Rubio offers amnesty to Maduro loyalists for aid
Getting humanitarian aid into Venezuela is the top priority for lawmakers, but Nicolas Maduro’s military is blocking it.
So Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla., named six top military officials he said would receive amnesty from US sanctions and immunity from Venezuela’s opposition-controlled National Assembly if they allow aid to be distributed by non-governmental organisations in the country. Some of the six are already sanctioned by the US government for being part of Maduro’s inner circle and for leading ‘‘violence and repression’’ efforts against protesters, according to the Treasury Department.
‘‘In this particular case, the price of avoiding a bloodbath, or a civil war, or continual suffering, is having a handful of really bad people who stole a lot of money get to move somewhere else and live. That’s certainly preferable to a bloodbath,’’ Rubio said yesterday at a Heritage Foundation forum. ‘‘No-one is more idealistic about these things than I am, at least in Congress, but sometimes in the history of humanity you are forced to choose between two options and you have to take the one that is least bad.’’
Rubio, who has the president’s ear on Latin America policy, named six Venezuelan military officials who could help get aid into the country if they are willing to defy Maduro: General Vladimir Padrino, Maduro’s defence minister; Admiral Remigio Ceballos, admiral in chief of the armed forces; Major General Jesus Rafael Suarez Chourio; Admiral Giuseppe Alessandrello Cimadevilla, head of the navy; Major General Edgar Valentin Cruz Arteaga; and Major General Antonio Benavides Torres.
They are part of a group of Venezuelan military officials who have helped keep Maduro in power, though dozens of governments around the world have recognised National Assembly leader Juan Guaido as the country’s legitimate leader.
Rubio said the generals must take ‘‘concrete actions’’ to alleviate Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis and facilitate Maduro’s ouster if they want to receive some type of amnesty.
‘‘It’s a violation of international law for the armed forces of a country to deny humanitarian assistance to civilians. And that is what they are doing,’’ Rubio said. ‘‘How those five or six key military leaders respond over the next week and a half to that key question is going to determine where and how they and their families will spend the rest of their lives.’’ – McClatchy