Samtal om Venezuelakrisen startar snart i Mexiko

The crisis in Venezuela is an ongoing socioeconomic and political crisis that began in Bolivarian Venezuela during the presidency of Hugo Chávez and has continued since. It is marked by hyperinflation, escalating starvation, disease, crime and mortality rates, resulting in massive emigration from the country. According to economists interviewed by The New York Times, the situation is the worst economic crisis in Venezuela's history and the worst facing a country in peace time since the mid-20th century and is more severe than that of the United States during the Great Depression, of the 1985–1994 Brazilian economic crisis, or of the 2008–2009 hyperinflation in Zimbabwe. Other American writers have also compared aspects of the crisis such as unemployment and GDP contraction to Bosnia and Herzegovina after the 1992–1995 Bosnian War as well as Russia, Cuba and Albania following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in 1989.On 2 June 2010, Chávez declared an "economic war" due to increasing shortages in Venezuela. The crisis intensified under the Maduro government, growing more severe as a result of low oil prices in early 2015, and a drop in Venezuela's oil production from lack of maintenance and investment. The government failed to cut spending in the face of falling oil revenues, and has dealt with the crisis by denying its existence and violently repressing opposition. Extrajudicial killings by the Venezuelan government became common, with the United Nations (UN) reporting 5,287 killings by the Special Action Forces in 2017, with at least another 1,569 killings recorded in the first six months of 2019; the UN had "reasonable grounds to believe that many of these killings constitute extrajudicial executions" and characterized the security operations as "aimed at neutralizing, repressing and criminalizing political opponents and people critical of the government". The UN also stated that the Special Action Forces "would plant arms and drugs and fire their weapons against the walls or in the air to suggest a confrontation and to show the victim had resisted authority" and that some of the killings were "done as a reprisal for [the victims'] participation in anti-government demonstrations." Political corruption, chronic shortages of food and medicine, closure of companies, unemployment, deterioration of productivity, authoritarianism, human rights violations, gross economic mismanagement and high dependence on oil have also contributed to the worsening crisis.As a response to human rights abuses, the degradation in the rule of law and corruption, the European Union, the Lima Group, the United States and other countries have applied individual sanctions against government officials and members of both the military and security forces. The United States would later extend its sanctions to the petroleum sector. Supporters of Chávez and Maduro have said that the problems result from an "economic war" on Venezuela and "falling oil prices, international sanctions, and the country's business elite", while critics of the government say the cause is "years of economic mismanagement, and corruption." Most observes cite anti-democratic governance, corruption, and mismanagement of the economy as causes of the crisis. While some Venezuelans have blamed the crisis on "socialism", observes attribute it to the "populist" or "hyper-populist" nature of the government's policies and the use of these policies to maintain political power. In 2018, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) documented that "information gathered indicates that the socioeconomic crisis had been unfolding for several years" before international sanctions, with Michelle Bachelet saying in 2019 that the social and economic crisis was dramatically deteriorating, the government had not acknowledged or addressed the extent of the crisis, and she expressed concern that although the "pervasive and devastating economic and social crisis began before the imposition of the first economic sanctions", the sanctions could worsen the situation. National and international observes stated that the crisis is not the result of a conflict, natural disaster, or sanctions, but rather of the consequences of populist policies and corrupt practices that began under the Chávez administration's Bolivarian Revolution and continued under the Maduro administration.The crisis has affected the life of the average Venezuelan on all levels. By 2017, hunger had escalated to the point where almost seventy-five percent of the population had lost an average of over 8 kg (over 19 lbs) in weight and more than half did not have enough income to meet their basic food needs. An UN report estimated in March 2019 that 94% of Venezuelans lived in poverty, and by 2021 almost twenty percent of Venezuelans (5.4 million) had left their country. The UN analysis estimates in 2019 that 25% of Venezuelans need some form of humanitarian assistance. Venezuela led the world in murder rates, with 81.4 per 100,000 people killed in 2018, making it the third most violent country in the world. Following increased international sanctions throughout 2019, the Maduro government abandoned policies established by Chávez such as price and currency controls, which resulted in the country seeing a temporary rebound from economic decline before COVID-19 entered Venezuela the following year. As a response to the devaluation of the official bolívar currency, by 2019 the population increasingly started relying on US dollars for transactions. Maduro described dollarization as an "escape valve" that helps the recovery of the country, the spread of productive forces in the country and the economy. However, Maduro said that the Venezuelan bolívar remained as the national currency.