Sanctioned for drugs, Venezuelan vice president slams U.S. ‘aggression’
CARACAS, (Reuters) - Venezuela’s powerful vice president yesterday called his blacklisting by the United States on drug charges an “imperialist aggression” in the first flare-up between the two countries under new U.S. President Donald Trump.
“We shall not be distracted by these miserable provocations,” said Tareck El Aissami, the most senior Venezuelan official yet sanctioned by the United States.
“We will see this vile aggression dispelled,” he added in a series of defiant tweets before appearing on state television looking unruffled as he presided over a government meeting.
The U.S. Department of Treasury on Monday labeled El Aissami a drug “kingpin,” accusing him of facilitating shipments by air and sea, and having links to drug gangs in Mexico and Colombia.
El Aissami joined a sanctions list that already includes a half-dozen other Venezuelan officials or former officials.
The designation allows the Treasury Department to freeze assets in the United States and prevents them from conducting financial transactions through the United States.
Socialist President Nicolas Maduro has frequently cast U.S. and opposition accusations of drug trafficking, corruption and human rights abuses as a false pretext to justify meddling in Venezuela and trying to topple him.
Maduro, 54, narrowly won election in 2013 to replace the late Hugo Chavez, but his popularity has plummeted amid an economic crisis in the nation of 30 million people.
Maduro backed his vice president, saying later on Tuesday that he had summoned the top U.S. diplomat in Venezuela, charge d’affaires Lee McClenny, to explain the “illegal” decision.
“Comrade Tareck has my full support,” said Maduro, flanked by El Aissami in a live television address in which he attacked the United States.
Though he frequently lambasted former President Barack Obama, the Venezuelan president has in the last month refrained from criticizing Trump, though called him a “thief” and “bandit” in 2015.
As well as El Aissami, the United States also blacklisted local businessman Samark Lopez, terming him a “frontman” for the vice president.
Lopez responded in a statement that he was a “legitimate businessman” and “has not engaged in drug trafficking.”
The sanction on El Aissami, a 42-year-old lawyer and criminologist, dents Maduro’s hopes that Trump might avoid a confrontation with Venezuela but could also help him by providing a nationalist card to play, said David Smilde, a Tulane University professor and Venezuela expert.
“This is a tremendous gift to Maduro as it ensures El Aissami’s loyalty. It essentially increases El Aissami’s exit costs and gives him a personal stake in the continuation of ‘Chavismo’,” he said.
“To be clear, El Aissami and others should be held responsible for their actions. However it should be understood this process has pernicious unintended consequences. I think we are effectively witnessing the creation of a rogue state.”
El Aissami, whom local media say is of Syrian and Lebanese descent, grew up poor in the Andean state of Merida. He was a lawmaker, interior minister and state governor for the ruling Socialist Party before becoming vice president last month. (Jamaica Gleaner) Finance Minis-ter, Audley Shaw, has indicated that 84 public entities are to be merged, closed or divested as part of the Government’s ongoing rationalisation of the public service.
Shaw made the disclosure at the signing of the divestment of operations of Caymanas Track Limited to Supreme Ventures Limited at the finance ministry on Friday.
He informed that there are plans for mergers in the betting and gaming industry with the Jamaica Racing Commission, the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Commission and the Casino Gaming Commission to be subsumed into a Jamaica Gaming Commission.
Shaw said the privatisation of Caymanas Track will likely create more jobs, enable the use of appropriate technologies and ensure greater levels of investment.
He noted that Supreme Ventures will provide cash flow of more than 42 million dollars to the operations of the racing commission, not only for regulatory purposes but for development projects.
These projects include the state-of-the-art improvement of the University of West Indies/Jamaica Racing Commission lab, which conducts drug testing for the horse racing industry and upgrading of surveillance cameras in the testing barn at Caymanas Track.