Can Maduro Be Negotiated Out of Venezuela?

In 1988, the United States engaged in negotiations with Panama’s then-dictator, Manuel Noriega. Noriega had been indicted in Miami for drug trafficking, and we wanted him out of office and out of Panama.

I was at that time Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America in the Reagan administration, working under Secretary of State George Shultz. To get Noriega out, and return Panama to democracy, we offered him a deal: we would quash the indictment if he would go.

He negotiated for a while, but in the end refused. He claimed that he could not agree to save his scalp only, because he’d be abandoning others in the top ranks of the National Guard and they would kill him. So he stayed, and a year later President George H. W. Bush invaded Panama, deposed him, and on January 3, 1990 captured him. In 1991-2 he was tried, and sentenced to 40 years in federal prison. (After reduction of the sentence, he was released in 2007 and extradited to France, convicted and jailed there, and then extradited to Panama in 2011 where he was jailed until shortly before his death in 2017.)

Today, another dictator’s fate is in the balance: Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. A presidential election is scheduled there for July 28, and all the polls show that Maduro will lose badly to the candidate of the democratic opposition, Edmundo Gonzalez. The issue today is whether Maduro will permit a free election and will agree to leave power.

It's very unlikely, but the chances are zero if Maduro concludes that electoral defeat means spending the rest of his life in prison or even being executed for his many crimes. If there is any chance that he will permit and then accept the result of a free election, it would be as part of a negotiation that gives him some form of amnesty.

Every Latin American transition to democracy that I can recall, and there were many in the Reagan and Bush years, involved some sort of amnesty. The generals running Latin American military dictatorships demanded it, and the democratic parties were willing to grant it—preferring a return to democracy to an insistence on justice. This whole issue of strict or retributive justice versus restorative justice and national reconciliation is a difficult one. I discuss it at some length in an article entitled “The International Criminal Court and the Justice vs. Democracy Problem,” at the CFR web site.

If Maduro is to contemplate leaving office, some deal must be offered. This was the challenge Nelson Mandela faced in South Africa as well. Such an amnesty is always, as I wrote in that article, an unjust outcome, allowing those who organize coups and violate human rights to escape punishment. But it is also a necessary ingredient to ending dictatorship and transitioning to democracy in many cases. When extending the years covered by the amnesty in South Africa, Nelson Mandela said in 1996 that "this is one of the most difficult decisions I have had to take. Much pain and suffering has been wrought on families, communities, and the nation as a whole by acts of the nature for which amnesty is to be requested and possibly granted. But I have decided to take this decision, because on balance I am persuaded that it will further consolidate nation-building and reconciliation in a manner that is all-inclusive."

One of the leaders of the Venezuelan opposition, Roberto Patiño, calls for such an outcome in The New York Times: “a legal off-ramp for Mr. Maduro and his allies so that if the president loses, he will agree to give up power.” Patiño suggests that the United States agree not to prosecute Maduro as part of such a deal. I agree, and as Special Representative for Venezuela in the State Department in 2019-2021 repeatedly argued that amnesties are always part of negotiated transitions and would have to be in Venezuela too.

Is it a long shot? For sure; Maduro will probably prefer to take his chances in power than rely on promises for future treatment when out of power. But it is worth a try, and that means the proposal should be put before Maduro right now by the United States (and, as Patiño suggests, other Latin American leaders such as Brazilian President Lula da Silva).

Let’s hope this is in fact what the U.S. government is doing. Passivity in these critical days before the Venezuelan election would be a great mistake. Should Maduro steal the election and crush all hope for change in Venezuela, it’s entirely foreseeable that the 8 million Venezuelans who have already fled their country will be joined by millions more. And equally foreseeable that more years of Maduro will mean more years of poverty and repression for all Venezuelans.