As growing lawlessness, looting and hunger threaten to plunge Venezuela into a state of anarchy, its neighbors remain strikingly reluctant to confront President Nicolás Maduro.

There have been unabashed enablers, a shrinking but resolute camp of left-wing governments that have served as apologists for the despotic president. There are the co-opted, a pack of Caribbean and Central American nations that have turned a blind eye to Mr. Maduro’s abuses in exchange for subsidized oil. And there are the ambivalent, a large and powerful group of nations that only gently criticize the government of Venezuela, if at all, for its mounting human rights violations.

On Thursday, diplomats from across the hemisphere are scheduled to convene in Washington at the request of Luis Almagro, the secretary general of the Organization of American States, to discuss Venezuela’s descent into chaos. Key members of this organization, including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and the United States, should demand that the Venezuelan government start allowing the delivery of humanitarian aid and permit the opposition to hold a referendum on whether Mr. Maduro’s term should end early.

Clearly, the Maduro government has failed to govern democratically, a commitment required of all O.A.S. member nations. Mr. Maduro has packed crucial state institutions, including the Supreme Court, with loyalists and has stymied the opposition-run Parliament at every turn. His government has kept political opponents arbitrarily jailed for years.