Ricardo Hausmann’s “Morning After” for Venezuela: The neoliberal brain behind Juan Guaido’s economic agenda
While
online audiences know YouTube comedian Joanna Hausmann from her
videos making the case for regime change, her economist father has
flown below the radar. His record holds the key to understanding what
the U.S. wants in Venezuela.
by
Anya Parampil
Part
1
If
you’ve followed Venezuela-related news on social media, you’ve
undoubtedly stumbled across a video released by comedian Joanna
Hausmann in which she promises to tell you, “What’s Happening in
Venezuela: Just the Facts.” Despite a title designed to instill
confidence in the uninformed viewer, upon closer examination the
“facts” presented in Hausman’s video hardly stand the test of
reality.
Hausmann,
for example, attempted to pass off dubious assertions that Venezuelan
opposition leader “Juan Guaidó is not right wing,” and
that he “did not just declare himself president” of the
country. She also claimed that President Nicolas Maduro “made
up” the National Constituent Assembly, neglecting to mention
that that governing body was clearly defined in the country’s 1999
Constitution, and was ratified by 71.8 percent of the country through
a democratic vote.
Hausmann’s
performance ended with a teary-eyed appeal for sympathy: “On a
personal level… my father is exiled from going back home.”
For a video dedicated to “just the facts,” Hausmann’s
rant omitted an especially pertinent piece of information: her exiled
father and the rest of her family are no ordinary Venezuelans, and
are, in fact, key players in the bid to bring down the elected
government.
Much of
Hausmann’s script echoed talking points outlined by her father,
Ricardo Hausmann, in a 2018 article ominously entitled “D-Day
Venezuela.” The piece amounted to a plea for the U.S. to depose
Maduro by force, with Hausman arguing that “military
intervention by a coalition of regional forces may be the only way to
end a man-made famine threatening millions of lives.”
But
Ricardo Hausmann is much more than a prominent pundit. He is one of
the West’s leading neoliberal economists, who played an unsavory
role during the 1980s and ’90s in devising policies that enabled
the looting of Venezuela’s economy by international capital and
provoked devastating social turmoil.
Hausmann
emerged among a group of neoliberal economists gathered around the
Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración (IESA), a private
university in Caracas. They came to be known in Venezuela as “the
IESA Boys,” a not-so-affectionate reference to the Chicago Boys who
were imported into Chile from the University of Chicago in 1973 to
devise shock-therapy policies for Augusto Pinochet and his military
junta.
The
popular rejection of the IESA Boys’ agenda began with the Carazao
of 1989, a massive revolt that consumed the capital of Caracas when
poor and working-class Venezuelans rioted in protest of an IMF
package that mandated harsh austerity. Thousands of dead civilians
and three years later, Hausman entered government to impose more
shock therapy on the most vulnerable Venezuelans, making the rise of
Hugo Chávez as president in 1998 practically inevitable.
While
unknown to most Venezuelans, Hausmann remains a key player in his
country’s tumultuous politics. During a talk at the World Affairs
Council of Greater Houston in November 2018, he eerily predicted
Guaidó’s self-proclaimed presidency, telling the crowd “the
international community is now focused on the idea that… January
10th is the end of the presidential period of Nicolás Maduro.”
“On
January 11th, Nicolás Maduro will not be recognized as… the
legitimate president of Venezuela,” Hausmann anticipated. “I
think that’s an important date.”
On
January 11th, when Juan Guaidó declared his preparedness to become
president of Venezuela, the Harvard professor’s prophecy was
fulfilled.
Almost
two months later, Guaidó appointed Hausman to serve as his
representative at the Inter-American Development Bank. This was
perhaps the best signal of what lies in store for Venezuela if Guaidó
and his benefactors in the Trump administration achieve their goal of
regime change. Hausmann’s return to power spells the restoration of
the IESA Boys’ agenda, bringing neoliberal austerity back with a
vengeance. A detailed look at his history is a preview of what lurks
on the horizon for the poor and working-class Venezuelans whose lives
improved the most throughout the era of Chavismo.
Source,
links:
https://www.mintpressnews.com/ricardo-hausmann-morning-venezuela-neoliberal-brain-behind-juan-guaidos-economic-agenda/256185/
[2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
[2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
Comments
Post a Comment