Why armed intervention in Venezuela is a bad idea
Violent action against the dictatorship is risky and ill-advised, but it has started
WHAT should be done when a regime remains in power by dictatorial means while pitching its people into penury? That is the question that Venezuela’s opposition has been grappling with since it won a legislative election in 2015, only to see Nicolás Maduro’s government use its puppet courts to strip power from the legitimate parliament.
The opposition has tried two strategies. One was sustained protest. That was met with violence: about 120 people died in protests last year, many at the hands of the security forces. Despite the protests, Mr Maduro created a new, hand-picked assembly to replace the parliament. (The opposition boycotted a vote in July that was intended to give this new body a figleaf of respectability.)
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline "The threat of violence in Venezuela"
From the January 20th 2018 edition
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