NAMUNC V
Specialized Agency:
Venezuelan Cabinet
A Brief Introduction
Venezuela is located on
the northwest tip of South America, bordering the Atlantic. Called one
of the ten most ecologically diverse nations, Venezuela is home to the
largest lake in South America, the Maracaibo, and
the world’s highest water fall, Angel Falls. Venezuela became its
own nation in 1830 after the collapse of Gran Colombia. By 1959, the
country was holding democratic elections. Venezuela’s current President
(elected in 1999), Hugo Chávez, has implemented his own “21st-century
Socialism”, offering social reforms to the federal republic while
maintaining isolationist foreign policies. Venezuela’s economy is
maintained largely by oil revenues, which, according to
CIA World Fact Book, “account for roughly 90% of export earnings,
more than 50% of the federal budget revenues, and around 30% of GDP.”
Venezuela currently faces a weakened democratic system, drug trafficking
violence on the Colombian border, environmental concerns due to
deforestation, and a troubled economy because of the nation’s dependence on
oil.
Venezuelan Drug Trade
Drug trafficking has
long been an issue in Venezuela, especially in the border region between
Colombia and Venezuela. Because of its availability in the Andean region of
South America, the DEA asserts, “virtually all of the world's cocaine base,
the intermediate product used to manufacture cocaine hydrochloride (cocaine
HCl), is produced in Peru, Bolivia, or Colombia.” Although the United
States has criticized Venezuela for three years, saying that it is one of
two countries which has
"failed
demonstrably adhere to their obligations under international
counter-narcotics agreements," Venezuelan Attorney General Isaias Rodriguez
has dismissed these remarks as an American attack on Venezuelan policy.
Venezuela refused to allow DEA officials in as inspectors in 2005 because
Chávez accused inspectors of espionage and disregard for Venezuelan law, but
the United States has not reduced financial support for Venezuela because
the country’s oil supply is a “vital national interest”. The Venezuelan
National Anti-Drug Office’s recent study found that the number of drug
interdictions increased from 43.2 tons in 2004, to 77 tons in 2005, and that
Venezuelan authorities confiscated 60.3 tons of cocaine in 2006 alone. The
UN Office against Drugs and Crime rates Venezuela as the country with the
third largest number of drug interdictions in the world.
The plant from which cocaine is made is not
native to Venezuela, but cocaine enters the country through neighboring
Colombia, the world’s leading supplier of cocaine. 220 tons of Colombian
cocaine travels through Venezuela each year, which accounts for one third of
all Colombian cocaine produced. With the increase in drugs transported
through Venezuela, drug related violence in northern Venezuela has increased
by a factor of three from 2003 to 2006. Gang violence, corruption, and
insurgency groups in northern Venezuela make fighting the drug world a
difficult task, but
Isaias Rodriguez
has said that fighting the drug trade in effective ways is a top priority
for the Venezuelan government.
Border Tensions between Colombia and Venezuela
Colombia and Venezuela, who share a 1,375 mile border, have
seen a rise in tension since late 2007 when Colombian President Uribe
announced an end to Venezuelan President Chávez's role as a formal mediator
between Colombia and the Colombian narco-terrorist group the
Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Chávez and Uribe had clashed before over a FARC-related issue when, on
January 12, 2005, Colombia admitted to hiring bounty hunters to seize
Rodrigo Granda, a FARC leader, off
the streets of Caracas, Venezuela. Friction had, until
recently, eased; in October 2007, Uribe and
Chávez
had led a ceremonial ribbon cutting of the new 224-kilometer natural gas
pipeline connecting the Caribbean coast of Colombia to Maracaibo, Venezuela.
Uribe claimed Chávez overstepped his bounds and violated their
agreement by contacting the head of Colombian military directly, leading
Uribe to question Chávez’s motives. The two share an annual $6 billion in
trade, but have entered a freeze in diplomatic relations following the March
1st Colombian raid into a military camp a mile inside Ecuador.
The Organization of American States (OAS) approved a resolution on March 5th,
calling the action “a violation of Ecuador’s sovereignty.” The raid left a
known 21 dead, including
Raúl Reyes, a
senior
commander of the FARC. Venezuela has stood firm with allied Ecuador,
calling Colombia’s action a “war crime” and threatening to strain trade with
Colombia until the nation has been sanctioned by the rest of the world.
Among rubble left at the camp, Uribe claims, Colombian intelligence found
three laptops which allegedly belonged to Reyes and contained evidence
suggesting an approximate
$300 million to the FARC
from the Venezuelan government. Since the raid, Chávez has ordered ten tank
battalions to the shared border, protecting Venezuela from a similar
invasion and denied aiding the FARC.
In
the forty years of internal chaos in Colombia, Refugees International
estimates a yearly 200,000 people displaced, making Colombia one of the
world’s worst areas of International Displacement Crisis, second only to the
Sudan; while, according to a 2006 survey, as many as 139,000 of these
refugees seek shelter in the 150 Venezuelan communities on the
Colombian-Venezuelan border. Citizens in the border region risk involvement
in drug-related violence and human trafficking, illegal markets in which the
FARC and other insurgency groups profit. Children in the border region are
particularly vulnerable; the Family Welfare Institute of Colombia estimates
that over 30 percent of the FARC's guerillas are younger than 18, up 15
percent from just ten years ago. The United Nations Children's Fund
(UNICEF) FARC says an approximate 6,000 minors were serving in the FARC (and
the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC)) in 2007.
Some Great Sources
Official Sites
CIA World Factbook: Venezuela
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
Center for Defense Information – Terrorism in the Spotlight: FARC
GlobalSecurity.org: FARC
Council on Foreign Relations: FARC, ELN: Colombia’s Left-Wing Guerillas
Country Profiles- Foreign Commonwealth Office
News
Worldpress.org – Colombia-Venezuela: Border
Tensions Rise
NY Times- US Studies Rebels’ Data
AP- Trade Coming Down
UK Guardian- Colom. Ven. Relations head to Big Freeze
USA Today- Colombia Loses Trade, Nicaragua Ties
