Venezuela is on fire. For a month now its streets have been engulfed by mass protests against a power grab by its president Nicolas Maduro. This month alone 61 people have died. This week, the opposition leader was tear-gassed and a judge was shot.

The Venezuelan government seems as impervious to this chaos as to pressures from the international community. Maduro answered calls by the Organisation of American States last month for a recall referendum on his presidency by pulling out of the international group which has served as Latin America's regional arbiter for over a century.

Many observers still hope that he will agree to popular demands for new elections to resolve his country's crisis. But this is extremely unlikely, for one reason: they clash with the interests of a cabal of security officials linked to drug trafficking and terrorism who have taken control of his regime.