Venezuela’s political crisis grows more explosive

Venezuela's political crisis grows more explosive
BY ROGER NORIEGA RFN@VISIONAMERICAS.COM
02/04/2015 5:44 PM 02/04/2015 5:44 PM

As Venezuela drifts toward repression, the Obama administration has
failed to "name and shame" human-rights violators, as mandated by
Congress last December. Robust U.S. action is more critical than ever,
as authorities in Caracas last week approved the use of deadly force
against Venezuelans protesting food shortages and fresh revelations on
the criminality of regime leaders.

Career diplomats managing Venezuela policy fiercely resisted Congress'
call for sanctions against individuals using violence to quell
student-led demonstrations last spring — giving regime gangs time to
crush the unrest, leaving 44 dead, hundreds jailed and thousands injured.

In the midst of the crackdown last March, Assistant Secretary of State
Roberta Jacobson told a U.S. Senate hearing that opposition leaders
opposed human-rights sanctions against the regime — an assertion she was
forced to recant within days.

In an effort to forestall Congressional action last July, the
administration revoked the visas of an undisclosed number of Venezuelan
government leaders and security officials.

The State Department adopted a similar half-measure on Monday, failing
to identify the people whose U.S. visas were revoked.

Despite administration objections, a bipartisan group in Congress
continued to press for a more effective U.S. response. A new law
authored by then-Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Robert
Menendez, D-N.J., requires the president to do more than revoke the
visas of those complicit in violent repression or the arrest of
political opponent. He must also block the assets of these abusers and,
pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA),
publish the names of the those sanctioned.

Six weeks after this mandate became law, the president has failed to
issue a declaration under the IEEPA statute declaring an "emergency"
with respect to Venezuela. That would be the initial step required to
freeze assets pursuant to the Menendez legislation. In contrast, the
Treasury Department moved quickly to publish new regulations relaxing
transactions and travel under the president's new Cuba initiative,
announced on Dec. 17.

By delaying implementation of this human-rights mandate, the State
Department is turning a blind eye to the regime's brazen plans to rout
any new protests. Last Thursday, Venezuela's Minister of Defense
Vladimir Padrino Lopez published a decree authorizing the "use of
potentially deadly force … to prevent disorder."

The last time regime leaders overtly defied Venezuela's explicit
constitutional prohibition (Article 68) of the "use of firearms" to
"control peaceful demonstrations," the military rebelled against the
order, leading to the temporary ouster of Hugo Chávez.

The State Department has notoriously downplayed the regime's criminal
record, which undermines its attempts at rapprochement. On two
occasions, either through sheer incompetence or worse, U.S. diplomats
let major suspected cocaine kingpins wanted on U.S. federal charges
escape justice.

The political crisis in Venezuela has grown more explosive in recent
days, because of compelling allegations of drug trafficking against
National Assembly president Diosdado Cabello being leveled by Chávez's
long-time security chief Leamsy Salazar. A respected navy captain well
known to the military establishment and Chavista leaders, Salazar
defected to the United States last week to cooperate with U.S. prosecutors.

Sources familiar with the thinking of military leaders in Venezuela
report a growing reluctance in their ranks to use force against civilian
protesters to buy more time for Maduro's incompetent regime. If
Washington were to publicly sanction known human-rights violators, it
might prevent Venezuela's slide toward bloody repression.

Roger Noriega was U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States
and assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs in the
administration of President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005.

Source: Venezuela's political crisis grows more explosive | The Miami
Herald The Miami Herald -
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article9298985.html