concessions by propping up
the regime, as he has done with Cuba, there's reason to worry.

Write to O'Grady@wsj.com.

Source: Dancing With Another Dictatorship - WSJ -
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