MIAMI (AP) – It was the result of a failed coup against Hugo Chávez and MP Gregory Meeks was resting at the Kennedy complex on Cape Cod with a young Venezuelan lawmaker with a thick mustache named Nicolás Maduro.
Photographs from the 2002 meeting show the men standing shoulder to shoulder, united by their common love for baseball and tales from their respective creations that defy the odds – Maduro in the streets of Caracas, where left-wing radicals like him were shot to death, and Meeks on a public housing project in Harlem, the son of a boxer and teacher.
The exchange would be little more than an anecdote, except for Maduro’s rise to the presidency of Venezuela in 2013 and Meeks ‘unlikely escalation in Washington’s relentless policy to become this month the first black president of the House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee. .
Now, two decades later, the New York Democrat says he is ready – if asked – to face Maduro, whom he remembers at that time as a good listener and committed to social justice.
“There will be no softballs or reminiscences of the good old days,” Meeks said in an interview with the Associated Press this week. “We would have some very tough talks about what happened and what should happen to undo some of the authoritarian things that have happened since he became president.”
Speak to Maduro or not: this is the uncomfortable question the new Biden government faces when reevaluating the US policy that brought hardliners together in Miami, but did little to break Maduro’s grip on power or ease the plight of Venezuelans regular.
Biden’s advisers say the president-elect has limited options to pressure Maduro and there are no plans to lift oil sanctions or a charge against Maduro for drug trafficking.
But analysts expect Biden to lessen the almost daily vitriol aimed at Maduro and the threats of a “military option” that characterized Trump’s foreign policy, where Venezuela occupied a privileged space. Instead, he promised to emphasize a multilateral approach aimed at holding free and fair elections as soon as possible.
Enter Meeks, who attended Chavez’s funeral in 2013 on behalf of the Obama administration and whose long involvement with Latin America has placed him in an ideal position to make room for diplomacy. Although he does not speak Spanish, his reputation as an honest sniper has earned him respect across the region’s ideological divide.
Among those with whom he made an unlikely alliance is former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a law and order conservative who worked to improve the situation of Afro-Colombians as part of the free trade negotiations Meeks has supported for over a decade in defiance of your party. The relationship with Uribe – ionized by the Venezuelan opposition and demonized by the Latin American left – can be useful as he seeks to create a moment for politically intense engagement with Maduro.
“Maduro doesn’t trust his own shadow. But he can trust Gregory Meeks, ”said former deputy Bill Delahunt, who traveled with Meeks to Chavez’s funeral and then twice more to Caracas on a previously unreported mission to improve bilateral relations. “If anyone can move things forward, it will be Meeks. I have no doubt that it will be an invaluable asset to the Biden government. “
Meeks said he is not presenting himself as a peacemaker. But he said he is willing to speak to the Maduro government if allies in Latin America, the European Union and the Biden government see value in such an approach.
He said his first trip as chairman of the council since he succeeded fellow New Yorker Eliot Engel will be to Haiti and Colombia, including a visit to the Venezuelan border, where thousands of migrants cross every day in search of food and care. doctor.
“I want people to know that Latin America will not be a secondary issue,” said Meeks.
More controversially, he “is open to involving defenders of Maduro, Cuba and Russia in any negotiations that arise – as long as the US allies agree.
“It’s a possibility,” he said, adding that the designation of Cuba’s Trump administration this week as a state sponsoring terrorism would complicate any disclosure. “This is how you resolve an important issue. You get several different people to join, so that gives the people of Venezuela confidence in the electoral process. “
A recent State Department telegram defending the Trump administration’s hard-line policy warns that Russia is working closely with Maduro’s military and financial authorities to undermine hemispheric security. The telegram, a copy of which was provided to the AP by a member of Congress on condition of anonymity to share diplomatic communications, argues for more aggressive support for pro-democracy efforts within Venezuela to complement American sanctions.
“Russia used its relationship with the regime to symbolically and publicly challenge the United States,” according to the 9 September cable, which is labeled “sensitive, but not classified.” It was sent to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo by James Story, the ambassador at the head of the Venezuelan Affairs Unit in Colombia.
“If left to rot, Venezuela will prove to be a very worrying burden on the side of American foreign policy in the region and will be very costly for US national interests,” concludes the cable.
A spokesman for Biden’s transition team declined to comment.
Meeks’ nearly 20-year relationship with Maduro began when they both founded what became known as the Boston Group. The informal network of US and Venezuelan lawmakers from across the political spectrum – Democrats, Republicans, Socialists and Capitalists – met in Washington and Cape Cod to repair bilateral relations after the brief coup against Chavez that the United States quickly recognized.
The group was virtually dissolved, with Meeks as the only American member still in Congress. But the relationships built two decades ago have proven to be resilient. For example, a Republican official who participated in the same four-day legislative exchange on Cape Code with Meeks and Maduro led a backchannel effort that in 2018 secured the release of Joshua Holt, a Utah man held for two years in Caracas prison by the which widely seen as charges of invented weapons.
More recently, former legislator Pedro Díaz-Blum, coordinator of the Boston Group in Venezuela, brought together dozens of pro-Mad and opposition economists to prepare a joint study on how to reactivate the country’s devastated oil industry. They also discussed ways to target humanitarian aid to the country through multilateral agencies.
After the United States presidential election, Díaz-Blum traveled to Washington and saw Meeks. Before the trip, which he said he organized on his own, he also met with Maduro, who reiterated his willingness to dialogue with the United States.
“I was a member of the Boston Group as a legislator and I went to the United States several times,” Maduro said Tuesday in a speech at Venezuela’s congress, which is controlled by the government’s socialist party after elections boycotted by the opposition as unjust. “I respect and admire the United States, its people and its culture very much.”
After several failed attempts at negotiation mediated by the Vatican and Norway, dialogue has become a buzzword for weakness and appeasement among many in the opposition. No wonder, the Trump administration said the only thing to negotiate with Maduro is the terms of his departure.
Meeks said he rejects this logic. Recently, even a close ally of Trump, Richard Grenell, former acting director of national intelligence for the United States, met in Mexico City with Jorge Rodríguez, a top aide to Maduro who is now president of the pro-government national assembly, that the United States doesn’t recognize.
“Trump’s policy was based on Florida policy – not doing anything,” said Meeks.
Still, he said, he has no illusions about Maduro. After Chávez’s funeral, Meeks said he had quietly returned to Caracas twice in an unreported effort to pave the way for an exchange of ambassadors, which has not been the case since 2010. On one such trip, he asked Maduro to release the activist from opposition Leopoldo Lopez, later in prison for leading protests against the government.
The reconciliation effort failed and Meeks said he left that experience frustrated. Any future opening would require pre-established conditions, he said.
“You can’t just take his word for it,” said Meeks of Maduro. “He proved to me that he was either not willing to move on or something in their politics prevented him from doing so.”
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Joshua Goodman on Twitter: @APJoshGoodman