Thread by @JeremyKonyndyk

Thinking more about Venezuela, & the interplay between relief and political legitimacy.

A useful analog is Zimbabwe, which like Venezuela has suffered for years under autocratic rule as the population suffers enormously due to economic mismanagement and hyperinflation. [THREAD]

*And* like Venezuela, Zim's regime stole an election (well, several) and has sought to maintain power by playing up social divisions and property redistribution as a cover for its own ineptitude.

Indeed Zim is one of the few countries that, like Venezuela, has reached the same kind of precipitous collapse without the government falling and without civil war erupting. And like Venezuela, it faced widespread global condemnation and sanctions.

So an interesting comparison.

Zim has also, for years, received humanitarian aid via UN and NGO channels due to the overall economic collapse and recurrent drought-driven food crises. But that aid effort hasn't been explicitly or confrontationally linked to diplomatic efforts to bolster the opposition.

Zim experts can weigh in (hey @toddjmoss @LaurenPinDC) but I doubt linking these relief efforts in Zim to the opposition would have advanced their political cause (at least any more so than sanctions have), while it would almost certainly have been fatal to the relief effort.

In Zim, the approach taken has been to keep relief aid separate from the politics - keeping it distinct from the opposition but also not routing it through channels the regime can manipulate. People can access it, but know the government doesn't get credit for providing it.

Has this reduced popular pressure on the regime in Zim? Hard to prove a negative, but I doubt it. The economy is still terrible, rights are still violated, political space is still restricted, People still want a different, freer, more responsive government.

The aid doesn't make everything A-OK. But it does help keep people from dying when faced with cholera or crop failure.

The political pressure on the government exists irrespective of the aid effort.

The likely outcome of pursuing, in Zim, the confrontational aid politicization now on display in Venezuela would have been continued govt/military domination of politics but a lot more starving Zimbabweans. I fear this is the path we're on in Venezuela. /END