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Half a hundred Venezuelans living abroad requested in a letter to President Biden and other authorities new sanctions and the continuity of criminal investigations of figures of the Venezuelan regime, and stressed that these measures “benefit ordinary Venezuelans.”
They also requested the release of political prisoners and the holding of “free and fair” presidential elections, as well as support from the U.S. Government for the investigative work of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Venezuela.
The letter, dated April 21, 2022, is signed by more than 50 “decent and morally powerful” Venezuelan citizens residing in the United States, Spain, and other European countries, and takes a stand against those campaigning for the withdrawal of sanctions on the grounds that they harm the people.
Venezuela’s crisis is not due to sanctions
The signatories of the letter clarify to the addressees that the genesis of the “serious economic and structural crisis” suffered by Venezuela is “unrelated to and prior to the sanctions” imposed by the United States on members of the Chavista regime.
They allege that the crisis which has meant for Venezuelans “unspeakable hardships and humiliations under what can be defined as a continued genocide” and has caused the exodus of millions of people, is due in the first place to the “erroneous” economic and monetary policies implemented “under the advice” of Cuba.
It is also due to the systematic destruction of the country’s productive apparatus and the business sector, the dismantling of the Rule of Law and the crumbling of Legal Security, and the unprecedented corruption in the history of the Republic, says the letter, which sets out each of these aspects in detail.
The signatories emphasize that the U.S. sanctions, far from being the cause of the crisis, “rather put a brake on the suffering of the Venezuelan people,” as they have helped to “shut down the regime’s financing of criminal activities.”
They also underline that the regime of Nicolás Maduro is allied with Russia, Iran, Cuba, Nicaragua, and China, and with the drug cartels of Colombia, Bolivia, and Mexico, and with “terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, the ELN, and the FARC.”
“This international criminal alliance represents a National Security risk for the United States without question,” they add.
