Vanessa Neumann is a Venezuelan-born analyst and author specializing in Latin American politics, security, and geopolitics. She contributed to The Weekly Standard from 2010 to 2015, writing extensively on Venezuela under Hugo Chávez as well as broader political developments across Latin America, including elections in Colombia, Peru, and Brazil. She has served as a policy adviser and expert on illicit networks and terrorism financing.
The tenuous (and likely temporary) truce in Ukraine may have put another feather in German chancellor Angela Merkel’s cap: It seemingly vindicates her Diplomatie statt Waffen (“diplomacy instead of weapons”) stand against Obama. And it’ll be a while before everyone wakes up to how Russia uses the…
On Wednesday, the body of Venezuela’s late president, Hugo Chávez, was transported through Caracas in a formal procession that drew a crowd of weeping millions, accustomed to calling him, among other epithets, "the Example of Permanent Battle," and "the Christ of Latin America's Poor." Those that…
During the course of his 14-year rule, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez has dismantled all barriers to the absolute centralization of power around his own person. Now with Chávez in Havana recovering from his fourth surgery on his metastasized cancer—though he has refused to disclose what kind of…
Recent reports, no less than their accompanying photos, suggest that Hugo Chávez may be dying. But if he hangs on, he is on his way to being reelected president again in Venezuela’s December 2012 national elections. The Western hemisphere’s second-greatest political survivor (after Fidel Castro) is…
The elections in Peru, which were held on April 10, are a stern lesson in Latin American politics and its complexities. Consider the following: Peru’s conservative president since 2006, Alán García, has been wildly successful at growing his country economically, especially during a time of a…
If Washington is apt to see the recent uprisings in the Middle East—against U.S. allies like Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak as well as adversaries like the Islamic Republic of Iran—in terms of challenges to and opportunities for U.S. strategic interests, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez sees…
It is not just age that has mellowed the revolutionary passions of Brazil’s new president-elect, Dilma Rousseff, but also real experience in governance. Rousseff’s selections for her transitional team are in keeping with her moderate tone and point toward a continuation of the pragmatic policies of…
The death last week of former Argentine president Néstor Kirchner filled Buenos Aires’s Plaza de Mayo with thousands of mourners, similar to other emblematic moments in Argentine history. In 1952, the death of Eva Perón brought out the thronging masses to this legendary square in front of the Casa…
Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez is visiting Tehran today, along with his sidekick, Bolivian president Evo Morales. It’s Chávez’s ninth trip in the past 18 months but this one’s special because he’s stopping over on his way back from Moscow, where he announced a nuclear deal with the Russians. The…
“Before we get off the plane, I might ask you to take my laptop and cell phone through the airport for me,” said my traveling companion. “In case I get arrested upon landing.” “Ok,” I answered hesitantly. “No problems.”
The stark white landscape of the Salar de Uyuni in the Potosí department of Bolivia is punctuated only by pink flamingos and salt pyramids being slowly shoveled and loaded onto llamas by the Quechuá Indians. It is an unlikely place to be at the forefront of the future of the world’s energy supply.…