Venezuelan dissident outlines risks and opportunities as nation enters post-Maduro era
With Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro extracted from Caracas on Jan. 3, Venezuelans and the world are anxious to learn about the future that awaits.
In a press conference following the Maduro operation on Saturday, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. is “going to run the country” until a transition can be safely made.
Isaias Medina, an international lawyer and former senior Venezuelan diplomat, said a peaceful transition is vital for the 9 million to 10 million Venezuelans who are forcibly displaced and living in exile. Medina, who resigned his diplomatic post in protest against Maduro’s rule in 2017, told Fox News Digital that exiled Venezuelans “have been preparing ourselves to go back to rebuild our nation.”
With support from international organizations like the Organization of American States, Medina said the most important next step for Venezuela is to establish a transitional government that can restore the rule of law and rebuild institutions that have been decimated under the Maduro regime. Setting in place free and fair elections is particularly important, Medina said, noting that it’s “a legal obligation owed to [Venezuela’s] people, because on their occupied territory, it was never equitable or really free.”
Under Maduro, Medina said that “there was no separation of powers, there was no rule of law, there was not even sovereignty.” Instead, Medina said Venezuela had an occupied territory extensively influenced by terrorist and trafficking organizations Hamas, Hezbollah, the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). He said these groups were exploiting Venezuelan resources.
David Daoud, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital that so long as Venezuela poses no threat to U.S. national security, the “ideal situation” for Venezuela “would be American guidance for determined local action.”
“The best we can shepherd Venezuela to be is a productive member of the family of nations, and that’s something that we can help with a softer touch, without boots on the ground,” Daoud said. “I don’t think we need to be in the business of trying to create Jeffersonian democracies anywhere.”