Boris warns Venezuela is on the brink of disaster
Two opposition leaders are dragged from their homes and taken to jail after controversial vote
BORIS JOHNSON has warned that Venezuela “stands on the brink of disaster” after its opposition leaders were dragged from their homes in early morning raids yesterday and returned to military prison.
The move came in the wake of the controversial assembly vote that president Nicolas Maduro said would herald a “new era of combat” in the country’s revolution.
“Nicolas Maduro’s government must stop before it is too late,” Mr Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, said.
Meanwhile Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, has faced pressure from MPS to personally condemn Mr Maduro’s violent regime. Last night MPS across the political spectrum called for Mr Corbyn to speak out against the latest violence after his historical support for the state’s leadership. Angela Smith, a Labour MP who is part of a new allparty parliamentary group on Venezuela, told The Times: “I hope that my party leadership will as soon as possible condemn what’s happening in the country and call for the release of opposition party political prisoners.”
Videos distributed by the two politicians’ families showed Leopold Lopez being bundled into a car belonging to the intelligence unit Sebin shortly after midnight, and Antonio Ledezma pulled from his apartment in his pyjamas.
The opposition later said the men, who were both under house arrest, had been taken back to the Ramo Verde military prison from which Mr Lopez was released only last month.
“Maduro is responsible if anything happens to him,” said Lilian Tintori, Mr Lopez’s wife, adding that her husband would not “bow down”.
The leaders, both former mayors in Caracas, had previously been imprisoned in Ramo Verde over their role in instigating anti-government protests. Mr Lopez spent three and a half years in the jail before a judge ordered his transfer to house arrest in July. Mr Ledezma had been serving his sentence at home since 2015.
Elias Jaua, head of the Presidential Commission for the Constituent Assembly, said the men had been sent back to prison for violating the conditions of their house arrest, which restricted political declarations and messages. The Supreme Court also cited government intelligence alleging that the men were planning to flee. Mr Ledezma’s daughter, Isabel, told
The Daily Telegraph the family believed his return to jail was triggered by a video message he put out on Monday night, urging people to continue the struggle and describing the constituent assembly as a “grotesque fraud”.
Francisco Palmieri, the US assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs, described it as “further evidence of the Maduro regime’s authoritarianism”.
The move appeared to herald the beginning of an end to opposition “terrorists” that Mr Maduro vowed would follow the constituent assembly vote.
The assembly, which convenes today, is tasked with rewriting the constitution and will have the power to dismiss institutions deemed obstructive to the government agenda. Mr Maduro says it is necessary to bring stability after months of protests, but critics say it is an illegal power grab aimed at circumventing the opposition-controlled parliament, and the beginning of a Cuban-style congress in the oil-rich nation. The vote earned Mr Maduro a place on the US Treasury sanctions list with Robert Mugabe, Bashar al-assad and Kim Jong-un.
“Yesterday’s illegitimate elections confirm that Maduro is a dictator who disregards the will of the Venezuelan people,” said Steve Mnuchin, the US treasury secretary, late on Monday. Luisa Ortega Diaz, Venezuelan attorney general, said that it was an expression of Mr Maduro’s “dictatorial ambition”.
“Now we will see absolute power in the hands of a minority,” she said. The UK government announced that all dependants of its embassy staff in Venezuela had been withdrawn.
‘Yesterday’s illegitimate elections confirm that Maduro is a dictator who disregards the will of the Venezuelan people’