President Barack Obama on Monday issued an executive order to impose sanctions on seven Venezuelan officials, accusing them of human rights abuses and corruption in the country's crackdown on anti-government protesters.
Obama declared that the situation in Venezuela, including the government's "erosion of human rights guarantees, persecution of political opponents, curtailment of press freedoms, use of violence and human rights violations and abuses in response to antigovernment protests, and arbitrary arrest and detention of antigovernment protestors, as well as the exacerbating presence of significant public corruption" constitutes an "unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."
The order, which freezes the U.S. assets of the seven officials, is an implementation of the Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act of 2014.
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
“We are deeply concerned by the Venezuelan government’s efforts to escalate intimidation of its political opponents,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in a statement. “Venezuela’s problems cannot be solved by criminalizing dissent.”
He called on the Venezuelan government to release all political prisoners, including dozens of students, opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez and Mayors Daniel Ceballos and Antonio Ledezma.
“The only way to solve Venezuela’s problems is through real dialogue – not detaining opponents and attempting to silence critics,” Earnest said.
The executive order "does not sanction the Venezuelan government and does not target the Venezuelan people,” a Treasury Department official told reporters Monday in a conference call.
By targeting only certain officials, the administration hopes to “shine a line on the practices” by the government, a senior administration official told reporters.
The White House listed the seven individuals as targets of the sanctions as Antonio José Benavides Torres, a military commander; Gustavo Enrique González López, an intelligence official; Justo José Noguera Pietri, a former military leader and president of the state-owned Venezuelan Corporation of Guayana; Katherine Nayarith Haringhton Padron, a national prosecutor; Pérez Urdaneta, a high-ranking police official; Manuel Gregorio Bernal Martínez, a military leader; and Miguel Alcides Vivas Landino, the inspector general of the military and former commander.
