Earthquake Response and Politics in Venezuela

I have been getting calls regarding the political implications of Venezuela’s devastating earthquakes from the first twelve hours after they happened. Here is a quick run through the points I have been making.

I told the Christian Science Monitor that in general terms, this kind of disaster strengthens the hand of whoever is in power because it essentially provides a “politics of the exception” in which the normal politics that keeps in check or in some way limits executive power gets set aside. In this case, the new negotiations channel that opened ten days ago has certainly taken a back seat for the foreseeable future. (For example: I wrote this piece for Responsable Statecraft which came out the day after the earthquake. I did not promote it since it seemed besides the point. I will come back to it when the time seems right.)

I discussed what this means for the Trump administration with both Newsweek and the Washington Post. I told them that this is an important test for U.S. policy and an opportunity for the Trump administration to show that it cares about the Venezuela’s people as much as its oil and minerals. There have been doubts among Venezuelans who have been frustrated by the slow pace of progress in the past six months.

I got the chance to do a more extended interview with Ian Masters on Background Briefing. You can listen to the podcast above. The upshot is that so far the Rodriguez government’s response has shown just how little state capacity they have.

She started strong with an immediate declaration of emergency and embracing international aid. However, in the following 24 to 48 hours—the golden window in terms of a disaster like this—they were largely absent. They were not able to provide heavy equipment nor really organize the relief effort in any substantial way. It was citizens with shovels and pick axes, fire fighters, and municipal governments leading the effort.

The most notable absence has been the armed forces, leading to considerable speculation. In Venezuelan law it is actually the Civil Protection service that should carryout disaster relief. However, given the enormity of the disaster and the need for heavy equipment and large-scale coordination, the military’s absence has been striking and has led to a lot of speculation.

Military involvement was itself a disaster after the 1999 mudslides in La Guaira (Paula Vasquez wrote a whole book about it: Poder y Catastrofe: Venezuela bajo la Tragedia de 1999). Perhaps that led Delcy Rodriguez to not include the military in the Estado Mayor she declared? Perhaps, given growing discontent within hardline Chavismo she is wary of having the armed forces outside of their barracks and controlling territory? Or perhaps we are once again seeing the complete lack of capacity of an armed forces whose energies have gone towards coup proofing and business ventures more than defending the nation.

The Trump administration’s response so far has been significant yet underwhelming at the same time. They put together a $150 million relief package, sent search and rescue teams, as well as military personnel. This is significant, but as some have suggested, it pales compared to the Venezuelan resources the U.S. currently has under its control and the amounts Trump says the U.S. has itself benefitted.

I think the jury is still out on the politics of relief response and there is a long road of recovery ahead. Even after the Venezuelan quakes fall out of the news cycle, the needs for housing, healthcare and economic recovery will be massive. Disasters like this can actually provide an opportunity for economic dynamism, state-building and strengthening of civil society if there is an adequate national and international response such as in Mexico in 1985 and Chile in 2010. However, they can also contribute to a downward spiral as we have seen in numerous cases such as Nicaragua in the 1970s and Haiti since the 2010 earthquake.

There is plenty of space for the Rodriguez government to show it can be effective and coordinate the recovery. Likewise this will be time for the Trump administration to show it truly does consider Venezuela to be a partner in reconstruction rather than dazed friend to be taken advantage of.