Tag Archives: Maduro

Threat of Civil War after Venezuela election: Rigged voting?

Maduro-Election

Important Takeaways:

  • Venezuela on brink of civil war after BOTH Putin’s pal Maduro & opposition leader declare victory in tinderbox election
  • Official results said Maduro, 61, had claimed 51.2 per cent of the vote, while opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, 74, received 44.2 per cent of the vote.
  • But the Venezuelan opposition has also claimed victory with their presidential candidate Gonzalez receiving 70 per cent of the vote in their own tabulation.
  • Maduro controls the ballot process through cronies and has been accused by the opposition of rigging the vote.
  • Marxist Maduro has blasted them back, saying it was the “extreme right” opposition who had committed “fraud”.
  • He threatened “justice” for those who challenge the results, telling cheering supporters in Caracas late Sunday night: “They are ugly faces. The gorgeous ones are the people who are here and noble.”
  • Maduro also accused, without evidence, foreign enemies of trying to hack the voting system of the South American country.
  • But Gonzalez claimed the opposition was kept from scrutinizing results and said they “knew what happened”.
  • He said: “All rules and norms were violated to an extent that we were denied seeing most of the ballots.
  • The National Electoral Council is yet to release results from each of the 30,000 polling booths nationwide.
  • Long-suffering Venezuelans saw the vote as their best opportunity to end 25 years of socialist one-party rule
  • Videos posted to social media on Sunday showed massive queues with claims spreading that voters were blocked from entering polling stations.
  • The brave turnout came after Maduro threatened last weekend that electing the opposition would see the country fall into a “bloodbath” and “civil war”.

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Maduro claims 98% of Venezuelans approve of annexing three quarters of Guyana’s land: Probably used the same voting system we did

Maduro-voting-system

Important Takeaways:

  • Venezuela raises stakes in border dispute, creates military zone to be carved out of Guyana
  • In what is likely to further inflame tensions in the hemisphere, Venezuelan ruler Nicolás Maduro announced Tuesday the creation of a new military zone that would be in charge of defending an oil -and mineral-rich territory of neighboring Guyana that he’s claiming belongs to his nation.
  • Maduro also designated a general, Alexis Rodríguez Cabello, as the sole authority of the Essequibo, a chunk of land in Guyana slightly smaller than the state of Florida. He also ordered that the more than 125,000 Guyanese living in the area, which is mostly jungle, be granted Venezuelan citizenship.
  • The announcement comes after Maduro claimed that 98% of Venezuelans overwhelmingly approved on Sunday his annexation of a new state that accounts for three quarters of Guyana’s current land mass. While Guyana objected to the vote and called it illegal, international observers have questioned the election results.

Read the original article by clicking here.

Special Report: U.S. takes aim at the power behind Venezuela’s Maduro – his first lady

By Angus Berwick and Matt Spetalnick

CARACAS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Four years ago, a bit player in the Venezuelan leadership was arrested in Colombia and extradited to the United States to face drug charges. He proved to be an important catch.

The man, Yazenky Lamas, worked as a bodyguard for the person widely considered the power behind President Nicolas Maduro’s throne: first lady Cilia Flores.

Now, with help from Lamas’ testimony, the United States is preparing to charge Flores in the coming months with crimes that could include drug trafficking and corruption, four people familiar with the investigation of the first lady told Reuters.

If Washington goes ahead with an indictment, these people said, the charges are likely to stem, at least in part, from a thwarted cocaine transaction that has already landed two of Flores’ nephews in a Florida penitentiary.

Nicole Navas, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice, declined to comment on any possible charges against Flores. Flores and her office at the National Assembly didn’t respond to questions for this article.

Jorge Rodriguez, Venezuela’s information minister, told Reuters in a text message that its questions about the possible U.S. indictment of Flores were “nauseating, slanderous and offensive.” He didn’t elaborate.

In a series of interviews with Reuters, the first Lamas has given since his arrest, the former bodyguard said Flores was aware of the coke-trafficking racket for which her two nephews were convicted by a U.S. court. Flores also used her privileged position, he said, to reward family members with prominent and well-paid positions in government, a claim of nepotism backed by others interviewed for this article.

Speaking behind reinforced glass at the prison in Washington, D.C., where he is detained, Lamas told Reuters he is speaking out against Flores because he feels abandoned by the Maduro administration, still ensconced in power even though many of its central figures, including the president, have also been accused of crimes. “I feel betrayed by them,” he told Reuters.

In late March, U.S. prosecutors indicted Maduro and over a dozen current and former Venezuelan officials on charges of narco-terrorism and drug smuggling. Maduro, now in his eighth year as Venezuela’s president, for years sought to flood the U.S. with cocaine, prosecutors alleged, seeking to weaken American society and bolster his position and wealth.

Maduro’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment. In a televised speech after the indictments, he dismissed the charges against him and his colleagues as a politically motivated fabrication by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. “You are a miserable person, Donald Trump,” he said.

The March indictments and the possible charges against Flores come amid a fresh campaign by Washington to increase pressure on Maduro. His enduring grip on power, some U.S. officials say, is a source of frustration for Trump.

Starting in 2017, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the Socialist leader along with his wife and other members of the Maduro “inner circle.” The swipe at Flores enraged Maduro. “If you want to attack me, attack me,” he said in a televised speech at the time. “But don’t mess with Cilia, don’t mess with the family.”

Leveraging the economic fallout from the coronavirus crisis in Venezuela, the White House now hopes it can topple a leader who has weathered years of tightening economic sanctions, civil unrest and international isolation.

Washington has accused Maduro and his circle of looting Venezuela of billions of dollars. But it’s unclear how much personal wealth he and Flores possess. Neither the president nor the first lady disclosed income statements, tax returns or other documents pertaining to their personal finances.

After U.S. prosecutors charged Maduro, the Justice Department said it had seized more than $1 billion in assets belonging to dozens of defendants connected to the case. The charges didn’t detail those assets or specify who holds them.

Flores is a longtime strategist and kingmaker in the ruling Socialist party. She first gained prominence as a lawmaker and confidante of the late Hugo Chavez, Maduro’s predecessor and mentor. She doesn’t hold an official role in Maduro’s cabinet.

Still, the probe against her underscores the vast influence she wields, particularly in helping Maduro outmaneuver rivals inside and outside Venezuela.

In addition to Lamas, Reuters interviewed more than 20 people close to and familiar with Flores. They portray her as a shrewd and stealthy politician who now brandishes much of the power of her husband’s office, demanding important briefings even before the president and personally negotiating with foreign emissaries, rival lawmakers and others.

When the opposition-led National Assembly tried to oust Maduro last year, Flores ordered security officials to deliver intelligence on the matter directly to her, according to Manuel Cristopher Figuera, the head of the country’s intelligence agency then.

Figuera was one of a handful of senior Venezuelan officials who at the time considered trying to negotiate an exit from power by Maduro with the United States. Figuera fled Venezuela when the effort failed.

“Flores has always been behind the curtain, pulling the strings,” Figuera told Reuters.

Flores has sought personal concessions in recent years in negotiations with the United States.

According to five people familiar with the discussions, Flores instructed intermediaries to ask U.S. envoys for liberty for her jailed nephews. In exchange, these intermediaries said Venezuela would release six imprisoned executives of Citgo Petroleum Corp [PDVSAC.UL], the U.S. refining unit of Venezuela’s state-run oil company.

The executives, arrested by Venezuela in 2017 and charged with embezzlement, are widely considered by human rights activists and many in the business community to be political prisoners.

That overture, reported here for the first time, failed.

But Washington knows Flores’ clout. “She is probably the most influential figure other than Maduro,” Fernando Cutz, a senior White House adviser on Latin America during Trump’s first year in office, told Reuters.

Earlier this year, according to people with knowledge of her efforts, Flores personally pressed crucial opposition lawmakers to support a Maduro ally to head the National Assembly, until then considered the last independent government institution in the country.

As Reuters reported in March, people familiar with lobbying of the lawmakers say ruling party operatives paid bribes to rivals who switched sides. Reuters couldn’t determine whether Flores played any role in such payments.

Little is known about the first lady outside Venezuela, particularly the extent of her role in Maduro’s government and her dealings that help it survive.

In their first interrogation of Lamas after his arrest in Colombia, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents had one request, he recalled: “Tell us about Cilia Flores,” they said.

Michael D. Miller, a DEA spokesman, referred questions regarding the case to the Justice Department.

Lamas, now 40, spent over a decade guarding Flores – first when she was a lawmaker and headed the National Assembly, later when she became first lady. After his extradition in 2017, Lamas agreed to a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors, according to a confidential Justice Department document reviewed by Reuters.

The agreement hasn’t been previously reported.

In the plea deal, Lamas admitted to charges of drug trafficking and agreed to cooperate as a witness in investigations related to his case. The Colombian court order that approved his extradition, also reviewed by Reuters, said Lamas conspired to ship cocaine from Venezuela on U.S.-registered aircraft.

Neither the Colombian court order nor the Justice Department document mention Flores, Maduro or others in the family.

Because of the terms of the plea agreement – he said he is still awaiting sentencing and continues to testify in related investigations – Lamas declined to discuss specifics about the case against him. His lawyer in Washington, Carmen Hernandez, also declined to comment.

The information he is providing investigators, including details on Flores’ alleged role in the drug-trafficking plan by her nephews, is deemed credible by U.S. authorities, according to people familiar with the probes. Mike Vigil, a former DEA chief of international operations, told Reuters the DEA gives “high significance” to Lamas’ testimony.

“REVOLUTIONARY CALLING”

Flores was born October 15, 1956, in Tinaquillo, a small city in northwestern Venezuela. The youngest of six siblings, she lived in a mud-brick shack with a dirt floor, locals recall. Her father was a salesman, traveling to nearby towns to hawk sundry goods. While still a child, she and her family moved to Caracas, Venezuela’s capital.

A good pupil, Flores enrolled in a private university and studied criminal law. There, she met Maikel Moreno, a lifelong friend and a lawyer she would eventually help become Venezuela’s chief justice. Moreno, a Maduro ally and a controversial figure in his own right, was one of those indicted by Washington last March.

Moreno didn’t respond to requests for comment; in a tweet, he denounced Washington for trying to “hijack Venezuelan justice.”

As a student, Flores showed little interest in politics, according to people who knew her. She worked part-time at a police station, transcribing statements from witnesses, and married a longtime boyfriend, a police detective, with whom she had three boys. Upon earning her law degree, she worked for most of the next decade as a defense attorney for a private firm.

In 1989, a fuel hike sparked riots that shook Caracas and awakened in Flores what she later described to state television as a “revolutionary calling.” Hundreds of protesters, angry with corruption and widening inequality in the oil-producing country, died in clashes with security forces.

The event, known as the Caracazo – roughly, the big Caracas awakening – also inspired Chavez. As inflation, food shortages and other hardships worsened, Chavez, an Army lieutenant colonel, in 1992 staged a failed coup. He was arrested and jailed at a military barracks.

Flores discovered a hero. She took to spraypainting Chavez’s name around Caracas. “I saw him in that moment as I would in the 20 years I spent near him,” she later told state television. “Authentic.”

She sent Chavez a letter offering to aid his defense. He accepted. Soon she was counseling Chavez and helping him answer letters from thousands of supporters.

On one early visit, she met a Caracas union leader who was also advising Chavez: Maduro. In a televised speech years later, Maduro said he was drawn to her “fiery character.” He began to wink at her, he said.

As it happened, both were divorcing their spouses. They began dating and eventually became a couple. “We shared the same dreams,” Flores later told state television.

In 1994, Chavez received a presidential pardon. Flores and other advisors suggested he reinvent himself as a civilian and rally support with promises to empower the poor. By 1997, Flores was part of the campaign committee that would secure Chavez’s election the next year as president. Maduro was elected as a legislator.

Not much of a gladhander herself, Flores nonetheless won a seat in the National Assembly in 2000. “She’s not a leader to hold a political rally,” said Juan Barreto, a former Caracas mayor and media director for Chavez. “But don’t think she doesn’t have a voice behind closed doors.”

In the legislature, Flores earned a combative reputation.

When fellow Chavistas elected her leader of the National Assembly in 2007, she publicly referred to opposition lawmakers as “sinners,” suggesting the government had the moral high ground over its rivals. She switched off their microphones when she felt they grew longwinded.

She also began using her position to help family members.

Flores replaced about 50 support staff employed by the National Assembly with relatives and associates, the legislature’s union said. Four siblings, two cousins and her ex-husband were among the hires, according to a list created by the union at the time of the shakeup and recently reviewed by Reuters.

She named her brother, a policeman, head of assembly security. A nephew – a cousin of her two nephews now jailed in the United States – was appointed as the legislature’s administrative director.

Reuters was unable to reach Flores’ siblings, her ex-husband, or other relatives mentioned in this story, including her children and her nephews.

It’s unclear whether Flores was responsible for all the job changes the union complained about. But she has defiantly defended the appointments. “I feel proud that they are my family,” she told reporters at the time. “I will defend them as workers in the assembly.”

When union leaders complained about nepotism, Flores summoned them to her office, recalls Jose Rivero, who attended some of those meetings and is now the union boss. “Leave this issue alone,” he says she told them. The union complied.

In 2012, Chavez named Flores attorney general. She held the post until March 2013, when Chavez died. Voters elected Maduro, by then vice president, to succeed him. Maduro and Flores, not officially married, tied the knot that July.

As first lady, Flores initially made her presence known in small ways. She ordered new furniture, curtains and a repainting of the Miraflores Palace, former aides said. Soon, she began playing a far more substantial role.

In 2014, oil prices plunged, pulling Venezuela into depression. As discontent grew, Flores began to see threats within the government. In October, Maduro fired Miguel Rodriguez, his interior minister, and replaced him with a Flores ally.

Three people familiar with the decision said that Flores believed Rodriguez, a charismatic general popular with troops, was eclipsing Maduro. People close to Rodriguez said he had indeed aspired to higher office.

After his ouster, Rodriguez formed a rival political party and publicly denounced Maduro. Intelligence agents later arrested Rodriguez on conspiracy charges, which he denied. He remains imprisoned. Juan Luis Sosa, an attorney for Rodriguez, declined to comment.

“Cilia likes or hates you,” one former Maduro aide says. “She’s not a dealmaker, she’s a hardliner.”

“CILIA KNEW EVERYTHING”

Lamas, the bodyguard, began working for Flores in her days as a legislator. From a post in the National Guard, he had been assigned to Chavez’s security detail and later transferred to guard Flores, he said. A photo on Lamas’ Twitter feed shows him, in a revolutionary red baseball cap, with Flores at a Socialist party event in 2010.

With the job came proximity to the Flores family.

The first lady entrusted him with driving her aging mother for medical checkups, Lamas said. He became close to Flores’ sons – Walter, Yoswal and Yosser. “I considered them my brothers,” he said, recalling trips to shoot rifles and to opulent family properties on the Caribbean coast.

The brothers – known as “Los Chamos,” or “the boys” – have attracted media attention in Venezuela for their flashy lifestyles.

Lamas said he saw them use government jets to travel abroad for fun. He also said he saw them several times late at night load military jeeps with boxes of U.S. dollars and transport the cash from their homes in Caracas to other locations for storage.

Reuters couldn’t independently verify that claim.

Flores’ sons haven’t been indicted on any charges in the United States. They are on the U.S. Treasury’s list of Venezuelans sanctioned for alleged corruption. The sanctions are meant to punish central figures in Maduro’s government and block any assets they may have in the United States or within its jurisdiction.

The family’s reach by this point was manifest at Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA [PDVSA.UL], the national oil company and the government’s cash cow. In 2014, PDVSA appointed a new finance director: Carlos Malpica, the third nephew of Flores, who previously managed the support staff at the National Assembly.

Malpica couldn’t be reached for comment.

People close to Flores said Malpica had become the first lady’s most trusted relative, especially when it came to financial matters. Documents compiled by U.S. investigators for their case against the other two Flores nephews provide insight into Malpica’s influence.

In August 2015, according to text messages gathered by the investigators and transcribed in documents used at the trial, Efrain Campo, one of the two nephews, received a text from an acquaintance. The message asked for Campo’s help in recouping money allegedly owed by PDVSA to the acquaintance. The origins of the debt are unclear.

Campo told the acquaintance to call Malpica. At PDVSA, Campo wrote, Malpica was the “maximum authority there, since he’s a Flores.” “He will not do it for free,” Campo added.

PDVSA officials didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Malpica left his PDVSA post in 2016, giving no explanation for his departure, and has since kept a low profile. The U.S. Treasury Department would later include him on its list of Venezuelans sanctioned for alleged corruption.

The jailed nephews, Campo and Franqui Flores, were close to the first lady. She helped raise both of them, two people who know the family told Reuters, and both men sometimes referred to her as “mom.”

Their November 2015 arrest, in a DEA sting in Haiti, made international headlines. In Venezuela, it earned the pair the nickname of the “narcosobrinos,” or “narconephews.”

The bust stemmed from a plan to sell $20 million worth of cocaine in the United States. The men, who pleaded not guilty, were convicted and sentenced to 18 years in prison. At the time, Flores told reporters that her nephews had been victims of a DEA “kidnapping.” She has since said little publicly about the case.

Among evidence investigators obtained, according to two people familiar with the case, are text messages between the nephews and Flores in which the trio allegedly discuss the cocaine shipment.

The messages, which haven’t been seen by Reuters, are among documentation compiled by prosecutors from the U.S. investigation of the nephews. The people familiar with the messages said they make clear that Flores helped coordinate logistics of the cocaine shipment with them.

The proceeds from the coke deal were meant to finance a Flores campaign for the National Assembly in 2015, according to the U.S. indictment against Maduro. The people familiar with the text messages said the nephews told Flores in the texts that the cocaine money would be for her campaign.

Flores had briefly left the assembly when she became attorney general, and in 2015 she was reelected.

A recording made by a DEA informant captured the two nephews discussing the planned deal, according to a transcript submitted as evidence in their trial.

In the recording, Campo says his “mom” is planning to run again for the assembly. People familiar with the probe believe “mom,” given the context of the discussion, meant Flores.

Because of the burgeoning economic crisis and growing discontent at the time, Campo told the informant, “there is a risk we could lose, so she’s getting in there again.”

“We need the money,” Campo added, in a remark investigators interpreted as an allusion to the impact of economic sanctions on Socialist coffers. “The Americans are hitting us hard, and the opposition is getting a lot of help.”

Before the two nephews were arrested, Lamas said he saw the two men on several occasions send cocaine shipments on planes from the presidential hangar outside Caracas. Reuters couldn’t verify whether Flores knew of the alleged shipments.

At times, Lamas said, Flores would hear relatives discuss illicit activities, including her nephews talking about the drug transaction for which they were convicted. She would shake her head, he added, but not voice disapproval.

“Cilia knew everything,” Lamas says.

A GRAND BARGAIN

In Caracas, where political intrigue abounds, Flores has covered Maduro’s flanks. Early last year, Juan Guaidó, head of the National Assembly, declared Maduro’s 2018 re-election a fraud and said he was the rightful president of Venezuela. He urged the military to oust Maduro.

Flores quickly sought out signs of disloyalty within government ranks. Figuera, the former intelligence chief, told Reuters she ordered all documentation his agents collected about any additional dissent, including transcripts of phone taps of opposition politicians, sent directly to her. He complied.

In March 2019, a nationwide electricity blackout darkened Venezuela. As senior officials convened to discuss the problem, one minister showed Twitter posts by Luis Carlos Diaz, a prominent journalist, blaming the government.

Flores said Diaz “should be jailed,” Figuera told Reuters. Maduro afterwards ordered him to arrest the journalist, Figuera added.

As Diaz bicycled home on March 11, Figuera’s agents arrested him, raided his home and seized computers and phones. After an uproar, Figuera said, Maduro called him the following day to order Diaz’s release. Diaz, who was let out, remains free and is working as a journalist. He declined to comment.

By April of last year, as most Western democracies backed Guaidó, Figuera and a handful of other senior officials began considering a negotiated exit for Maduro. They weighed the possibility of arranging safe passage for Maduro to Cuba or another allied country, Figuera said, in exchange for the easing of U.S. sanctions or other compromises by Washington.

Among the officials who discussed the idea was Moreno, the chief justice and longtime Flores friend, according to Figuera and two other people familiar with the talks. As the group prepared to discuss the possibility with U.S. envoys, Moreno told Figuera they should press for further concessions, including the release of Flores’ two nephews.

The suggestion of seeking the nephews’ freedom as part of a grand bargain with Washington followed attempts months earlier by Flores intermediaries to secure their release.

According to the people familiar with those earlier discussions, Flores had intermediaries tell Washington early last year that Caracas, in exchange for the nephews, would free the six Citgo executives. Venezuela had charged the executives, who remain in prison awaiting trial, with embezzlement related to renegotiation of Citgo’s debt with various lenders.

Attorneys for the executives told Reuters the charges are baseless and that they were unaware of any effort to include their clients in any prisoner swap. Jesus Loreto, a Caracas lawyer representing Tomeu Vadell, one of the six, said such an offer “would be yet more evidence of the arbitrary nature” of the arrests.

A senior Trump administration official told Reuters the swap offer was a “non-starter.”

“This isn’t like a spy exchange with Russia,” said another American familiar with the discussions. “The nephews are convicted criminals.”

Reuters couldn’t determine whether Flores was aware of Moreno’s attempts to broker a departure for Maduro. Moreno ultimately backed out of the talks, according to Figuera and the two other people. The effort fizzled and Figuera defected. He now lives in Miami. Moreno remains chief justice of Venezuela.

Late last year, Flores spearheaded the effort to swing opposition legislators toward a Maduro ally as assembly head. On December 7, Flores and several Maduro aides met with a group of opposition lawmakers at the Fuerte Tiuna military base in Caracas, people with knowledge of the meeting said. There, Flores urged the lawmakers to back the Maduro candidate.

Several lawmakers, including at least one who attended that meeting, later accepted payments of up to $150,000 to vote for Maduro’s candidate, these people said. Reuters couldn’t determine if Flores or Maduro were aware of the payments or whether they were discussed at the military base.

In January, Luis Parra, the government candidate, won the election for assembly chief. Now, Guaidó and Parra both claim to be running the assembly. Parra’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.

From his cell in Washington, Lamas reads about politics back home. He is studying English and working as a prison cook. He showed Reuters a certificate from the prison commending his “outstanding contribution to the culinary department.”

Lamas now seethes against the family he once worked to protect. He is particularly aggrieved by a raid on his house in the days after his arrest, and a long interrogation of his wife, with whom he has two small children. A neighbor confirmed seeing the raid take place.

“I was loyal to them,” Lamas says. “But they weren’t loyal to me.”

(Editing by Paulo Prada)

Venezuela opposition marches to Congress in showdown with Maduro

By Brian Ellsworth

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s opposition on Tuesday will march to downtown Caracas with the aim of regaining control of the national legislature, which was snatched by pro-government lawmakers in January, setting up a showdown with President Nicolas Maduro’s government.

National Assembly President Juan Guaido for weeks has urged Venezuelans to join the rally as a way of reviving street protests against Maduro that surged in 2019, but have waned as the ruling Socialist Party has clung to power.

The rally will be another test of Guaido’s capacity to mobilize supporters, who have become increasingly weary with the country’s economic crisis and the opposition’s inability to oust Maduro despite a broad U.S. sanctions program.

“On March 10, Venezuelans will exercise our rights in the streets,” Guaido told reporters at a Monday news conference about the march. “The only option available for Venezuelans is to escape this disaster.”

The protest is likely to meet stiff resistance from security forces, which were deployed around the country on Monday as part of military exercises ordered by Maduro.

Troops may not allow the marchers, who will include members of Parliament, to reach the legislative palace. Lawmakers will seek a different venue to hold session if they are not allowed to reach congress, according to one opposition source.

The government has called its own separate rallies in downtown Caracas for Tuesday. Socialist Party Vice President Diosdado Cabello said the opposition’s march was an attempt to rally its flagging energy.

“Every time the right-wing is cornered, they look for events that can raise the excitement of people who stopped being excited a long time ago. They try to create leadership where there is none,” Cabello said during Monday a news conference.

In January, a group of legislators backed by the Socialist Party installed themselves as the leaders of congress after troops blocked Guaido from entering the legislature.

Opposition lawmakers later re-elected Guaido for a second term in an extra-mural session, but they have been largely unable to meet at the legislative palace since then.

More than 50 countries last year recognized Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate president following Maduro’s disputed 2018 re-election, which was widely dismissed as fraudulent.

Venezuela this year is slated to hold parliamentary elections, but the opposition has not yet determined if it will participate due to concerns that the government will not provide adequate conditions.

(Reporting by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Leslie Adler)

Venezuela’s Guaido pushes past troops to enter congress after socialist takeover

By Mayela Armas and Brian Ellsworth

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan security forces let U.S.-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido enter the legislative palace on Tuesday amid a showdown for control of parliament after the ruling socialist party installed its own rival congressional chief.

Guaido, who was re-elected on Sunday to a second one-year term as head of the opposition-held congress, had pledged to preside over Tuesday’s opening session after security forces blocked him from the building over the weekend to allow socialist legislators to swear in their own speaker.

Local television images early Tuesday showed Guaido arguing for half an hour with troops wielding riot shields who again blocked the entrance to the legislative building, but eventually allowed him to push past them.

“This is not a barracks. This is the house of laws,” Guaido told the soldiers blocking his entrance. “The military does not get to decide who can enter the house of laws.”

But inside, a brief session led by Luis Parra – who was sworn in by allies of President Nicolas Maduro as parliament chief Sunday – had already ended, according to Reuters witnesses.

Parra’s swearing in on Sunday gave Maduro sway over the last major state institution that had remained outside his control and appeared to mark a setback to Washington’s efforts to unseat him.

The gambit marked an escalation in Maduro’s crackdown on the opposition, whose key international ally – the Trump administration – has so far been unsuccessful in its year-long attempt to oust Maduro through economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure.

U.S. special envoy for Venezuela Elliott Abrams on Monday said Washington was preparing new sanctions to step up pressure on Caracas. But Maduro’s move suggests he does not expect major consequences from the United States, though the government has steered clear of actions – like arresting Guaido – that could provoke a harsher response.

“We once again handed imperialism a defeat,” socialist party Vice President Diosdado Cabello said on his talk show Monday night.

Parra, who was elected to congress in 2015, had been expelled from the First Justice opposition party in late 2019 due to corruption allegations, which he has denied.

Dozens of countries, including the United States, denounced Parra’s appointment as illegitimate, and said they continued to recognize Guaido as the parliament’s head and as Venezuela’s rightful president.

On Sunday, after soldiers prevented Guaido from entering parliament, he held a separate session elsewhere in which 100 lawmakers backed his bid despite the earlier swearing-in of Parra. The legislature has 167 seats.

‘THE PEOPLE ARE IN CHARGE’

Guaido had vowed to preside over Tuesday’s legislative session despite what he called Parra’s “parliamentary coup.” Parra has rejected that description, while saying he wants to end confrontations with Maduro’s government. “We came to save parliament from destruction,” he said on Twitter.

After security forces opened the gates to allow him to pass, Guaido stood in the leadership post and sang the Venezuelan national anthem with allies. Electricity swiftly went out in the chamber, and state television – which had broadcast footage of Parra’s session – cut away from the congress.

“In here, the people are in charge,” lawmakers chanted as Guaido entered.

Guaido was elected head of the congress in January 2019 and invoked Venezuela’s constitution to assume an interim presidency, denouncing Maduro as a usurper who had secured re-election in a 2018 vote widely considered fraudulent.

So far, Maduro has fended off Guaido’s challenge, retaining control of the armed forces and tightening the noose around opposition lawmakers. More than 30 of Guaido’s congressional allies are in hiding, in prison, or in exile.

Guaido has also been losing support as Venezuelans tired with Maduro lose patience with his floundering movement. It remains to be seen whether his defiant response to Maduro’s move could galvanize his supporters, who turned out by the hundreds of thousands to protest Maduro early last year.

Parra’s new policy agenda focuses on reducing conflict with the government. Maduro was quick to celebrate his swearing-in, highlighting a “rebellion” among opposition lawmakers.

Parra said Monday his priority was to set up a new electoral council to preside over free and fair elections.

His brief session included a debate over proposals to tackle widespread shortages of gasoline. The session began around 10 a.m. and ended in under an hour.

(Reporting by Angus Berwick, Mayela Armas, Vivian Sequera, Corina Pons and Brian Ellsworth; Writing by Luc Cohen; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Tom Brown)

U.S. issues travel ban for Cuba’s Castro over human rights accusations, support for Venezuela’s Maduro

Cuban Communist Party chief Raul Castro

By Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration on Thursday imposed U.S. travel sanctions on Cuban Communist Party chief Raul Castro over his support for Venezuela’s socialist president, Nicolas Maduro, and involvement in what it called “gross violations of human rights.”

Taking a direct but largely symbolic swipe at Cuba’s leadership as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s continuing pressure campaign against Havana, the State Department banned travel to the United States by Castro, Cuba’s former president and younger brother of the late Fidel Castro, as well as family members.

“Castro is responsible for Cuba’s actions to prop up the former Maduro regime in Venezuela through violence, intimidation, and repression,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.

In addition to Castro, the State Department also sanctioned his children, Alejandro Castro Espin, Deborah Castro Espin, Mariela Castro Espin, and Nilsa Castro Espin.

The measures that Pompeo said would block their entry to the United States are likely to have limited impact. Castro last visited in 2015 to address the United Nations General Assembly. His children are also believed to have rarely traveled to the United States. Mariela Castro Espin, a gay rights activist, made stops in New York and San Francisco in 2012.

Pompeo also accused Castro, Cuba’s most powerful figure, of overseeing “a system that arbitrarily detains thousands of Cubans and currently holds more than 100 political prisoners.”

The Cuban government, which strongly rejects such accusations, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It was the latest in a series of punitive measures that Trump has taken against Washington’s old Cold War foe since taking office in 2017, steadily rolling back the historic opening to Havana under his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama.

Trump has focused especially on Cuba’s support for Maduro, a longtime ally of Havana. Earlier this year, the United States and dozens of other countries recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s rightful president, though Maduro retains the backing of Russia and China as well as the OPEC nation’s military.

“In concert with Maduro’s military and intelligence officers, members of the Cuban security forces have been involved in gross human rights violations and abuses in Venezuela, including torture,” Pompeo said. Cuba has strongly denied the U.S. accusations.

Speaking in New York while attending the U.N. General Assembly, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza scoffed at the U.S. measure against Castro, saying it was an attempt to humiliate him.

“And neither Raul Castro nor his family even want to come to this country! We are forced to come here because the U.N. headquarters is in New York, for now,” said Arreaza, referring to a similar U.S. travel bar on Venezuelan officials and citing a Russian offer to host the United Nations in Sochi.

Last week, the Trump administration ordered the expulsion of two members of Cuba’s delegation to the United Nations.

Washington has made clear that a key objective of its tough approach to Cuba is to force it to abandon Maduro, something Havana has said it will never do. However, Trump has stopped short of breaking off diplomatic relations with Cuba restored by Obama in 2015 after more than five decades of hostility.

Maduro has accused Guaido – who earlier this year assumed an interim presidency after alleging that Maduro had rigged the last election – of trying to mount a U.S.-directed coup.

“Castro is complicit in undermining Venezuela’s democracy and triggering the hemisphere’s largest humanitarian crisis,” Pompeo said.

(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick; Additional reporting by Lisa Lambert in Washington, Sarah Marsh and Marc Frank in Havana; and Andrew Cawthorne in Caracas; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Lisa Shumaker)

Killings, torture still going on in Venezuela: U.N. rights chief

FILE PHOTO - U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet attends a session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, September 9, 2019. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations human rights chief said on Monday that extrajudicial killings appeared to be continuing in Venezuela and the Special Action Forces (FAES) presumed to be responsible had received support from the highest levels of government.

Michelle Bachelet told the U.N. Human Rights Council that alongside possible executions, her office had documented cases of torture of soldiers and others arbitrarily held and urged the government of President Nicolas Maduro to punish perpetrators.

Bachelet who issued a report in early July detailing witness accounts of death squads run by the FAES, said non-governmental organization Monitor de Victimas (Victims’ Monitor) had found 57 new presumed executions by FAES members in Caracas that month.

The government called her earlier report a “selective and openly partial vision” that ignored official information and relied on biased witnesses.

She has also expressed concern about U.S. sanctions aimed at pressuring Maduro to step down; on Monday she said they were among factors fuelling a mass exodus from the country, which is reeling from hyperinflation and a collapsing economy.

Bachelet said even though the sanctions envisaged exceptions for humanitarian assistance, over-caution by the financial sector, lower public revenues and a decrease in oil production were having a serious impact.

“All of this is contributing to the worsening of the humanitarian situation and the exodus of Venezuelans from the country,” noting that 4.3 million refugees and migrants had already fled the turmoil, most since the end of 2015.

Washington has urged the European Union to join the sanctions, arguing that they would help advance negotiations on a handover of power to opposition leader Juan Guaido, who assumed a rival interim presidency in January.

Guaido, who said Maduro’s 2018 re-election was illegitimate, has the support of most Western nations as well as Washington. Maduro calls him a U.S. puppet.

Bachelet called for more details from Venezuela’s Public Ministry on what she said it had told her were the convictions of 104 members of the security forces for human rights violations between August 2017 and May 2019.

Despite her recommendations to dissolve the FAES and prevent extrajudicial executions, this was not being done, she said: “On the contrary, the FAES have received support from the highest level of Government.”.

Some Latin American countries and activists are urging the Geneva forum, whose 47 members include Venezuela, to establish a U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Venezuela at the three-week session.

Bachelet, who visited Venezuela in June, said 83 opposition members were freed around that time, but the cases of 27 other detainees were still pending and Judge Lourdes Afiuni and journalist Braulio Jatar, conditionally released in early July, had not yet received unconditional freedom.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

U.S. opens Venezuelan diplomatic office in Colombian capital

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Charge d'Affaires for Venezuela James Story, speaks during an interview with Reuters in Bogota, Colombia April 12, 2019. Picture taken April 12, 2019. REUTERS/Julia Symmes Cobb

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department on Wednesday opened a representative office for Venezuela in Bogota, Colombia, and said it will continue its opposition to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and support for opposition leader Juan Guaido from there.

The Venezuela Affairs Unit (VAU) will be headed by James Story, the U.S. charge d’affaires to Venezuela, who was among the last American diplomats withdrawn from the U.S. embassy in Caracas in March as conditions deteriorated in the country.

“The VAU will continue to work for the restoration of democracy and the constitutional order in that country, and the security and well-being of the Venezuelan people,” the department said in a statement.

Washington has been trying to cut off money to Maduro’s government in an economic and diplomatic campaign aimed at pressuring the socialist leader to step down.

The United States and most Western nations support Guaido, the president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, as the country’s legitimate president. Maduro has accused Guaido of mounting a U.S.-directed coup attempt earlier this year.

In Caracas on Wednesday, Guaido announced the appointment of four new ministers for foreign relations, economic affairs, asset protection and human rights. The majority of them are out of the country due to legal measures from Maduro’s government.

FILE PHOTO: A man holds vegetables after he scavenges for food in a rubbish bin in Caracas, Venezuela February 27, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: A man holds vegetables after he scavenges for food in a rubbish bin in Caracas, Venezuela February 27, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso/File Photo

Leopoldo López, founder and leader of Guaido’s Volutad Popular political party, will be coordinating the new ministers. López has been in the residence of the Spanish ambassador in Caracas since May after ending his house arrest.

The new team is intended “to address the complex humanitarian emergency … and, of course, to prepare for the transition of government,” Guaido said.

More than 1.4 million Venezuelans have migrated to Colombia in recent years, fleeing the deep political and economic crisis that has caused long-running shortages of food and medicines.

Colombia has borne the brunt of mass migration from its neighbor.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by David Gregorio and Paul Simao)

In Venezuela talks, Maduro allies said they would consider fresh elections: sources

FILE PHOTO: Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, who many nations have recognised as the country's rightful interim ruler, attends a session of Venezuela's National Assembly in Caracas, Venezuela August 13, 2019. REUTERS/Manaure Quintero/File Photo

By Mayela Armas and Corina Pons

CARACAS (Reuters) – Allies of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro had discussed holding a presidential election in the coming months during talks to find a breakthrough in the country’s political crisis, four sources told Reuters on Monday.

Opposition politicians will travel to Washington to speak to U.S. officials this week, the sources said.

Maduro and a delegation representing opposition leader Juan Guaido have been meeting in Barbados as part of talks to resolve a political stalemate in the struggling OPEC nation that is suffering from a hyperinflationary economic collapse.

Guaido’s delegation had proposed a presidential vote in six to nine months on a number of conditions including changes to the elections council and supreme court, said the sources, who asked not to be identified because the talks are confidential.

The government had, in theory, agreed to a presidential vote on the condition that the United States lift economic sanctions, Maduro be allowed to run as the Socialist Party candidate, and that the vote be held in a year, one of the sources said.

However, the government has since pulled out of the talks to protest a new round of sanctions by Washington, and no new date has been set to resume the discussions, despite a visit by Norway foreign ministry officials – acting as mediators – seeking to revive them.

U.S. officials have expressed support for an election but without Maduro as a candidate, which may be a point of discussion, two of the sources said.

Venezuela’s information ministry, Norway’s foreign ministry and the U.S. State Department did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

Preparing the groundwork for an election requires a raft of changes to state institutions, including both the elections council and the supreme court – both of which have aggressively intervened in election processes to favor Maduro.

Another possible roadblock would be the existence of the Constituent Assembly, an all-powerful legislative body controlled by Socialist Party supporters that opposition leaders say could also intervene in any potential vote.

(Reporting by Mayela Armas and Corina Pons in Caracas; additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton in Washington; Writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

Trump freezes all Venezuelan government assets in bid to pressure Maduro

FILE PHOTO: Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro speaks during a ceremony to commemorate the Bicentennial of the Battle in the Vargas Swamp at the National Pantheon in Caracas, Venezuela July 25, 2019. Miraflores Palace/Handout via REUTERS

By Matt Spetalnick and Roberta Rampton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a freeze on all Venezuelan government assets in the United States on Monday, sharply escalating an economic and diplomatic pressure campaign aimed at removing socialist President Nicolas Maduro from power.

The executive order signed by Trump goes well beyond the sanctions imposed in recent months against Venezuela’s state-run oil company PDVSA and the country’s financial sector, as well as measures against dozens of Venezuelan officials and entities.

Trump’s action, the toughest yet against Maduro, not only bans U.S. companies from dealings with the Venezuela government but also appears to open the door to possible sanctions against foreign firms or individuals that assist it.

Russian and Chinese companies are among those still doing significant business in the South American OPEC nation.

“All property and interests in property of the Government of Venezuela that are in the United States … are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in,” according to the executive order released by the White House.

The scope of the announcement came as a surprise even to some Trump administration allies. “This is big,” said Ana Quintana, senior policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank.

Quintana said it appeared the order would be a sweeping embargo on doing business with Venezuela, although she was awaiting further details.

Venezuela’s Information Ministry did not respond immediately to a request to comment.

The United States and most Western nations have called for Maduro to step down and have recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country’s legitimate president.

Guaido, accused by Maduro of mounting a U.S.-directed coup attempt, appointed a board for Citgo Petroleum, Venezuela’s most important foreign asset, earlier this year.

DRAMATIC ACTION

Trump said on Thursday he was considering a quarantine or blockade of Venezuela, although he did not elaborate at the time on when or how such a blockade would be imposed.

He is taking more dramatic action after numerous rounds of sanctions failed to turn Venezuela’s military against Maduro or make significant progress in dislodging him.

U.S. officials have long said they had other weapons in their economic arsenal, even as they privately expressed frustration that European partners and others had not taken stronger steps and that the months-long pressure campaign had not made more headway.

Trump said in a letter to Congress the freezing of assets was necessary “in light of the continued usurpation of power by the illegitimate Nicolas Maduro regime, as well as the regime’s human rights abuses, arbitrary arrest and detention of Venezuelan citizens, curtailment of free press, and ongoing attempts to undermine Interim President Juan Guaido.”

His executive order also threatened sanctions against anyone assisting Maduro or his loyalists, suggesting that Washington could resort to so-called secondary sanctions against third-country companies and individuals.

Fernando Cutz, a former top Trump adviser on Latin America, said the executive order could be applied to non-U.S. firms and entities, limiting their ability to do business with Venezuela if they wanted to continue to deal with U.S. companies or banks.

China and Russia continue to trade oil with Venezuela. The move could escalate tensions with China, already inflamed by a tit-for-tat trade war, said Cutz, now a senior associate with the Cohen Group, a consulting firm.

China and Russia – together with Cuba – have continued to back Maduro, prompting U.S. national security adviser John Bolton to warn Beijing and Moscow on Monday against doubling down in their support for him.

Bolton is slated to give a speech on Tuesday morning at a gathering of more than 50 countries in Lima, Peru, that would outline a planned U.S. initiative to lead to a peaceful transfer of power in Venezuela.

Moscow and Beijing turned down invitations to attend.

A White House official declined to comment on the implications of the order for foreign companies doing business in Venezuela, where an economic crisis has driven more than 3 million people to emigrate, fleeing hyperinflation and shortages of food and medicine.

Trump’s order allows exceptions for the delivery of food, medicine and clothing “intended to be used to relieve human suffering.”

(Reporting by Makini Brice, Eric Beech, Matt Spetalnick, Roberta Rampton and Lesley Wroughton; Additional reporting by Angus Berwick in CARACAS; Editing by Sandra Maler and Paul Tait)