One of the conditions that Chavismo establishes to sit down at the negotiating table with the opposition is that the international community withdraw its sanctions.
The European Union (EU) extended for another year a series of individual sanctions applied against 17 people linked to the government of Nicolás Maduro, arguing that these officials undermine democracy, the rule of law and human rights.
The Execution Regulation extends until November 2023 the measures against all the people on the list in the regulation related to “restrictive measures given the situation in Venezuela”, published on November 13, 2017.
The list is made up of important figures in the Chavista government, such as Remigio Ceballos Ichaso, Minister of the Interior and Justice of Venezuela; Tibisay Lucena, Minister of University Education and former president of the National Electoral Council (CNE); Freddy Bernal, governor of the state of Táchira; Maikel Moreno, magistrate of the Criminal Cassation Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of Venezuela (TSJ); Alexis Escalona, Head of the National Office Against Organized Crime and Terrorist Financing (Ondoft); Gladys Requena, General Inspector of Courts.
In the background, names such as Omar Fernández, former governor of Zulia state; Lourdes Suárez, magistrate of the Constitutional Chamber of the TSJ; René Degravez, substitute magistrate of the Constitutional Chamber of the TSJ; Arcadio Rosales, former magistrate and former vice president of the Constitutional Chamber of the TSJ, and Carmen Zuleta, former magistrate of the Constitutional Chamber of the TSJ.
The list is completed by Indira Alzonzo, former magistrate of the Constitutional Chamber of the TSJ; Leonardo Morales, former vice president of the CNE; Tania D’Amelio, magistrate of the Constitutional Chamber of the TSJ; Jesús Vásquez, president of the Court Martial and of the Military Criminal Judicial Circuit, Manuel Pérez, former deputy minister of Interior Relations and Justice, and Juan Mendoza, former second vice president of the TSJ.
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The EU relies on the fact that these officials have “supported and facilitated the actions and policies of the Government that have undermined democracy and the rule of law in Venezuela” to issue their sanctions and extend them for five years.
This renewal occurred while in Venezuela the ground is being prepared to resume dialogue between Chavismo and the opposition. This same Friday, the president of the National Assembly (AN) elected in 2020, Jorge Rodríguez, and the opposition representative for rapprochement with the ruling party, Gerardo Blyde, held a meeting.
The meeting was held at the 5th Paris Forum for Peace, held in France, and was mediated by the Heads of State Gustavo Petro (Colombia), Emmanuel Macron (France) and Alberto Fernández (Argentina), with the presence of Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt.
One of the cornerstones of Chavism in these negotiations is the demand that the international community withdraw its sanctions. In Rodríguez’s words, “there can be no dialogue with a revolver to the head and Venezuela has 762 revolvers to its head, which are illegal sanctions.”
At the moment, the Maduro government has not commented on the extension of the sanctions, however, last year, when the EU announced the extension at the time, the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the measure, which it described as “an act of hostility”
Barely a month ago, the Commissioner for Crisis Management of the European Union, Janez Lenarcic, assured that the body was willing to review the sanctions applied to Venezuela as long as there were “democratic advances”, a discourse similar to the one maintained by the United States when affirming that the measures will persist until there are conditions for a process of free presidential elections.
*With information from VOA
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