ALL AH WE IS ONE: Madura’s gamble

By ratcheting up its 19th century claims over a significantly large section of Guyanese territory, the new post-Chavez leadership of Nicolás Maduro has heightened the precariousness of the Venezuelan socialist experiment by adding the possible withdrawal of Caribbean support to US external destabilisation as a further threat to the sustainability of the Bolivarian project. At the very least, it threatens to deny Maduro the deep and instinctive levels of Caribbean support accrued to Chavez.  Given Chavez’s careful and thoughtful decision to ring-fence Venezuelan socialism with Caribbean support, it stands to reason that Maduro’s firm stance on Guyanese territory suggests either that he is counting less on Caribbean support for sustaining the Venezuelan socialism or the expansion of Venezuelan territory has surpassed the need to advance socialism in his estimation. More…