Two Americans, including one of the six former directors of the Citgo oil company, arrived in the United States on Wednesday after being released from prison in Venezuela, days after a meeting of a Washington delegation with President Nicolás Maduro.
The Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken, confirmed that Gustavo Cárdenas and Jorge Alberto Fernández arrived in the country and described it as an “important positive step” but insisted that “all US citizens unjustly detained in Venezuela and throughout the world”.
Cárdenas, former Vice President of Strategic Relations of Citgo, a subsidiary of the state-owned PDVSA in the United States, was arrested in 2017 and the Cuban-American Fernández in early 2021, in the state of Táchira (border with Colombia), on charges of “terrorism” .
Four U.S. Citgo employees and one permanent resident remain in Venezuelan prisons, as well as three former Marines.
US President Joe Biden had claimed on Tuesday that Cárdenas and Fernández were “wrongly detained.”
According to the NGO Coalition for Human Rights and Democracy, Fernández was arrested and accused of being a terrorist “simply for carrying a drone.” He affirms that he was doing tourism in Venezuela and that he was intercepted by the military at a checkpoint.
– Meeting in Caracas –
The releases come after Maduro received a delegation from the Biden government in Caracas over the weekend.
Among the topics discussed at the meeting were “energy and energy security,” said White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki, who added that the energy dialogue and the situation of the detainees were “separate conversations.”
On Tuesday Biden decreed an embargo on imports of Russian oil and derivatives into the United States as part of a cascade of sanctions on Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine.
The meeting in Caracas marked a turn in bilateral relations, broken in 2019 after the White House considered Maduro’s re-election the previous year to be fraudulent. Since then, the United States, like more than 50 countries, has recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as interim president.
As a result of these elections, Venezuela is under a battery of sanctions, including an oil embargo that prevents it from trading crude oil (which represented 96% of the country’s income) in the US market. Since then, Maduro has had the support of Russia to be able to continue exporting oil.
And the US Justice Department has charged Maduro with drug trafficking and even offered a $15 million reward for information leading to his capture.
– “Transition to democracy” –
The Venezuelan opposition asked to condition any energy agreement to a democratization of the country because it believes that Maduro is leading a “dictatorship accused of crimes against humanity.”
“Any lifting of sanctions must be conditional on real progress towards Venezuela’s transition to democracy and freedom,” Juan Guaidó’s office wrote.
His diplomatic representative in Washington, Carlos Vecchio, assured that “the dictatorships kidnap national and international citizens to later use them as tokens of exchange and blackmail.”
On Monday Maduro announced the reactivation “with great force” of a process of dialogue in Mexico with the opposition paralyzed five months ago. Psaki called it this Wednesday an “encouraging sign.”
At the moment, the conditions under which Cárdenas and Fernández were released are unknown, whether they are released from charge or whether they were released under judicial measures.
His release “would not have happened without months of tireless work by diplomats,” including Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Issues Roger Carstens, the White House spokeswoman said, adding that the United States will continue to discuss “a variety of issues that include, first and foremost, Americans wrongfully held.
On February 4, the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) -the highest court in Venezuela- had ratified the sentences against the Citgo 6.
The TSJ confirmed the sentence of 13 years and seven months in prison and a fine of two million dollars against José Ángel Pereira Ruimwyk, former president of the Citgo company; as well as the sentences of eight years and 10 months in prison against Tomeu Vadell, Jorge Luis Toledo, José Luis Zambrano, Alirio Zambrano and the now released Cárdenas.
The United States has also demanded the release of former marine Matthew Heath, arrested in September 2020 and prosecuted for “terrorism”, accused of being a spy and plotting alleged plans to attack oil and electrical installations; as well as two other military veterans, Airan Berry and Luke Denman, arrested for a failed sea raid to overthrow Maduro in May 2020.
