Refugees stream across borders to neighboring countries and add to what already is the world’s largest refugee crisis. The nation they are fleeing is embattled, violent, and experiencing extreme shortages of medicine and food.
This is not Ukraine. It is Venezuela.
While Ukraine is undergoing invasion and a hot war, Venezuela continues to suffer erosion. In both cases, people seeking survival are fleeing these two countries. In Europe, they are escaping armed invaders, rocket attacks, and foreign occupation; in Latin America, they are rushing from societal collapse.
These two countries are different, but the conditions that have created their refugee crises can both be traced to Vladimir Putin’s Russia and a growing network of nations hostile to democracy. It is a coalition of the chilling, and they form a new Axis of Autocracy.
Made up of Russia’s friends and facilitators—China, Iran, Turkey, Cuba, Nicaragua, Hungary, and North Korea—their concerted and collective efforts may not always result in large refugee populations, but their coordinated work to undermine democratic systems is sophisticated and persistent.
Venezuela has been a key target and member of this network. A couple of years ago, the United States sent the first high-level envoy to Caracas to break off Venezuela from this strategic Axis and to get at President Nicolás Maduro’s oil reserves.
Part of the diplomatic and sanctions-relief accommodation made by the Biden administration was for free and fair Venezuelan elections, scheduled for Sunday, July 28. Expectations vary for how free and fair they will actually be, but the polled Venezuelan populace shows an overwhelming desire to end the Maduro regime. Maduro has warned of a possible “bloodbath” if elections do not go his way. A continuation of the Venezuelan status quo will undoubtedly lead to more refugees fleeing the nation and taking the dangerous trek toward the U.S.
America has been trying to wedge itself between Russia and Venezuela not only because this authoritarian Axis facilitates Moscow’s conquest of Ukraine but also because it supports the democratic and civilizational erosion of Venezuela. These two events may seem disparate, but in these instances, they share similar outcomes: Millions of people leave their homes.
Nearly 7 million Venezuelan refugees have fled the consecutive Maduro and Hugo Chavez regimes, which created impossible political, social, and economic conditions, forcing reasonable people to take flight, mostly to neighboring Colombia and with many reaching the U.S.
Once a wealthy nation and an extraordinary oil producer that founded and led OPEC, Venezuela remains a political thorn in the side of the U.S. It provides Vladimir Putin international support and a haven for Russian security advisors and materiel. It is a magnet for China’s exploitive capital, and it leverages Turkey’s active money laundering of “blood gold.” Along with Cuba and Nicaragua, it is a breeding ground and test site for anti-democratic forces throughout Latin America.
The international community must remain focused on Putin’s escalating war on Ukraine as it is in the middle stages of a potentially much larger refugee crisis, with 6.5 million people already fleeing to neighboring countries following the Russian invasion. They are escaping both an active war and a potential future foreign occupation.
Ukrainian refugee numbers will continue to swell as Russian military violence escalates. Nearly 200,000 have been welcomed to the United States.
War victims do not willingly leave their homes. They are systematically bombed and forced to flee Putin’s advancing forces. Their suffering is turned into a massively destabilizing force targeted at neighboring nations. Ukrainian refugees are weaponized hordes that descend on ill-prepared European nations. Poland was the main target early on. Laudably, the Polish people were mostly welcoming, but Putin counts on the pressure these refugees will put on Warsaw and other host nations to weaken further their political structures and democratic will.
Weaponized refugees are a tried-and-true tactic. As people stream out of affected nations, they crowd into neighboring countries, putting sudden and significant humanitarian and political pressure on the receiving nations. Turkey used this tactic to try to destabilize Greece and blackmail the European Union.
Attempts by receiving nations to manage or stanch the flow of refugees result in added danger and harrowing imagery. The targeted countries suffer the double burden of housing, feeding, and caring for new arrivals—and they also are subjected to international condemnation for not doing enough or accepting their share of refugees.
Of course, this only seems to matter if there are graphic images and political attention paid to the plight of refugees. In too many parts of the world, the cameras have long ago turned away from the steady flows of intractable and never-ending surges of people on the move. Authoritarianism’s Axis nations seem never to suffer the gaze of an unblinking critical eye because they either distract it or violently blind it.
Venezuela has contributed disproportionately to the world’s refugee population over the years. Caracas has executed this unconscionable act in plain sight. The world’s gaze is now necessarily aimed at Ukraine, but more nations may soon follow, as will media and popular attention.
In the dynamically developing new world order, there must also be a new understanding of the weaponization of people. For Putin and his expanding Axis, weaponized refugees are now a feature, not a bug of war.
