US wants “like-minded” Latin nations to help ease tensions in Venezuela

As a group of regional leaders traveled to Caracas to discuss recent US sanctions against Venezuela, Congress in Washington was on Tuesday contemplating putting more pressure on President Nicolás Maduro’s government to ensure that “credible” legislative elections are held later this year.

A top-ranking US State Department official told members of the US Senate Foreign Relations Sub Committee on Latin America that the Obama administration remained “highly concerned” about the situation in Venezuela.

The sanctions imposed earlier this month through an executive order “help highlight unacceptable behavior” by Venezuelan authorities, said Alex Lee, deputy assistant US secretary for South America and Cuba.

The US sanctions “help highlight unacceptable behavior” by Venezuelan authorities, says official

On March 9, Obama signed the order accusing a group of top Venezuelan officials and a prosecutor of corruption and human rights violations. The sanctions imposed included freezing their assets in the United States and banning them from entering the country, as well as warning that other Venezuelans could be similarly targeted in the near future.

“We focused on seven very emblematic individuals who clearly had significant human rights violations or [were involved in] corruption. We were very confident to highlight that, and that message was clearly heard,” Lee said.

President Maduro went on the offensive by taking out a paid ad in Tuesday’s New York Times in which he condemned Washington’s “tyrannical” attempts to undermine his government.

“Never before in the history of our nations, has a president of the United States attempted to govern Venezuelans by decree,” he said in the ad, which also called on the Obama administration to immediately cease all hostile action against his government.

But it appears that Caracas’s demands to lift the sanctions against the individuals, including earlier executive orders targeting 53 Venezuelan officials and their families, will not be met soon.

US Senator Marco Rubio, the subcommittee chairman who is expected to seek the Republican presidential nomination, read out a list of Venezuelan officials who could be sanctioned, which included National Assembly speaker Diosdado Cabello.

But Lee said the best way to ease tensions between the United States and Venezuela was to convince “liked-minded” nations in Latin America “to use their influence” to help the Venezuelan opposition “broker a relationship with the Venezuelan government that would allow political space for a credible electoral outcome in the next National Assembly elections.”

The debate on Venezuela is expected to take center stage at next month’s Summit of the Americas

Venezuelans will go to the polls later this year to elect new members of the National Assembly, where Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and his allies hold a majority. Recent polls show that the opposition has a greater chance of winning a majority of seats this year.

Meanwhile, a group of heads of state and foreign ministers from the ALBA Bolivarian alliance of nations condemned the sanctions after holding a special meeting in Caracas with Maduro.

The ongoing debate on Venezuela is expected to take center stage at next month’s Summit of the Americas, which will be held in Panama. Both Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro have confirmed their attendance.