New Venezuela assembly declares itself supreme
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s new constitutional assembly took over the halls of the endangered, opposition-controlled congress on Tuesday, issuing a decree declaring itself superior to all other branches of government and prominently displaying images of the late President Hugo Chavez.
The order bars anti-government lawmakers in congress from taking any action that would interfere with the laws passed by the newly installed assembly, Delcy Rodriguez, the super-body’s leader, declared to unanimous approval.
“We are not threatening anyone,” said Aristobulo Isturiz, the constitutional assembly’s first vice president. “We are looking for ways to coexist.”
Embattled President Nicolas Maduro convoked the constitutional assembly in what he contends is an attempt to resolve the nation’s political standoff, but what opposition leaders insist is a power grab. Since its installation Friday, the assembly has ousted the nation’s outspoken chief prosecutor, established a “truth commission” expected to target Maduro’s foes and passed decrees pledging “support and solidarity” with the unpopular president.
Opposition lawmakers said they were barred from entering the gold-domed legislative palace after security forces led by Rodriguez broke into congress late Monday.
“This government invades the spaces that it is not capable of legitimately winning,” Stalin Gonzalez, an opposition lawmaker, wrote on Twitter of the assembly’s takeover of the chamber the opposition has controlled since winning 2015 elections.
Earlier Tuesday, Venezuela’s pro-government Supreme Court sentenced a Caracas-area mayor at the center of recent protests to 15 months in prison for not following an order to remove barricades set up during anti-government demonstrations.
Ramon Muchacho is the fourth opposition mayor whose arrest the high court has sought in the past two weeks. The court also ordered an investigation into another prominent Caracas-area mayor, David Smolansky, for the same alleged crimes.
The constitutional assembly’s meeting Tuesday came amid mounting criticism from foreign governments that have refused to recognize the new superbody.
Foreign ministers from 17 Western Hemisphere nations on Tuesday condemned the constitutional assembly, saying their governments will refuse to recognize the all-powerful body.
The top diplomats met in Peru’s capital to discuss Venezuela’s upheaval and expressed support for renewed negotiations between the government and opposition, though previous talks have failed.
In response to that meeting, Maduro convened a meeting of foreign ministers from the Bolivarian Alliance, a leftist coalition of 11 Latin American nations.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza told representatives from nations including Cuba and Bolivia on Tuesday that longstanding U.S. aggressions against his troubled South American nation have “entered a much stronger phase.”
Opposition lawmakers have vowed to hold onto their only government foothold — the country’s single-chamber congress — despite threats from the constitutional assembly to strip them of any authority and lock up key leaders. Lawmakers voted unanimously Monday not to recognize any of the new super-body’s decrees.
Only a few dozen demonstrators heeded the opposition’s call to set up traffic-snarling roadblocks in Caracas on Tuesday to show their opposition to the new assembly.
Protests that drew hundreds of thousands at their peak are drawing fewer and fewer as fear and resignation creep in. At least 124 people have been killed and hundreds more injured or detained during the protests.
A United Nations report released Tuesday found that Venezuela’s armed forces were responsible for 46 of the deaths since April.