Venezuela News: US Push For Sanctions Gaining Speed In Congress

The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that a push for sanctions against Venezuela spearheaded by Sen. Marco Rubio and other Republican lawmakers from Florida is gaining speed in both chambers of Congress. Both versions of sanction legislation would allot $15 million in funding for democracy-promotion in Venezuela as well as rescind visas and freeze assets of Venezuelan officials who participated in abuses against opposition demonstrators. Rubio, who has delivered a number of scathing speeches on the Senate floor -- calling Venezuela’s national assembly president a “criminal” in one, and accusing the government of committing “atrocities” in another -- told the AP that even president Nicolás Maduro should not necessarily be exempt.

Also on Wednesday, Rubio published an op-ed in the Miami Herald accusing Maduro’s government of “barbaric repression” against protestors. “Now is the time for meaningful action to help the Venezuelan people hold accountable the Maduro regime’s murderers and thugs who are responsible for the violence. Now is the time to stand with the Venezuelan people and increase pressure on the Maduro regime,” he wrote. In an interview with the AP, he said the sanctions would send an important message to Venezuelan officials on the heels of a report from Human Rights Watch accusing the government of an “alarming pattern” of human rights violations.

The report, released on Monday after an investigation into 45 cases involving 110 alleged victims, found there was “strong evidence of serious human rights violations committed by Venezuelan security forces”, including 10 cases of possible torture. The motive was often political, the group concluded, calling the abuses “part of a systematic practice” of which members of the attorney general’s office and judiciary were complicit.