Good morning. President Trump’s demands to take over Greenland are the talk of this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Trump will be there tomorrow, along with dozens of world leaders. “There can be no going back,” he wrote on social media about Greenland early this morning. We have more news below. I’d like to start today, though, by talking to Anatoly Kurmanaev, who is reporting from inside Venezuela for The Times. You ought to get to know him.
Our man in CaracasSam: Anatoly, for the past three years you’ve been a reporter in our Moscow bureau. In recent months, though, you’ve shifted your focus to the confrontation between the United States and Venezuela. How did that come to happen? Anatoly: I have covered President Nicolás Maduro’s government, mostly from Caracas, ever since he came to power in 2013, and I thought that my experience and contacts could be useful at this historic moment. So, I asked my editors if I could shift topics — and received unequivocal support. I spent a few weeks in Caracas in October, reporting on the escalating tensions and Maduro’s attempts to negotiate his way out. Then I came back to the country just a few days before the U.S. attack.
You grew up in Siberia and went to college in Britain. How did you end up so deeply sourced and fluent in Latin American affairs? I minored in Spanish in university and spent a year in Chile on a student exchange. I fell in love with Latin America: its diversity, its spontaneity and drama. I moved there in 2010 with a backpack and my beat-up ’90s bicycle; I started writing without pay for expat papers, and gradually built a career. The Times hasn’t had a bureau in Venezuela for many years, and it’s been hard for reporters to gain access to the country. What are journalists allowed to do in Venezuela? Are there restrictions on your work or travel? Venezuela for years had one of the world’s highest homicide rates, and criminality was rampant. The danger for journalists today comes primarily from security forces. The risks are particularly elevated now because there are still questions about how much control Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez, exercises over the multitude of different security agencies, police forces and paramilitary groups. The country is full of security checkpoints, and the men with guns are jumpy. This means there’s little room for error. But we don’t censor ourselves. We have written many high-impact stories about sensitive topics in Venezuela in recent years, and we will continue doing so. How do you report on the Maduro administration and just generally find out what’s going on? Where do you find and cultivate sources? Ha. A good journalist never talks about their sources! It’s a fairly small country, and I have been here, on and off, for 13 years. I have reported from 22 of the country’s 23 states. I still speak to people I’ve met along the way. These are relationships built on trust. I would like to think that I have built a certain reputation for fairness, even among people who broadly dislike our coverage. If I don’t know someone directly, I can usually secure an introduction or find an intermediary. What are Venezuelans saying about the prospect that the government will accommodate U.S. demands? This country has lived through one of the longest economic crises in modern history, and more than anything people crave stability and an improvement in their standard of living. In the short term, most people seem willing to tolerate some loss of sovereignty and lack of democratic legitimacy to meet their immediate economic needs. They want to breathe after years of daily struggle for survival. But I suspect that as the economy stabilizes and the most pressing problem of runaway inflation is solved, more people will start to question the current arrangement. I expect that Venezuelans’ nationalistic and democratic streaks will eventually come to the fore, whether in months or years. Can you tell us a little bit about Caracas right now? What do the streets and stores and restaurants look like? I guess this is a question about the mood there. The city has more or less returned to normal by now, since the American attack on Jan. 3. On Thursday I walked past the La Carlota military air base in the city, and servicemen and office workers there were casually strolling in and out on their lunch break, cracking jokes and making chitchat. It was hard to imagine that only two weeks ago the base was bombed, the first time that the capital had come under a foreign military attack in more than a century. I have always been amazed at how daily routine asserts itself even in the most extraordinary circumstances.
And the people? Are some quietly rejoicing and others continuing to assert the political ideology of Hugo Chávez — Chavismo? You said the other day that there was a sense of “cautious optimism” in the nation. Who are those who feel that way, and why? I think people are still trying to make sense of what happened and where the country is heading politically. But there’s also hope, even euphoria for some, about the economic opportunities that a thaw with the U.S. is expected to bring. The first dollars from the U.S.-brokered sale of Venezuelan oil are entering the country this week, and this is halting the collapse of the national currency. A desire for economic stability and opportunity unites both Chavistas and opposition supporters. Maduro and his fate are very quickly fading into the background. You first arrived in Venezuela as a journalist in 2013, as Maduro came to power, and wrote about the first eight years of his rule. Do you feel you’re now covering his fall, or does his administration continue under Rodríguez? It certainly feels like a new chapter. It is the same government, practically the same cast. But the script has changed. The U.S. military went from attacking Caracas and killing 100 people to helping Rodríguez bring back wayward tankers. American policymakers went from strangling the Venezuelan economy to rushing funds there. The White House went from calling a Venezuelan leader a narco-terrorist to calling another one “terrific.” All this happened in two weeks. Imagine what it will look like in two years.
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I do most of the cooking where I stay, but the other night my wife knocked out a Kay Chun classic — sheet-pan chicken with potatoes, scallions and capers — and as we devoured it, in candlelight, with the family, I thought: I could get used to this. For those who enjoy labor in the kitchen, it’s worth recalling that there can be something incredibly joyful about not laboring, but experiencing the fruits of someone else’s labor instead, and being well and truly grateful for the deliciousness they’ve shared with you. Get someone to cook for you one of these days. And give thanks when they do. |
