Frank Mora, on the Venezuelan crisis: "Russia's policy is to create chaos, to generate uncertainty"

The crisis has reached such a point that millions of Venezuelans are already demanding very strongly the application of article 187, paragraph 11, which allows the opposition to request the intervention of foreign military forces . The President of the United States, Donald Trump, repeats again and again that "all options are on the table". No action is excluded for the White House.

However, the vast majority of the countries that recognized Juan Guaidó as Acting President – among them the nations that make up the Lima group and the European Union – manifested themselves against the use of force.

Director of the Kimberly Green Center for Latin America and the Caribbean (Mora), Mora spoke with Infobae about the increasingly tense situation in the Caribbean country.

He explained the political and military motives for which he considers improbable the use of force and even said that, although Nicolás Maduro's regime persists persecution and repression against the Venezuelan people, it will not change. the calculation of the Trump government, "beyond". of the speech ".

Regarding the solution of the conflict, he was categorical: "The future of Venezuela is in the hands of Venezuelans (…) It must be won in the streets, there is a way out".

Mora also spoke about the influence of Russia and Cuba, allies of the Chabad dictatorship.

– Some sectors of the Venezuelan opposition require the application of Article 187, whose clause 11 authorizes to request the intervention of foreign military forces. Do you consider that the chances of a military incursion into Venezuela are high?

-I think the odds are pretty low. I would not say zero, but they are very low. Much smaller than many think, especially in the Venezuelan community. And why? First, President Trump has been pretty consistent in something. He said in the latest speech of the state of the Union, in which he declared that he would in no way deploy our troops without the military adventures we saw previously , and that he wanted all our forces to return to the United States. He was, in his speech at the beginning of the campaign, a non-interventionist on military issues. Many people who support him politically, those who voted for him, also voted for this reason, according to a fairly consistent method. So what I am saying is that the "America first" policy does not coincide with the idea of ​​a military intervention in Venezuela. There is a contradiction between the motto and the president's speech and the idea of ​​intervening in a country of South America.

-So, when Trump repeats again and again that all the options are on the table, do you think it's more a letter of pressure than a real threat?

-Yes, I think that until now, it seems like it has been kind of "bluffing" (cheating). I do not think it's a serious position that "all options". In addition, the president has not started a process, a debate with the American people, to explain the importance of a military intervention in Venezuela. I usually say that, beyond the Venezuelan community here in Miami, the people of the country do not talk about Venezuela. There is no debate. They do not even know where Venezuela is. Then the idea that the president will send troops, to soldiers from Iowa, Nebraska, to intervene in Venezuela … politically for me, that makes no sense. And that is why I think that there are very few possibilities. In addition, the difficulty of intervention from the military point of view makes this less possible. Especially if you consider that the US Armed Forces and the Pentagon are much more interested in the Middle East, Asia, North Korea, Russians, and so on. It would be something that would take away the attention and resources of those conflict scenarios that are much more serious.

– Since Juan Guaidó badumed the interim presidency, despite internal and external pressure, Nicolás Maduro has intensified the persecution and repression against the opposition and against the Venezuelan people. Do you think the dictator imposes an American intervention in Venezuela or proves perhaps that Trump is really capable of promoting military action?

– They are advised by Cubans and they have been dealing with the United States for a long time. They [los cubanos] They know what the real red lines are. A red line would take, for example, the American Embbady. It would be something else. Or start killing and arresting US citizens in Venezuela. It changes the dynamics. But by repressing the Venezuelan people or people close to Guaidó, I do not think it will change the calculation of Trump or the United States, beyond the speech.

-If there was a military intervention, what would be the roles of Russia and Cuba? The existence of Cuban agents is already proven, but can we also expect the presence of Russian troops?

– Russia's military presence is minimal. What he would do would be to go to his embbady or to remain discreet and not to conflict with the United States as they did not have the capacity. And Russia will not send troops for a conflict either. It does not make sense. As for Cubans, they are more present. But I think they would do pretty much the same thing. If the United States started a military intervention, the country would have 150,200,000 soldiers and I do not believe that any Cuban will commit suicide. But there is no doubt that Cubans have an influence on maintaining, by keeping the Maduro diet, on this point. In the case of an intervention, I do not think that they play an important role.

– Last week, Elliott Abrams said that at a meeting with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Riabkov, he informed the representative of Vladimir Putin that Moscow would not recover his investments in Venezuela if Maduro was always in power. Given Caracas' significant debt to the Kremlin and PDVSA's declining oil productivity, does Russia's support for the Chavista dictatorship remain economic or is it merely strategic against the United States?

-I think it's a strategic support. If there are economic interests, we should not underestimate that, but much more than the policy of Russia is to create chaos, to generate uncertainty. To say it fluently: to bad the interests of the United States in the region. And that's not just happening in Latin America, it's happening elsewhere as well. Interrupt, destroy, dismantle alliances, international institutions and US interests without directly conflicting with the United States. Do it through what they do in Venezuela through their cybernetic interventions, the acute power that they use with propaganda and the media. Thanks to these mechanisms, Russia is trying to undermine the interests, to create the lawsuit … I think these are the geopolitical reasons. But as I said before, we must not underestimate the economic interests that have accumulated in recent years.

– The Lima group and the European Union both oppose military intervention. Pressures continue to increase but Maduro remains in power. Do you think you can go through diplomatic channels? Even in recent days, Rodríguez Zapatero's trip to Caracas sparked many rumors and there was talk of the possibility of exile in Spain. Do you see this feasible scenario?

-The situation is so uncertain, so volatile and so precarious that anything can happen in Venezuela. We should not reject that. I think that the solution is a political solution in the sense of international pressure, of international isolation, of economic sanctions, many of which have not yet begun to be felt. I think that Guaidó and the opposition must maintain, and even reinforce, the internal political pressures, through demonstrations, confrontations with the dictatorship. The future of Venezuela is in the hands of Venezuelans. International support, international pressures, are necessary but not sufficient. It must be won in the streets of Venezuela, and there is the exit. One can imagine Maduro and a company that takes all the stolen resources in the country to win in Spain, Turkey or another country, but it is impressive that they refuse to give almost nothing.

-If Maduro falls, what will be the consequences for Cuba and Nicaragua?

-In Cuba, this will have a significant impact. Cuba receives, difficult to know exactly the calculations, but between 30 and 45,000 barrels of oil per day, at a time when the Cuban economy is experiencing serious liquidity problems. The economic crisis in Cuba has worsened. We reviewed the scarcity of materials we had seen before in Cuba and you imagine that 30 to 40,000 barrels suddenly disappear. There is a Cuban economist, dubbed Vidal, who claims to have an impact on GDP of nearly 8% on the Cuban economy. Cuba has a lot to lose in economic terms. In Nicaragua, economic aid is over. Albanisa, which has received subsidies from Venezuela, is now over. But from a political point of view, this can have an impact, a Bolivarian government falls and the Nicaraguan opposition realizes it and can think that it can do the same, and Ortega may feel that his situation is very precarious in the light of the current situation. what happened or rather can happen in Venezuela. But it would not be so easy to repeat what happened in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.