CANADA TARGETS MADURO REGIME.
Maduro’s wife on list in move to pressure regime
OTTAWA • Canada imposed new sanctions on Venezuela Wednesday after a new report on the regime of Nicolas Maduro accused the country’s leaders of murders, extra-judicial executions, torture and other human rights abuses.
The new sanctions on 14 Venezuelan individuals connected to the Maduro regime, including first lady Cilia Flores, are part of a broader effort by countries such as the U.S. to bring his government to heel.
“Nobody could do worse” at governing Venezuela, said Luis Almagro, the secretarygeneral of the Organization of American States, which is calling for the downfall of the Maduro regime.
Canada was the first country to welcome the recommendations from a panel of legal experts convened by the OAS, which over the past few months studied human rights abuses in Venezuela.
After hearing from victims, witnesses and experts on human rights crimes, the OAS panel found Maduro responsible for dozens of murders, thousands of extra-judicial executions, more than 12,000 cases of arbitrary detentions, more than 290 cases of torture, attacks against the judiciary and a “state-sanctioned humanitarian crisis” affecting hundreds of thousands of people, said former Liberal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler, who was on the OAS panel.
One country now needs to sponsor the report — which would trigger a formal investigation by the International Criminal Court. An indictment by the ICC would put Maduro’s government on a par with regimes including Omar al-Bashir’s in Sudan and Libya’s late Moammar Gadhafi.
“I would like to see the states from the G7 agreeing to refer the matter of crimes against humanity to the International Criminal Court for a prospective investigation and prosecution,” said Cotler.
Almagro said Maduro and his allies are increasingly sealed off from the day-today economic and humanitarian plight of the country, which has been wracked by hyperinflation, shortages of food and other basic goods as well as the decline of Venezuela’s oil industry. Top regime officials now depend more on income from illicit activities, such as drug smuggling, than legal ones, he added.
“We have a persistent and pervasive culture of impunity finding expression in a massive assault on the rule of law. There is no independent judiciary. There is no independent prosecutors. There is no independent justice system. This is the arch-typical example of why a reference is needed, as to why the ICC was created,” Cotler said.
“The testimony that we heard in our public hearings, of the graphic examples of torture and rape and imprisonment, and then the humanitarian crisis — we can’t forget that behind all these findings of fact and conclusions of law are suffering human beings. They need justice. They need relief. And this is a way to bring that remedy and hopefully that sense of justice not only for them but for the international community as a whole.”
Global Affairs Canada said on Wednesday that the new sanctions come in response to “illegitimate and antidemocratic” presidential elections held in Venezuela on May 20. Canada has now brought sanctions against 106 people.
Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland stopped short of announcing that Canada would ask for a formal investigation at the ICC. The court had already opened a preliminary examination in February, and Freeland said the report “will provide valuable information” to support it.
“We are appalled, though not surprised, by the evidence the panel found supporting the allegation that crimes against humanity have been committed in Venezuela . ... It is because of the Maduro regime’s ongoing abuse of its people and attacks on democracy that Canada has taken a series of punitive actions, including imposing targeted sanctions,” Freeland said in a statement.
The crisis is one of the few issues on which G7 leaders agree and on which the leaders have issued a joint statement ahead of the summit next week in Charlevoix, Que., which will feature the leaders of Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.
Leaders jointly rejected the presidential elections last week, saying that Maduro was trying to solidify an “authoritarian grip” amid the suffering of his people.
Almagro said if the government does fall, its successor will have to work hard to rebuild the oil industry, which has long been the linchpin of the country’s economy.