Friday, December 12, 2014 The US is poised to impose sanctions on Venezuela over the sometimes-violent suppression of anti-government protests which racked the country earlier this year. The US Congress passed a bill this week to punish officials involved in the February-to-May clashes, which resulted in 43 deaths, including victims on both sides of the divide. White House aides said Barack Obama – who had been hesitant to take action during the height of the unrest – was now ready to sign the bill into law. “We have not and will not remain silent in the face of Venezuelan government actions that violate human rights and fundamental freedoms and deviate from well-established democratic norms,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, told a news conference on Thursday. The bill will deny visas and freeze the US assets of current and former Venezuelan officials who ordered “significant acts of violence or serious human rights abuses against persons associated with the anti-government protests”. The Cuban-American sponsor of the bill, Democratic senator Robert Menendez, said the sanctions sent an “unequivocal message” to the Venezuelan government. Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro responded with defiance, describing the proposed US measure as insolent. “They can stick the sanctions in their ears or wherever else they’ll fit,” he said in a televised speech. “If the crazy path of sanctions is imposed, President Obama, I think you’re going to come out looking very bad.” Venezuela and the US have a recent history of mutual antagonism. The US has previously imposed limited trade restrictions, and the Venezuelan government has on several occasions expelled US diplomats accused of spying or working to instigate unrest. The two nations have not had full ambassadorial relations since 2010. Right-wing US congressmen would like to destabilise Maduro, who has had a rocky couple of years as president since taking over after the death of Hugo Chávez. Venezuela’s economy is suffering from high inflation, a fall in global oil prices and a black market for basic goods that are scarce on the shelves. Frustration at this – and heavy-handed police crackdowns – boiled over into street violence on 4 February. Deadly clashes between police, pro-government militias and protesters continued for months, instigated by opposition leader Leopold López, who urged his supporters to struggle for La Salida (The Exit) – a campaign to unseat the president through protests. López was arrested after handing himself into the authorities. Last week, another prominent opposition figure, Maria Corina Machado, learned that she was being charged with conspiracy in connection with an alleged plot to kill Maduro. The vast majority of those killed were on the anti-government side. Human Rights Watch said the violence was part of a “systematic practice by Venezuela’s security forces”. Although the latest US move is not intended to have an impact on bilateral trade, Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, said it would show that Washington means business when it comes to democracy and human rights. But he said the impact would be limited and did not expect the bill to herald more hawkish action by the new Congress. “I doubt the Republican-controlled Congress will move to destabilize the government in Caracas. That would be costly and set back US Latin American policy. One hopes by this time some basic lessons have been learned. On the US foreign policy agenda, Venezuela is of relatively minor concern.” Other analysts, however, were wary of increasing belligerence. “With the Republicans in control of both houses of Congress, it should not surprise if there will be more measures to tighten the screws on the Maduro government in the coming years,” said David Smilde, of the human rights advocacy group Washington Office on Latin America. Mark Weisbrot, director of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, said the sanctions would simply serve as an annoyance that further weakens US credibility among its American neighbours. “Of course it has absolutely nothing to do with human rights, as everyone knows,” he said, predicting the move will be denounced by regional organisations. “Ironically, it comes at a time when almost everyone sees that more than half a century of sanctions against Cuba have failed, and the Obama administration has worse relations with Latin America than any previous administrationincluding Bush, and is even more isolated than ever before on Cuba.”
Posted on: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 11:19:50 +0000
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