Jeremy Corbyn’s reluctance to condemn the president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, shows just how weak and mealy-mouthed he is. The Labour leader was asked in an interview with Channel 4’s Jon Snow to speak out against Maduro. Once again, Corbyn turned down his chance to do so. He said he deplored ‘abuses of human rights and free speech by anyone’ but he was silent on what he thought of opposition leaders being rounded up and protesters shot. He also stopped short of telling the thugs who run the country to start abiding by the 1999 constitution that Maduro’s beloved predecessor, Hugo Chavez, spearheaded.
Nothing seems to rattle Corbyn quite like Venezuela (in a short segment, he told Snow to ‘look’ twice). Perhaps this is because his effusive praise in the past is now coming back to haunt him. In 2013, he said:
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‘Chavez showed us that there is a different and better way of doing things. It’s called socialism, it’s called social justice and it’s something that Venezuela has made a big step towards.’
Corbyn’s decision to single out Venezuela was no accident. For more than a decade, the country was the new Jerusalem: the model for how socialism would look in Britain and around the world. In more recent times, the country’s situation is dire: the murder rate in Caracas, the capital, is about 140 times worse than that in London and the people have been reduced to penury, with the monthly minimum wage at around 189,000 bolivars (£6.20).
Unsurprisingly, domestic opposition is growing. But to those suffering, the government shows no quarter. Dozens of young protesters have been tried in military courts in clear violation of their human rights. The new constituent assembly is also threatening to jail opposition leaders who support Donald Trump’s ban on trading in Venezuelan bonds. And the passports of opposition leaders have reportedly been seized to prevent them from fleeing.
But Corbyn won’t even defend his fellow socialists who oppose the Maduro regime. The Labour leader has not spoken up for Leopoldo Lopez, the leader of a party called Voluntad Popular (Popular Will), who is under house arrest. And when Socialist International said earlier this year that the ‘last vestiges of democracy had fallen’, there was not a word of comment from Corbyn.
So why won’t Corbyn speak out? It seems despite all the evidence of the Venezuelan regime’s brutality, he still regards Maduro as a ‘comrade’. But it is deeply worrying that Corbyn, who could conceivably become Britain’s Prime Minister, is happy to bury his head in the sand and refuse to condemn the likes of Venezuela’s brutal dictator.