Maduro is destabilizing Latin America

Recent protests in several Latin American countries are not the result of local discontent, but the product of Venezuela’s government destabilizing influence through the region.

Ramsey and Pantoulas summarize the arguments made about protests in Colombia and Ecuador by Venezuela’s opposition, but also by several Latin American leaders:

"The recent protests in Ecuador produced tensions between the governments of Venezuela and Ecuador. The Ecuadorian government has accused both Nicolas Maduro and the ex-president of Ecuador Rafael Correa that motivated and financed the protests against Lenin Moreno’s austerity package (seven states of the region have issued a statement rejecting any attempt by Maduro to destabilize the region). The Venezuelan opposition held a similar position and said that Maduro and the Cuban government are behind the recent protests in Ecuador and Colombia so they can divert attention from their regimes. Maduro for his part denied any connection to the protests and has argued that people protest against the IMF and the Ecuadorian government because of their austerity policies (when Moreno announced that the proposed austerity measures would be revised, Maduro congratulated the Ecuadorian people for their historic victory against the IMF)."

Venezuela’s opposition Supreme Justice Tribunal, in exile, has published an “official communique” expressing concern for recent protests in the region. According to the judges, the real root of the international conspiracy to destabilize the region is the Foro de Sao Paulo:

“Events after the Foro de Sao Paulo meeting have produced factual situations in the republics of Perú, Ecuador, Colombia, and now Chile, disturbing peace and tranquility of the said societies, producing vandalism, with unspeakable purposes that go beyond [those of] usual protests allowed by democracy, and risking democratic stability, governance, property, and tranquility.”

Guaido’s foreign minister, Julio Borges (@JulioBorges), also in exile, has directly accused the Venezuelan government of being behind the unrest. On October 18 he wrote on Twitter:

“The destabilization of the region is due to Cuban infiltration and to corrupt money from @NicolasMaduro, which is used to finance narcoterrorist groups and focalized violence. This is the main obstacle to peace, security, and development in all of Latin America!”

And yesterday, Borges wrote about the protests in Chile along the lines of the exiled Supreme Tribunal:

“In the final declaration of the Foro de Sao Paulo there is a section which deals exclusively with Chile’s situation. What happened yesterday is not fortuitous; no democracy is safe from the destabilization plan by Maduro and Cuba. It is time to join forces!”