US congressmen, Republican and Democrat, have urged the administration of President Joe Biden to reimpose sanctions on Venezuela if the Nicolas Maduro regime does not recognize the overwhelming victory of the opposition in elections held on July 28, in which opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia would have won by up to 30 percentage points, according to voting records representing two-thirds of the votes counted, revealed by opposition leader Maria Corina Machado.
Venezuela’s Maduro-controlled National Electoral Council (CNE) announced a regime victory at midnight on Sunday with an apparently fabricated majority of 51%.
At the time of this report, the CNE had not published any results from the voting tables and its website was interrupted, while massive protests have continued to erupt in Caracas and other cities, which the regime is trying to stop with hundreds of arrests and other repressive measures. They have accused Machado of “hacking” the CNE system and announced an arrest warrant for her.
Fed up with brutality
“The people of Venezuela are fed up with the brutality of the regime,” said Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott in an exclusive interview with THE AMERICAS DAILY“The people of Venezuela have spoken out and spoken out strongly, telling the world that they do not want another day of Maduro trying to steal the election. The Biden administration has to do something. They helped Maduro with a policy of appeasement and relaxation of sanctions and now they have to lead the international community to force Maduro from power. Secretary of State Blinken, President Biden, Vice President Harris have to denounce Maduro for what he has done and impose sanctions,” Scott said.
Re-impose sanctions
Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Western Hemisphere subcommittee, along with other Democratic senators called for the reimposition of sanctions months ago, when Maduro disqualified Corina Machado’s presidential candidacy in clear violation of agreements reached with the Biden administration. “As Machado’s absurd disqualification clearly violates the Barbados agreement, the United States must reimpose sanctions related to the agreement until a fair election is assured,” Kaine said in a joint statement with Sen. Dick Durbin, which they published on January 29.
Apparently ignoring the requests of the most prominent congressmen of his own party, the Biden administration allowed Maduro to continue selling oil in Asian and European markets, specifically China, India and Spain, whose oil company Repsol had closed its activities in Venezuela as a result of the sanctions imposed by the previous Republican administration of Donald Trump. Some $20 billion raised by the regime, thanks to the relaxation of sanctions, has allowed it to secure the support of its military, whose high command endorsed Maduro’s false electoral victory, according to the statement of Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López on the morning of Tuesday, July 30, who defined the opposition’s attitude as a “coup.”
EThe US has been weak
“The Biden administration has been weak,” Scott said during the interview with this newspaper. “They have to act like the leaders of the free world. They have to do their job. The fight for freedom in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua is important. I appreciate what Argentina and Chile have done,” whose governments were the first to denounce Maduro’s fraud, followed by Peru, Uruguay, Ecuador, Panama, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Paraguay and the Dominican Republic, whose leaders have requested an emergency session of the OAS to analyze the issue of Venezuela.
However, on Wednesday, July 31, a meeting of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States rejected a resolution demanding transparency from the Venezuelan government regarding the disputed elections on Sunday, as the government failed to achieve an absolute majority of member states.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration is limiting its reaction to soft and inconclusive pronouncements. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has expressed “serious concerns about whether the results announced (by the CNE) reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people.”
President Biden has not spoken directly and his vice president Kamala Harris, who is now a candidate for the US presidency in the November elections, expresses a neutral position: “the will of the Venezuelan people must be respected. Despite the challenges, we will continue working towards a more democratic, free and prosperous future for Venezuela.”
Senator Scott says he fears for the lives of opposition leaders. “We have to protect the life of Edmundo Gonzalez, we have to protect the life of Maria Corina Machado and the only way to do this is by denouncing Maduro for what he has done. There is a lot of fear in Venezuela that it could end up like Cuba where anyone who stands up to the regime ends up in prison or tortured. The Biden administration has to assume its role as leader of the free world and recognize Edmundo Gonzalez as the legitimately elected president of Venezuela,” Scott said.
Persecution of witnesses
Opposition leaders fear that the regime is launching a persecution of electoral witnesses who managed to obtain 73% of the voting records delivered to Machado. “There are orders to go after the witnesses” according to Delsa Solorzano, the opposition’s main witness before the CNE. Several already say they are under threat and according to sources from the National Guard, possible unofficial kidnappings may be planned, using prison gangs such as the Tren de Aragua, in an operation called “Tun Tun sin lloraradera” that foresees “family visits” to the witnesses’ residences.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has not taken a clear position either, and there is little certainty that the two Latin American powers will admit Maduro’s loss if the CNE does not confirm the real data already in the hands of the opposition and international observers such as the Carter Center of the United States.
While Venezuelans were awaiting a press conference by CNE president Elvis Amoroso on Wednesday afternoon, Maduro appeared on television threatening to deepen the repression: “We want to continue the path that Chavez forged. But if American imperialism and fascism force us, I will not hesitate to call the people to a new revolution with other characteristics.”
“Things are going to end horribly for Venezuela if Maduro does not step down, which can only happen if the entire international community asks him to,” Scott warned. Midweek, Colombia’s leftist president Gustavo Petro, until now considered an ally of Maduro, joined international demands for electoral transparency, warning of a possible civil war in Venezuela. “The serious doubts that are growing about the Venezuelan electoral process could lead its people to a deep violent polarization with serious consequences of permanent division,” he said.
State Department sources say they are preparing sanctions packages that could be proposed for immediate application, targeting Amoroso and other CNE leaders. “We have to make sure that Maduro and his thugs don’t have visas to come to the U.S. and that Europe does the same. They want to keep coming to places like Miami and doing business with democratic countries. If they can’t do that anymore, with the reimposition of sanctions, we can win.”