Skip to main content
Support

Why Latin American governments don’t want to fight with Caracas

Cindy Arnson

Latin America Program Director Cynthia Arnson is quoted in an article on why Latin American governments have been reluctant to publicly criticize Venezuela's Maduro administration.

[...] Castañeda, who as foreign minister a decade ago briefly reversed Mexico’s traditional stance of refusing to condemn Cuba’s lack of democracy, said: “No PRI (the Spanish initials of the Institutional Revolutionary Party) government will comment on the internal affairs of another country because they don’t want to become vulnerable to other nations looking at their human rights record.” Cynthia Arnson, who heads the Latin America program at the Wilson Center, a Washington DC think tank, added: “Certain governments in the region would counter that they are playing a role behind the scenes, to get people out of jail, promote dialogue, and not feed the fire.” But Sandra Borda, a politics professor at Bogota’s University of the Andes, noted that the silence is now also coming from traditional Chavista allies like Bolivia and Ecuador —which previously strongly backed Maduro — as the turmoil in Venezuela spins out of his control. [...] To read the full article, click here. This article was also published by Business Insider and VOXXI

About the Author

Cindy Arnson

Cynthia J. Arnson

Distinguished Fellow, Latin America Program
Read More

Latin America Program

The Wilson Center’s prestigious Latin America Program provides non-partisan expertise to a broad community of decision makers in the United States and Latin America on critical policy issues facing the Hemisphere. The Program provides insightful and actionable research for policymakers, private sector leaders, journalists, and public intellectuals in the United States and Latin America. To bridge the gap between scholarship and policy action, it fosters new inquiry, sponsors high-level public and private meetings among multiple stakeholders, and explores policy options to improve outcomes for citizens throughout the Americas. Drawing on the Wilson Center’s strength as the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum, the Program serves as a trusted source of analysis and a vital point of contact between the worlds of scholarship and action.  Read more

Latin America Program

The Wilson Center’s prestigious Latin America Program provides non-partisan expertise to a broad community of decision makers in the United States and Latin America on critical policy issues facing the Hemisphere. The Program provides insightful and actionable research for policymakers, private sector leaders, journalists, and public intellectuals in the United States and Latin America. To bridge the gap between scholarship and policy action, it fosters new inquiry, sponsors high-level public and private meetings among multiple stakeholders, and explores policy options to improve outcomes for citizens throughout the Americas. Drawing on the Wilson Center’s strength as the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum, the Program serves as a trusted source of analysis and a vital point of contact between the worlds of scholarship and action.  Read more