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It was billed as the beginning of the end of Nicolas Maduro. Dragging foreign leaders and seeing the world, anti-Maduro activists rallied in Colombia in February 2019 with the aim of limiting entire warehouses worthwhile – carried on U.S. military cargo planes – to Venezuela.
Instead, the humanitarian company was violently blocked by security forces loyal to Maduro, the first of some miscalculations made by the Trump administration’s policy toward Venezuela.
More than two years later, a U.S. government guard questions Gambit’s danger. New report An inspector from the U.S. Agency for International Development (PDF) raises questions about whether the expansion of aid prompted the U.S. more to achieve regime change than a technical analysis of needs and the best ways to help Venezuelans who are struggling.
The findings were published on April 16 but have not been reported before.
The report focuses on the madness of a few months after the opposition leader Juan Guaido was created to challenge Maduro’s rule, gaining recognition as the legal leader of Venezuela by the U.S. and dozens of allies.
As part of this effort, USAID Between January and April 2019, it spent $ 2 million to locate 368 tons of emergency supplies on the Caribbean island of Curacao and on the Colombia-Venezuela border.
By order of Guaido, aid was to be delivered to Venezuela against Maduro, and he rejected the effort as a coup attempt. But when an opposition caravan organized by the opposition tried to enter Venezuela, at least one truck caught fire and destroyed US $ 34,000 aid.
When media attention was diverted and Guaido’s fight to disband Maduro was disbanded in the months that followed, US support was quietly restored. In the end, only eight tons arrived in Venezuela, the remaining 360 tons are distributed within Colombia or shipped to Somalia, the report says.
The 34-page report said the expansion of U.S. aid was partly in response to the Trump administration’s campaign to pressure Maduro rather than come to the aid of Venezuelan fighters.
The Watchdog report said the expansion of U.S. aid was partly in response to pressure from Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to come to the aid of Venezuelans who were fighting the Trump administration’s campaign. [File: Ariana Cubillos/AP Photo]
For example, support was provided without the need for Air Force C-17 cargo instead of the cheaper trade options available on giant aircraft, the report says. Meals that were ready to be used to combat child malnutrition were also sent, although USAID experts decided that the nutritional status of Venezuelan children did not ensure hourly use, the researchers said.
To strengthen Guaido, USAID – which Maduro believed had been selected by UN agencies – reduced United Nations funding, even though some UN agencies had infrastructure to distribute Venezuela.
The report states that “the directive on the placement of humanitarian raw materials was not driven by technical specializations or fully aligned with humanitarian principles based on neutrality, independence and needs assessments.”
Packages ready for use by USAID Food Supplements, RUST, on U.S. Air Force C-17 cargo planes at Camilo Daza Airport, Cucuta, Colombia, as part of humanitarian assistance on February 16, 2019. [File: Fernando Vergara/AP Photo]
The report, almost two years later, was prepared to address USAID’s response to the Venezuelan crisis and the “risks of fraud”. It includes six recommendations to improve coordination between the deployment agency (the main vehicle for U.S. foreign aid) and to strengthen controls to prevent the politicization of humanitarian action.
A USAID spokesman said the agency was pleased to welcome the findings of the ongoing report and all efforts to improve the effectiveness of USAID’s work, especially in difficult environments.
Shortly after Guaido’s aid caravan failed, USAID quietly began working with UN agencies, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other groups to get aid to Venezuela, where goods are often distributed in Maduro-controlled government hospitals and agencies.
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