Abstract
On 21 October 2016, a plane of the Colombian commercial airline Avianca was closely followed by two Venezuelan fighter jets while crossing Venezuelan airspace on its Madrid-Bogotá route. This event, which was never fully clarified, forced the airline not to cross Venezuelan airspace again. The intimidation of an unarmed civilian plane with 248 passengers on board shows well the drift of a state that has succumbed to alarming levels of criminalisation and corruption. The Venezuelan state is unviable. Its institutional weakness makes it a problem state with which the rest of the region cannot agree or cooperate to combat serious regional security threats. This paper argues that Venezuela fully meets the characteristics of the categories of rogue state, failed state, outlaw state and pariah state that make it an undesirable and useless actor in the maintenance of global security. In other words, it is a source of insecurity for its neighbours and the hemisphere and an impossible interlocutor with whom to deal or negotiate. Venezuela has become a regional threat not only because of its porous borders and migration crisis, but also because its status as a proscribed state makes it impossible to count on its assistance in curbing transnational organised crime and terrorism. The Venezuelan state and its high-ranking officials have links to international terrorist groups, international organised crime and have systematically violated human rights...
| Translated title of the contribution | Venezuela: the uncomfortable state for international security |
|---|---|
| Original language | Spanish (Colombia) |
| Title of host publication | La crisis venezolana: impactos y desafíos |
| Editors | Eduardo Pastrana |
| Place of Publication | Bogotá |
| Publisher | Fundación Konrad Adenauer |
| Chapter | IV |
| Pages | 439-459 |
| Edition | 1 |
| ISBN (Print) | 978-958-56871-5-8 |
| State | Published - Sep 2019 |