Former Gov. Richardson to urge Venezuela leader to free Americans
MIAMI — Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson plans to travel this week to Venezuela to urge President Nicolás Maduro to free several jailed Americans as a goodwill gesture aimed at easing tensions with the U.S.
The Richardson Center, which seeks freedom for Americans held by hostile foreign governments and criminal organizations, announced on social media Monday the planned meeting with Maduro.
Richardson didn’t say on whose behalf he was traveling to Caracas or when he would meet with Maduro, who was recently indicted on U.S. drug trafficking charges.
Among U.S. citizens jailed in Venezuela are two former Green Berets — Luke Denman and Airan Berry — arrested in May while participating in a botched raid organized from neighboring Colombia meant to oust Maduro.
Also being held are six oil executives from Citgo — five Venezuelan Americans and one a permanent U.S. resident — who were lured to Caracas for a meeting in late 2017 at the offices of the Houston-based company’s parent, staterun oil giant PDVSA, when masked security agents swarmed a boardroom and hauled them away.
While Richardson’s visit is a private mission, he coordinated with the State Department and has kept U.S. officials briefed on his plans, said someone familiar with the trip.
The face-to-face diplomacy stands in contrast to U.S. policy of “maximum pressure” on a leader considered by Washington to be a dictator and drug kingpin. The Trump administration closed the U.S. Embassy in Caracas in March 2019 after it recognized Juan Guaidó, the head of the opposition-controlled Congress, as Venezuela’s rightful leader.
Lately, however, President Donald Trump has shown signs of losing faith in Guaidó’s ability to remove Maduro, who has shown a surprising degree of resilience amid ever-tougher U.S. sanctions that accelerated the OPEC nation’s economic collapse.
Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the Clinton presidency, has opened diplomatic backchannels to several governments hostile to the U.S., including Iran, Cuba and North Korea, to win the release of some 40 Americans. They include former U.S. Navy veteran Michael White, who was released last month by Iran after two years in jail as part of a deal that spared an American-Iranian physician any more time in a U.S. jail.
Richardson’s relationship with Maduro goes back to when the Venezuelan would travel to the United Nations as Hugo Chávez’s foreign minister. The two also crossed paths at the 2018 inauguration of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Richardson also worked behind the scenes to bring home another American jailed in Caracas, former Mormon missionary Joshua Holt, who was freed in 2018.
Maduro’s government last month released a video showing the six American oil executives in relatively good condition.