Venezuelans ask for new U.S. sanctions against Maduro officials

More than 50 representatives of the Venezuelan community in the United States and other countries sent a letter on Saturday asking for additional sanctions against Venezuelan officials. The letter was addressed to President Joe Biden, U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela James Story, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, as well as other representatives of the Federal Congress. 

 The letter, dated April 21, 2022, is signed by more than 50 "decent and morally empowered" Venezuelan citizens, who are calling on Biden to impose new sanctions on officials of Nicolas Maduro's regime, and criticize those campaigning for a withdrawal of sanctions because they harm the people.

The representatives also asked for support in the investigations of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, demanded the release of political prisoners, and asked for guarantees for transparent elections, reports El Diario.

The petition was released days after a group of 25 Venezuelan academic, business, social, political, and economist figures asked Biden to ease sanctions and allow the operations of U.S. oil companies in the South American country.

The text details the "convenience and necessity of the sanctions imposed by the U.S. on the Maduro regime within the framework of the struggle for the freedom of the Venezuelan people," in addition to the causes of the serious economic crisis suffered by Venezuela, "whose genesis is unrelated and prior to the sanctions."

"It was the sanctions imposed by the U.S. on different Maduro officials, which rather put some brake on the suffering of the Venezuelan people, victims of this communist regime, as they have helped to shut down the regime's financing of the criminal activities they organize," they said.

Among those who signed the letter are Venezuelan-American activists, politicians, and businessmen from Spain, Chile, and the Netherlands, who said that the crisis that has caused hardship and forced seven million people to flee the country could be attributed to four factors, reports El Nuevo Herald.

First, the "erroneous" economic and monetary policies implemented by the late Hugo Chávez and Maduro, "under the advice of the Castros". Second, the systematic destruction of the country's productive apparatus and the entrepreneurial sector at all levels. Third, the dismantling of the Rule of Law and Legal Security. And fourth, the corruption "unprecedented in the republican history" of the country.