27 May, 2017
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The United States called Wednesday's first-ever U.N. Security Council consultations on Venezuela because the crisis is getting worse and the Trump administration wants to prevent another conflict like Syria, North Korea or South Sudan, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said. President Maduro has reiterated that elections will be held on schedule in 2018, but the opposition has demanded his immediate removal, seeking foreign intervention in its destabilization campaign.
This death has brought to 44 the number of people killed in Venezuela since the start of protests in early April.
Government opponents, accusing Maduro of becoming a dictator by postponing elections and seeking to rewrite the constitution, have staged demonstrations almost every day since early April. The court's constitutional chamber declared null and void eight National Assembly laws between January and October 2016, after just one such ruling in the previous 200 years, legal experts say.
Demonstrators run on a closed highway during a national sit-in against President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, May 15, 2017.
The executive order issued Thursday marked the second time the USA has sanctioned leaders of Venezuela's socialist government since Donald Trump became president this year.
"In the recent past they had discussions about the two countries and the president [gave] the reasons why things are happening in Venezuela and the Honourable Freundel Stuart heard what he was saying", Perez said.
The NGO notes that, of the 275 known political arrests since protests began, 159 remain in prison and the Venezuelan government has failed to keep official records on their cases. His assets within USA jurisdiction and those of seven other justices have been frozen and US citizens are prohibited from doing business with them. Maduro has said he had no prior knowledge of the Supreme Court ruling against congress in March, pointing to the objections raised by Venezuela's chief prosecutor as proof the country's institutions operate independently.
She said the order was one more example of US attempts to destabilize Venezuela's government, adding that Maduro strongly backs the Supreme Court magistrates who are "victims of USA imperial power".
"We are the new Jews of the 21st century that Hitler pursued", Maduro said.
Earlier Thursday, Mr. Trump expressed dismay about Venezuela's troubles, asking aloud how a nation sitting atop the world's largest oil reserves could be stricken by so much poverty and unrest.
"It is beyond appalling that President Maduro would invoke the Holocaust in an effort to protect himself and his regime, and to attack and defame the opposition", said Dina Siegel Vann, AJC Director of Latino and Latin American Affairs.
Worldwide pressure on the troubled South American nation has been increasing, with the Organization of American States voting Monday to hold a rare foreign ministers' meeting later this month to discuss the crisis.
