What Happened Last Week in Venezuela? đ§ The Gold Sanction Was Reactivated
Sanctions are back, the DEA sent informants to Venezuela and the country is on fire.
Sanctions are back
After the ratification of her ban from running for office by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ), the opposition presidential candidate MarĂa Corina Machado âsurrounded by members of other opposition partiesâ said: âNicolĂĄs Maduro is not going to choose the people's candidate (âŠ) The substitute candidate is the plan of those who do not want change (âŠ) what the TSJ decided on Friday is not a ruling, but judicial delinquency.â
Subsequently, Jorge RodrĂguez, Chavismo's chief negotiator, showed a statement from the representative of Norway âthe country mediating the negotiation processâ Dag Nylander in which he asked the delegations to establish the commission for verification and monitoring of the Barbados Agreements. âWe are ready,â RodrĂguez said, âWe are going to make a new attempt to uphold and maintain the tenets of the Barbados Agreement, despite how attacked it has been.â
Subsequently, perhaps motivating RodrĂguez's change of tone, the United States reimposed the sanction on the state gold company Minerven. Subsequently, the US State Department said that if there is no progress between the Maduro government and the Unitary Platform, particularly in terms of allowing all candidates to participate in the presidential elections, the United States will not renew the very broad license on oil and gas when it expires on April 18: effectively reinstalling the sanctions regime. It is unknown whether the licenses for Chevron, Halliburton, Eni, Repsol and other companies would also be renewed. These are due in May, June, and July.
Vice President Delcy RodrĂguez responded that if the measure are implemented in April, the flights to return illegal migrants that was agreed by the US and Venezuela âwould be revokedâ and âany cooperation mechanism would be reviewed.â The response was criticized by human rights groups and activists as an âinstrumentalizationâ of Venezuelan migrants. Maduro, like Jorge RodrĂguez, said that Machado's disqualification was already "final."
Machado, after his disqualification, received the support of several countries in Latin America, Europe, and Japan. The presidents of Brazil and Colombia did not speak out, despite pressure from local politicians and congressmen.
On Monday, Jorge RodrĂguez will meet with âpre-candidatesâ to define the date of the presidential elections. It is presumed that these pre-candidates are those announced by loyal or co-opted opposition forces, a strategy that the government uses to fragment the opposition vote. Recently, for example, the evangelical pastor Javier Bertucci joined â along with JosĂ© Brito, Luis Ratti, BenjamĂn Rausseo, Juan Carlos Alvarado, Luis Eduardo MartĂnez, Antonio Ecarri and even a former GlobovisiĂłn journalistâ the list of candidates who declined to participate in the opposition's open primaries and announced candidacies parallel to that of Machado and the Unitary Platform.
No country for human rights
SEBIN officials arrested a man, whom they accuse of âinstigating hatredâ, for two tweets he sent to one of the players of Tiburones de La Guaira: the baseball team that, for the first time since 1987, won the Venezuelan League of Professional Baseball. Also, the Venezuelan Prison Observatory (OVP) denounced that four political prisoners, imprisoned in the Yare II Penitentiary Center, were âbrutallyâ beaten on orders from the guard Geomar Cabrera , known as âEl Federalâ, who apparently became enraged after an argument because one of the prisoners refused to continue being extorted.
On the other hand, the Madres Poderosas group âmade up of mothers of victims of extrajudicial executionsâ said that they achieved âthe conviction of one of the police officials who murdered our children" (...) This decision should be the beginning of a new phase fighting".
Climate emergency
Venezuela is, literally, on fire. In the last week, specialists explain, heat points surpassed historical records â especially in western Venezuela. According to the hydrometereologist engineer Alfredo Gil, "from January 1 to 29, 9,113 outbreaks were detected in Venezuela (...) all states are above the average, except FalcĂłn, Miranda and the Capital District."
Meanwhile, after fifteen weeks, PDVSA still has not controlled three spills in the Golfete de Coro.
Scarface
According to a document obtained by the Associated Press, in 2018 the DEA sent at least three informants clandestinely to Venezuela to register and build a case against a dozen Venezuelan officials, including Maduro, even though the plan âcalled Operation Money Badgerâ could be a violation of international law. âIt is necessary to conduct an operation unilaterally and without notifying Venezuelan officials,â the document says. The operation recruited a man accused of diverting $800 million through the exchange control system to obtain evidence against JosĂ© Vielma Mora and Luis Motta, who have held high positions in the government. Since 2020, the State Department has offered million-dollar rewards for information leading to the arrest of Maduro and other Venezuelan leaders on charges of ânarcoterrorismâ and âdrug trafficking.â
Recommendations
A first effect of the Esequibo referendum: more than 20,000 Venezuelan migrants in Guyana are being posed as a threat and a Trojan horse by the Guyanese media and political sphere. Sebastiån André writes about it for Caracas Chronicles.
âRodrĂguez took advantage of that platform to announce the issuance of new CANTV shares and the interest in oil joint ventures opening their capital to the stock market. On the other hand, members of the brokerage firms emphasize the good relationship maintained with the National Securities Superintendency.â Pedro Pablo Peñaloza wrote about the takeover of the Caracas Stock Exchange by the Anonymous Optimists, a group of old-guard businessmen who have developed ties with Madurismo to push its perestroika.