Venezuela’s Maduro left alone to deal with protests

[Bacchus4.0]

http://rt.com/op-edge/venezuela-protests-president-maduro-370/

As a wave of protests grips Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro is suspiciously left without any support for his policies from other Latin American nations.

Days and days of protests. Some are dead. Many others are in jail. Spontaneous street demonstrations are forbidden. Public services shut down. Loads of threats on the media. Opposition politicians under siege. Suspicions of a coup underway. And President Nicolas Maduro, who took office less than a year ago, promising not to step down.

South America’s leftist haven is in shambles – thanks in part to food shortages and inflation of 56 percent last year. But Latin American leaders outside Caracas have mostly kept quiet as neighboring Venezuela gazes into the abyss. They are silent in a way that they probably wouldn’t have been if the man in the Miraflores Palace were Hugo Chavez (1954-2013).

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After days of quietude, UNASUR published a simple statement to criticize “the attempt to destabilize the democratic order” in Venezuela. The three powerful women of South America, Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff, Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner and Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, said nothing. Bolivia’s Evo Morales, a traditional ally, was a clear exception to the silence.