President Trump’s administration is imposing sanctions on four Venezuelan governors involved in barring humanitarian aid from the country, the Treasury Department announced Monday. All four are supporters of Nicolas Maduro, the dictator clinging to power after dozens of countries declared opposition leader Juan Guaido Venezuela’s interim president.
“The illegitimate Maduro regime’s attempts to blockade international aid intended for the Venezuelan people are shameful,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Monday. “Treasury is targeting four state governors aligned with former President Maduro for standing in the way of severely needed humanitarian assistance and prolonging the suffering of the Venezuelan people.”
A dramatic U.S.-led effort over the weekend to deliver aid from the Colombian and Brazilian borders turned deadly after Maduro loyalists, refusing to let aid convoys enter, attacked protesters. Two people died and several hundred were injured.
One of the four regional leaders sanctioned Monday is Omar Jose Prieto Fernandez, governor of a state on the Colombian border. “Prieto threatened to visit the homes of opposition leaders who permitted access to humanitarian aid in Venezuela,” Treasury said. “Prieto recently threatened to declare Venezuela’s ‘oil state’ of Zulia independent should a new transition government take power in Venezuela.”
“The United States fully supports the efforts of Interim President Juan Guaido to address the endemic corruption, human rights abuses, and violent repression that has become the hallmark of the illegitimate Maduro regime, and looks forward to the restoration of a democratically elected government for the people of Venezuela,” Mnuchin said.
The announcement coincides with Vice President Mike Pence’s trip to Colombia for a meeting of the Lima Group, a bloc of Western hemisphere nations that are backing Guaido.
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“Essentially the vice president is going with an open script,” a senior administration official told reporters on Friday. “He has the carrot, but he’s also ready with the sticks for those that promote or execute violence to ensure that we have proper measures, proper sanctions that will be announced not only by the United States but by the rest of the region’s democracies.”
The Treasury Department signaled Monday that the goal of sanctions is to punish bad behavior but also encourage defections by stressing the ways in which officials can work their way off the list.
“U.S. sanctions need not be permanent; sanctions are intended to bring about a positive change of behavior,” the bulletin emphasized. “The United States has made clear that the removal of sanctions is available for persons … who take concrete and meaningful actions to restore democratic order, refuse to take part in human rights abuses, speak out against abuses committed by the former Maduro regime, and combat corruption in Venezuela.”
