THE ISLAND OF GRENADA LIES JUST 90
miles off the coast of Venezuela-roughly the
distance from Cuba to Florida. The analogy was not
lost on the Christian Democratic government of Luis
Herrera Campins (1979-83), for whom a radical pro-
Cuban regime in Grenada was too close for comfort.
At first Venezuela dragged its feet on the Bishop
regime’s requests for aid, only to watch in dismay as
the Cubans jumped into the breach. Ultimately,
Venezuela established the largest embassy in St.
George’s and supplied the Bishop regime with over a
million dollars worth of technical assistance.
Yet when U.S. forces invaded the island in Oc-
tober 1983, Herrera declared a period of “watchful
waiting” and refused to join the chorus of world
opinion against the invasion. It was almost two days:
before Caracas issued an official statement, which
Troops in Grenada: Doing Venezuela’s job
paid lip service to the principle of non-intervention
but refrained from condemning the invasion. It did
not even mention the United States by name. Pri-
vately, Venezuelan officials assured the U.S. Em-
bassy that the tepid public response belied the gov-
ernment’s true enthusiasm. In Grenada, said one,
Washington was “doing our job for us.” Opposition
journalists in Caracas even alleged that Venezuela
had taken part secretly in pre-invasion discussions.
RENADA PROVIDES AN IDEAL SPRING-
board for analyzing the ambiguities and incon-
sistencies of Venezuelan foreign policy. In recent
years, the more powerful of the developing nations-
Venezuela, Mexico and Cuba, for example-have
become important actors in the Caribbean Basin, altering the regional balance of power. Venezuela
entered the ranks of the middle-range powers in the
1970s, thanks to its strategic location and its strength
as a major oil exporter.
This Report assumes that these countries have their
own international priorities, and that their foreign
policy springs from concerns similar to those that
motivate major powers: notions of self-preservation
and national security; a desire to reduce the influence
of foreign competitors and enhance one’s own inter-
national prestige. Middle-range powers may have
less latitude to implement their policies free from
outside influence, but the difference is less of kind
than of degree. Venezuela’s record in the last ten
years suggests that a middle-range power can and
does affect international developments. Under Carlos
Andr6s P6rez, Venezuela’s impact on the Caribbean
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Basin was dramatic; under his successor, Luis Herrera
Campins, it was more indirect but no less real.
Venezuelan foreign policy has constituted less of a
defined tradition over the last quarter century than the
foreign policy of Mexico or Cuba. Since 1959, it has
swung from fervent anti-communism to progressive
advocacy of Third World causes and back to a close
collaboration with the Reagan Administration. But
these are not arbitrary changes of direction. Admit-
tedly, several variables are at work within Venezuelan
foreign policy. Recurrent anti-communism, varying
in form and intensity, is one; support for ideological
pluralism is another. This in turn has alternated with
an intense political partisanship that has often led
Caracas to equate national interest with fostering
like-minded regimes in Central America and the
Caribbean.
Yet a coherent thread can be teased out of these
apparent shifts. Venezuelan foreign policy-making
seems to reflect a set of underlying constants which
persist whether or not the Administration of the day shares the current aims of Washington.
* A preoccupation with Cuba, ranging from rival-
ry to confrontation to wary embrace. While Vene-
zuela does not openly subscribe to the domino theory,
successive Administrations have been fearful of Cu-
ban expansionism.
* A pragmatic acceptance that Venezuela lies
within the U.S. orbit, buttressed by the strong ties
between Venezuelan business and military elites and
their U.S. counterparts. This has not, however,
meant granting the United States carte blanche in the
region.
* The importance of oil, first as lever and then as
liability. While the OPEC-led oil boom of the 1970s
spurred Venezuela’s rise as a Caribbean power, the
recent decline in oil prices and the related debt crisis
have highlighted Venezuela’s vulnerability and put a
damper on its foreign policy.
* The need to preserve and strengthen the state. In
the absence of any need for territorial defense, this
has translated into opposition to dictatorship and the
defense of democracy abroad.
* The primacy of the executive in formulating
foreign policy. Venezuelan presidents have tended to
act as their own secretaries of state.
T HIS ENTIRE QUARTER CENTURY OF
Venezuelan democracy has been dominated by
the Tweedledee/Tweedledum politics of Venezuela’s
two major parties. Despite strikingly different ori-
gins, both Democratic Action (AD) and the Christian
Democratic COPEI are today multiclass parties of the
center. From Marxist beginnings, AD evolved into a
reformist social democratic party with strong peasant
and trade union constituencies. AD’s left wing has
intermittently broken away to form radical alterna-
tives; its right wing is staunchly anti-communist.
COPEI originated as a rightist Catholic party, but in
the process of “disputing the masses” with AD
evolved a social doctrine stressing Christian humani-
tarianism toward the marginal sectors of Venezuelan
society. Where AD is populist in tone, COPEI is
paternalist.
Venezuelan historians divide these years into three
periods. The first (1959-68) saw the consolidation of
political democracy at home, dominated by AD, and
an East-West perspective in foreign affairs. Next
came the oil boom years (1969-78), when AD al-
ternated in power with COPEI. They brought en-
hanced prestige in the Third World and Venezuela’s
projection as a middle-range power in the Caribbean.
A North-South view supplanted the old East-West
matrix. During the third period (1979-84), the con-
tinuing rhetoric of Third World diplomacy was un-
dermined by conservative trends in policy and a re-
turn to the East-West worldview. The barometer of
policy in the last five years has been Venezuelan
relations with El Salvador, Nicaragua and Cuba.
Since 1959, Venezuelan goals have dovetailed
neatly with those of the United States. Just as the
governments of R6mulo Betancourt and Ratil Leoni
in the 1960s coincided with the Kennedy-Johnson
years in the White House, so the relatively progres-
sive rule of Rafael Caldera and Carlos Andrrs Perez
in the 1970s converged with the chastening experi-
ence of Vietnam under Nixon and Ford and the hu-
man rights thrust of the Carter era. Similarly, Luis
Herrera Campins operated for the most part within
the anti-communist environment generated by Ronald
Reagan.
The frequent charge is that Venezuela is guilty of
“sub-imperialism,” acting as Washington’s sword-
carrier. But Venezuela’s behavior has reflected an
independent choice of regional policy goals; a term
such as “sub-hegemonism” may be more accurate.
Ripples from Washington undoubtedly influence the
pattern of Venezuelan foreign policy, but they merely
accelerate trends which the Venezuelans themselves
have set in motion.
Author Robert Matthews has been a close observer of
Venezuelan affairs for twenty years; his publications in-
clude a book on 19th century Venezuela. He has until
recently taught Latin American history at New York Uni-
versity. This month he joins NACLA as Research Director,
replacing Steve Volk, who leaves NACLA after eleven
years to move on to an academic teaching job.
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