Venezuela opens way for Paraguay to return to MERCOSUR.
| Autor | Gaudin, Andres |
After a 16-month rupture in diplomatic relations with Paraguay, the Venezuelan government has reopened binational dialogue. In mid-October Foreign Minister Elias Jaua traveled to Asuncion to resolve the reopening of respective embassies and the naming of new ambassadors.
In other gestures of rapprochement, on Oct. 30, Jaua invited the Paraguayan government to participate in a ministerial summit of the Southern Cone Common Market (MERCOSUR), and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro called Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes "to give him an embrace by phone." Maduro also urged other members of the trade alliance to "urgently bring the fellow nation of Paraguay back to the fold."
On June 22, 2012, when Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo was overthrown in a parliamentary coup, the three other MERCOSUR members --Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay--decided to suspend Paraguay, whose Senate had until then blocked Venezuela's full integration (NotiSur, July 13, 2012, and Sept. 21, 2012). The three MERCOSUR countries accepted Venezuela as a member at the same time they suspended Paraguay.
The Caracas government's recent goodwill approach will help eliminate regional tensions and, according to comments by President Cartes, allow the Paraguayan legislature to confirm Venezuela's membership. Analysts say that with five partners working at full capacity the regional trade organization could to be considered back on its feet.
Right wing hammers Venezuela's problems
Every South American country applauded the Venezuelan government's decision that left the country with just one unresolved diplomatic issue --nothing short of normalizing diplomatic relations with the US (NotiSur, July 5, 2013). It also increased the Caracas government's ability to focus on two issues now keeping the country in a state of anxiety: the economy--including exchange-rate policy, inflation, and supply problems--and the fight against corruption. The right-wing opposition has focused on both issues.
Ignacio Ramonet, a prominent Spanish intellectual and editor-in-chief of the French weekly Le Monde Diplomatique, said the Venezuelan government is a victim of a "slow-motion coup d'etat." Landing in Caracas on his first visit in several months, Ramonet said, "The situation is reminiscent of Chile on the eve of the Sept. 11, 1973, coup that overthrew President Salvador Allende."
Following the March 5 death of President Hugo Chavez (1999-2013), Maduro won a hotly contested election and vowed to...
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