ODUMUNC 2021 Issue Brief CELAC Responding to the humanitarian situation in Venezuela Marvin Allen ODU Model United Nations Society Preliminary Note: What is suspicion. For this reason, the largest country in 3 CELAC? the region, Brazil, withdrew in 2020. But CELAC retains strong support from other regional actors, especially Mexico and The Community of Latin American and Venezuela, and smaller states like Cuba and Caribbean States (CELAC, its widely used Nicaragua.4 Spanish acronym, for Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños) is new regional organization, created not just to build regional unity and cooperation, but also to reduce the influence of foreign actors in the region.1 This makes it unique among regional organizations, and fundamentally different from the Organization of America States (OAS), the regional organization it aims to replace. Formally, CELAC’s goal is to unite all of the Latin American and Caribbean states, to strengthen regional integration, their political, social, and cultural ties, in order to improve the ‘…quality of life, stimulate economic growth, CELAC annual Summit of Heads of State and Government, and advance the well-being of all its people.’2 28-29 January 2018, San Jose, Costa Rica. The regional bloc was formally established on 3 CELAC has been controversial from its birth, December 2011, following a Unity Summit on largely as the child of socialist governments in in February 2010. The bloc’s main focus is to South and Central America, who aimed to unite all Latin American and Caribbean states, to reduce the influence of the United States in the strengthen the integration their political, social, region. Since it was established in 2010-11, it and cultural ties in order to improve the has seen ups and downs. Right-wing governments in the region view it with 1 Warning: when studying this topic, be careful with celac/brazil-sits-out-leftist-latin-american-nations- the website: http://celacinternational.org/ This is a body-on-anti-democracy-fears-idUSKBN1ZF2U9? commercial website with no relationship to the 4 The current membership of CELAC includes 32 organization it pretends to represent.. member states: Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, 2 ‘Community of Latin American and Caribbean Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Chile, States (CELAC)’, Nuclear Threat initiative, 14 July Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, 2019, https://www.nti.org/learn/treaties-and- Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, regimes/community-latin-american-and-caribbean- Guatemala, Co-operative Republic of Guyana, Haiti, states-celac/ Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, 3 ‘Brazil sits out leftist Latin American nations' body Paraguay, Peru, Santa Lucia, Federation of Saint on anti-democracy fears’, Reuters, 16 January 2020, Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-diplomacy- Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Responding to the humanitarian situation in Venezuela ‘…quality of life, stimulate economic growth, provide assistance to those who are victims of and advance the well-being of all its people.”5 terroristic acts. Unlike the OAS, CELAC has no hesitation Moderate positions please much of the CELAC about engaging major international issues, membership, but a taste for controversy tends to especially those that antagonize the United capture public attention. This does not win the States. Since the organization’s establishment, support of all Member States. Many tolerate the its Heads of State and Government have fiercer politics of their more aggressive cousins. showcased concerns regarding nuclear weapons The Member States tend to divide politically on and the use of nuclear weapons and what that a left/right axis. The former are especially means for mankind. supportive of aggressive CELAC positions. Those on the right often work to moderate its They have strongly encouraged the importance statements. of nuclear disarmament and nuclear nonproliferation, including the Latin American and Caribbean Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone The humanitarian situation in (NWFZ), the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Venezuela Caribbean, also known as the Treat of Tlatelolco or 1969. More recently, it supported the Treaty No issue is more vexing for CELAC than the for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (the situation in Venezuela. Venezuela did more Nuclear Ban Treaty of 2017), which is opposed than any other country to create the by the United States and other nuclear weapons organization, which by design directly reflects states like China, France, and Russia. Venezuela’s determination to reduce the regional influence of the United States and CELAC also supports more moderate action on spread the values of Venezuela’s Bolivarian issues less related to disputes with the United socialist revolution. States or other foreign powers. For example, CELAC strongly disproves any and all acts of terrorism. Its Member States agreed to commit to fighting terrorism and adhering to International Law, International Humanitarian Law, and to the International Rules of Human Rights Protection. They wish to ‘…strengthen their national legislations and cooperate with…international partners to prevents acts of terrorism.’6 They also committed to take action to eliminate terrorism and deny any safe haven to those that perform terroristic acts. The Heads of State and Government have committed to the United Nations’ Global Strategy Against Terrorism. CELAC has indicated a desire to create a function within the United Nations to But the humanitarian situation in Venezuela now affects every country in the region, as five 5 ‘Community of Latin American and Caribbean regimes/community-latin-american-and-caribbean- States (CELAC)’, Nuclear Threat initiative, 14 July states-celac/ 2019, https://www.nti.org/learn/treaties-and- 6 Ibid. 2 Responding to the humanitarian situation in Venezuela million refugees from Venezuela’s economic and above all a government who has failed the disaster migrate throughout the region, and the people. All of these factors have created a depravation facing people living in the country complex humanitarian emergency (CHE) in becomes ever more acute.7 How to address their Venezuela and surrounding countries, needs without undermining the authority and particularly Colombia, which has seen legitimacy of the country’s government? That’s approximately 1.4 million Venezuelans the problem facing CELAC. immigrate to the country. There also are large communities of Venezuelan economic refugees Venezuela has been in the midst of a severe, in Brazil, Ecuador, Guyana, Panama, Peru and multifaceted political and economic crisis for Trinidad and Tobago. This emergency has several years, the decline in the international become far more challenging with the price of oil in the 2010s cut the country’s most emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, which important source of income in half. Oil income greatly complicates all relief assistance and declined more as the Venezuelan industry integration of refugees, and continues to collapsed, lower production and exports by promote instability within the region. three-fourths. Left without essential oil income, the government resorted to fiscal policy to maintain income of its supporters, printing Background money. This aggravated inflation, which undermined the saving and income of the In order to understand how Venezuela arrived at country’s middle class. It was an economic its current situation, it is important to note that spiral that has left the entire country greatly democracy in Venezuela only began in 1958. At impoverished, and pushed one-fifth of its that time the major political parties came to sign people, some five million, to leave Venezuela. ‘El Pacto Social’, the Social Pact, by which they agreed to share power between themselves in This worsened significantly after the spring order to terminate the military dictatorship that 2018 re-election of Nicolás Maduro. Millions of was in place at that time. That pact gave Venezuelans have been displaced due to extreme Venezuela what many Latin American countries levels of unemployment, coupled with serious did not have during the second part of the 20th challenges to access to daily necessities such as century, political stability and a functioning food and medication. Venezuelans who have democracy. decided to stay in Venezuela are struggling with hyperinflation that has devalued the Venezuelan However, the effect on this pact was also to bolivar by several orders of magnitude while exclude sectors of society as these two parties wages have fallen far behind in the rate of became more entrenched in power. By the inflation. This is a fight for a great majority of 1990’s, Venezuela had become a unique Venezuelans to democratically get rid of an political system, what scholars call a illegitimate and punitive dictatorship, who is partidocracia, a democracy that represented the responsible for countless human rights abuses, modern-history/ ; and Van Praag, Oriana, 7 Bahar, Dany, and Meagan Dooley, ‘Venezuela ‘Understanding the Venezuelan Refugee Crisis’, refugee crisis to become the largest and most Wilson Center, 13 September 2019, underfunded in modern history’, Brookings https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/understandin Instittion, 9 December 2019, g-the-venezuelan-refugee-crisis https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up- front/2019/12/09/venezuela-refugee-crisis-to- become-the-largest-and-most-underfunded-in- 3 Responding