Venezuela

Debate between Melanie Onn and Alan Duncan

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Sir Alan Duncan)]

I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham P. Jones) for securing this debate. I thank him and his many colleagues for their continued interest in and support for Venezuela. I congratulate him on his re-appointment in October as chair of the all-party parliamentary group. However, I very much regret that I am unable to use such a welcoming tone for the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson). He has become a defender of the indefensible, a champion of someone who has impoverished his people, and a supporter of someone who has smashed the rule of law and usurped the constitution. I rather sense that he wants to make himself the most hated man in Venezuela. It is perhaps a race between whether he becomes so there, and whether he establishes that reputation in this House first.

Let me make no bones about it: Venezuela is a failing state in the midst of the deepest man-made economic and humanitarian crisis in modern Latin American history.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I will make some progress, but if I have time, I will give way later.

When I spoke about Venezuela at Chatham House in October, I described the demise of a once vibrant nation, charting, for the benefit of the hon. Member for Derby North, the many decisions that had been taken to prove that this was a Chavista-made crisis and not a US one. Since then we have seen no improvement; in fact, the situation has gone from bad to worse. The social implications are astonishing: four-fifths of Venezuelans are living in poverty. They are vulnerable to malnutrition and disease because of shortages of food and medicines. The poor are not just poorer—they are destitute. More than 3 million people have been driven to leave the country—10% of the population. In the UK, that would equate to almost the entire population of London. That massive exodus puts enormous pressure on neighbouring states, particularly Colombia, Peru and Ecuador. We applaud the remarkable generosity towards Venezuelan migrants of those countries, and that of Brazil and other countries in the region.

As well as punishing his own people, Maduro has damaged Venezuela’s reputation and relations in the region and the wider international community. Instead of diplomacy, he has chosen confrontation. He has deliberately sought confrontation through reckless border incursions by the Venezuelan security forces. He has cut off any means of diplomatic engagement, including by announcing Venezuela’s withdrawal from the Organisation of American States in 2017, and his conduct inexcusably threatens the peace process in neighbouring Colombia.

Under the Maduro regime Venezuela’s democratic institutions, including the judiciary, the national electoral authorities and local government, have been systematically undermined, while political repression and electoral malpractice have increased. The creation of an all-powerful Constituent Assembly in August 2017 was clearly a deliberate attempt to neutralise the democratically elected National Assembly. Over the past two years, election after election has been manipulated, culminating in a presidential election in May 2018 that few apart from the Government themselves considered free and fair. At Saturday’s United Nations Security Council meeting, which I attended, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Arreaza waved a copy of, and spoke passionately about, the constitution, yet it is Maduro who has trashed that constitution and Juan Guaidó who has upheld it.

The political Opposition have been suppressed and intimidated, their leaders have fled or been imprisoned, and we will never forget that the Opposition activist Fernando Albán was detained and then found dead beneath the windows of the national intelligence facility. Some leading Opposition leaders have been imprisoned, forced into exile or banned from holding public office. Maduro has cynically used his control of supposedly independent institutions such as the Supreme Court and the National Electoral Council to cement his position. There was global criticism of the May 2018 presidential elections, with allegations of electoral malpractice and the banning of Opposition parties.

Those actions, along with the recent brutal suppression of demonstrations in Venezuela, are symptoms of an increasingly intolerant Government turning to repression simply to cling on to power. Ironically, Maduro’s re-inauguration on 10 January might just have been a catalyst for change, but a clumsy attempt to intimidate the new president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, by temporarily detaining him backfired spectacularly.

We know what has happened recently. During an Opposition protest on 23 January, Guaidó declared the May 2018 presidential elections fraudulent—and they were. Citing article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution, he declared himself interim President of Venezuela, and he was swiftly recognised by the United States and 12 Lima Group countries. As of this moment, 22 countries have recognised him as the interim President.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I am not going to make a commitment about what precise reaction we will make in terms of procedures in the House. As my hon. Friend appreciates, that is a matter for the usual channels.

[Melanie Onn]

The Minister mentioned that he accepts that Venezuela is in a state of crisis. If that is the case and that is the Government’s position, why are they wasting taxpayers’ money on trying repeatedly to appeal the asylum claim of my 73-year-old constituent Nelly Gelves, which was approved by a tribunal? Is it their intention to send her back to Venezuela while it is in that state of crisis?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

As the hon. Lady will well appreciate, asylum is a semi-judicial process that is handled by the Home Office. I regret that I am unfamiliar with that case and she did not notify me of it in advance of the debate, so I did not ask the appropriate questions in advance.

In addition to what I have described, the UK stands with Spain, France, Germany and the Netherlands in demanding the announcement of urgent free and fair elections within six days, and in calling for a legitimate Government to be established. We stand with the Organisation of American States and the Lima Group, whose members last September referred the Venezuelan Government to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. We stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States in saying that the National Assembly and its president, Juan Guaidó, are best placed to lead Venezuela to the restoration of its democracy, its economy and its freedom.