The Financial Times‘s Latin America editor and author of “The Sugar King of Havana: the Rise and Fall of Julio Lobo, Cuba’s Last Tycoon“ writes about the maladministration of Venezuela and Cuba’s machinations in Caracas:
Incompetence even helps explain the closeness of Venezuelan ties with Cuba. Two of the few state functions that do work reasonably well are Mr Chávez’s intelligence service and the social missions that deliver basic healthcare to Venezuela’s poor. Both, though, are primarily delivered not by Venezuelans but by Cubans, working in the country as doctors and attachés, in return for cheap oil.
As a European diplomat explained, whenever he has wanted to finesse a tricky point with the Venezuelan government he has often run it past the Cuban attachés first, because they could explain it in terms Venezuelans might accept and understand. “The Cubans are diplomatic adepts, and know which battles to fight,” he said. “The Venezuelans … see enemies behind every tree.” Because of this, Cuba might even have found itself a new global strategic role: Venezuela’s interlocutor to the rest of the world.