7 August 2024 Bangladesh, Venezuela and Democracy By Gwynne Dyer If all that mattered is economic growth, then Shaikh Hasina would still be in power. She has ruled Bangladesh for fifteen continuous years during which the country’s per capita income more than tripled. Yet she has been overthrown by the very same students who stood […]
23 July 2024 Venezuela: It Seemed a Good Idea at the Time… By Gwynne Dyer There have been plenty of cases where a ruler with dictatorial power just gave up and handed power over to the democratic majority – Chile in 1988, Russia in 1991, South Africa in 1994 – and yet people are always
Back in early March, it seemed that both sides in Venezuela had decided a long drawn out crisis was better than a civil war. It appears that the leader of one side has now changed his mind. Almost four months ago Juan Guaidó challenged President Nicolás Maduro on the grounds that his re-election last year
Juan Guaidó returned to Venezuela on Monday after almost two weeks doing the rounds of Latin American capitals that recognise his claim to be the ‘interim president’ of the country. He defied a government ban in order to leave the country, so he should be arrested any minute now. Or maybe not. Despite all the
Last Sunday I wrote a piece on the political crisis in Venezuela. Then on Wednesday I wrote an article on Donald Trump’s hyperbolic language about North Korea. But it never occurred to me that the next article would be about Trump, North Korea AND Venezuela. I forgot about the Reagan Gambit. In October, 1983, US
There are two stories about the assault on Fuerte Paramacay military barracks in Carabobo state on Sunday. The Venezuelan government says that half the twenty attackers were killed or captured, and the rest are being hunted down. Sgt. Giomar Flores, who defected from the Venezuelan navy in June and now lives in Colombia, told The
After almost three months of daily anti-government demonstrations, what Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro needed most was an excuse to impose martial law, or at least to use major violence and mass arrests to close the protests down. On Tuesday, Maduro got his excuse. A stolen police helicopter flew over the Supreme Court building in Caracas
“I am no Mussolini,” insisted Venezuela’s beleagured President Nicolas Maduro on television early this month, but if things go on this way he could end up like Mussolini. That would be very unfortunate for him, and also for Venezuela. The daily street protests against Maduro’s rule are now in their second month, and around forty
The Venezuelan opposition’s victory in Sunday’s election exceeded even their own hopes: they won more than two-thirds of the seats in the National Assembly. It may be the beginning of the end for the “Bolivarian revolution” launched by the late hero-leader Hugo Chavez seventeen years ago – but it will also plunge the country into
I’m in Alberta, the province that produces most of Canada’s oil, and there’s only one question on everybody’s lips. How long will the oil price stay down? It has fallen by more than half in the past nine months – West Texas Intermediate is $48 per barrel today – and further falls are predicted for