Will Venezuela crisis spill into conflict with US?

The authoritarian left wing regime of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has mobilized his ruling Socialist party’s paramilitary militia in response to U.S. President Donald Trump sending a task force of warships into Venezuelan waters as part of a U.S. crackdown against alleged cocaine trafficking by the poverty -stricken country.

Declaring that “no empire will touch the sacred soil of Venezuela “ Maduro sent his militia to reinforce the country’s borders with neighbouring Colombia, who he has accused of collaborating with America in a pincer movement against his country.

Trump has charged the Maduro regime with drugs trafficking on a massive scale, and the US Department of Justice has recently increased the reward it is offering for Maduro’s arrest and detention to 50 million dollars, describing him as the “ world’s biggest narco trafficker”.

Maduro, a former bus driver and Trade Union official, took over the Presidency in 2013 after the death from cancer of his charismatic but dictatorial predecessor Hugo Chavez. Together, the two men’s far left Socialist party has brought the oil rich but badly misgoverned state to its knees, a humanitarian crisis which has seen almost eight million people flee the country for foreign destinations since 2014.

That exodus represents a staggering one third of Venezuela’s total population of 29 million. The refugees have chiefly crossed the border into Colombia to escape hunger, unemployment, hyperinflation, and an acute shortage of basic food and goods: an economic and social catastrophe presided over by Maduro’s government which rules by dictatorial decrees rather than law.

Only a year after taking office, Maduro used violence to put down widespread rioting by protesters against the economic chaos, and since then he has ruled by repression rather than consent. Only a year ago, Maduro ‘won’ his third Presidential term in a contest widely condemned by international monitors and media as rigged. The opposition candidate, former diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez, fled to Spain in fear for his life after Maduro unilaterally declared himself the winner.

The US and other western allies regard Maduro as an illicit dictator who only remains in power through a mix of cheating, corruption and repression , but although most members of the Middle class have long since left the country, Maduro still retains some residual support among the poorer masses.

Thousands of such people lined up this week to register with the regime’s so-called Bolivaran militia, after Maduro charged Trump with interference in Venezuelan internal affairs and seeking regime change by sending in the naval task force.

For his part, Trump is reacting against the double danger of desperate Venezuelan migrants flooding into the US, and the ravages caused by drugs made in Venezuela in US cities. As the US warships near the capital Caracas, this is clearly a crisis that could spill into violence.