The Economist 04Apr2020

36 The EconomistApril 4th 2020

1

I

t was, insistedWilliam Barr, the United

States attorney-general, “good timing”.

Amid the covid-19 pandemic and a collapse

in global oil prices, on March 26th Ameri-

ca’s Department of Justice unsealed indict-

ments on drugs charges of Nicolás Maduro,

Venezuela’s dictator, and members of his

inner circle. No longer should his regime

be seen as merely corrupt and incompe-

tent, argued Mr Barr. Now he has formally

labelled it criminal—a drug gang masquer-

ading as a government. The State Depart-

ment offered rewards for information lead-

ing to the arrest of the accused ringleaders:

$15m for Mr Maduro, $10m for Diosdado

Cabello, the thuggish head of the pro-gov-

ernment “constituent assembly”.

The administration of Donald Trump

seems to hope that the indictments will fi-

nally remove a regime that has been sub-

ject to punishing sanctions since early last

year. But branding Mr Maduro a criminal

blunts any incentive he might have to re-

linquish power. On March 31st the Trump

administration changed its tone a bit. It

suggested a “democratic transition frame-

work” that envisages a role for the regime.

Venezuela’s situation is terrifying. Un-

der Hugo Chávez, who became president in

1999, high oil prices hid the costs of the re-

gime’s economically illiterate policies. But

since 2013, when Mr Maduro took over, the

economy has shrunk by two-thirds and a

seventh of the population, now about 28m,

has emigrated. Covid-19 will make things

far worse. A nationwide lockdown im-

posed by the government on March 17th

will add to the effects of a plunge in global

oil prices. Remittances from Venezuelans

living abroad are slumping. Exports of gold

and even narcotics are stagnating. Luis Oli-

veros, an economist based in Caracas, ex-

pects the economy to shrink by 15% this

year, double the contraction he had fore-

cast before covid-19.

Venezuela has even less scope than oth-

er Latin American countries to borrow to

soften the effects of the crisis. It has already

defaulted on its debts. On March 15th Mr

Maduro appealed to the imf, which the re-

gime has long reviled, for $5bn of assis-

tance. The fund rebuffed him because

some members do not recognise the re-

gime as the legitimate government.

So far, Venezuela has had just 144 con-

firmed cases of covid-19. The economic

slump and the regime’s pariah status had

prompted airlines to reduce flights to the

country, which bought time before the

pandemic struck. But without testing and

contact-tracing the disease will spread.

The health system barely functions. The

Global Health Security Index, which was

developed by the Economist Intelligence

Unit, ranks its preparedness for an epi-

demic 176th among 195 countries. Half of its

306 public hospitals have no face masks,

according to Médicos por la Salud, an ngo.

“We only have running water for half

the day,” says a doctor in the main public

hospital in the city of San Felipe, the capital

of Yaracuy state. Personal protection

equipment from China was promised but

has not arrived, he says. The state-run El

Algodonal hospital, supposedly among the

better ones in the capital, has no ambu-

lance, no x-ray machine, no functioning

morgue and, for half the week, no water or

electricity. On March 30th it was treating

Venezuela

Maduro rap

The American indictment of Venezuela’s dictator may make it harder to

remove him

The Americas

37 Cuban doctors to the rescue

38 Bello: Pandemic leadership

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