Briefing

Another Nicolás Sanctioned

U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Maduro's son and the Trump administration vowed to keep sanctioning Executive officials, while the OAS approved a resolution about the Venezuelan migration crisis and recognized Guaidó's appointee. PDVSA scrambles to reshuffle operations to export oil to Asia.

Naky Soto
Photo: CNN en Español, retrieved

The United States sanctioned 29-year old Nicolás Maduro Guerra, member of the National Constituent Assembly through nepotism; his stepmother knows a lot about that. The Treasury Department accuses Maduro Guerra of illegal enrichment with the mining activity, of designing a strategy to prevent the access of humanitarian aid into the country and of increasing censorship: “Maduro’s regime was built on fraudulent elections, and his inner circle lives in luxury off the proceeds of corruption while the Venezuelan people suffer,” says the statement of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, adding that his department will continue sanctioning complicit relatives. Maduro Guerra is the third Venezuelan official to be sanctioned in the last few hours, after Luis Motta Domínguez and Eustiquio Lugo were sanctioned on Thursday for several money laundering and conspiracy charges.

At the OAS

The report about the situation of our migrants and refugees says that the four million people registered thus far turns Venezuelan into the second largest migration of the world, surpassed only by Syria with its eight years of conflict, but with the intensification of the humanitarian emergency, those who flee would reach eight million people by the end of 2020, more than a fourth of the Venezuelan population! The report estimates that 200 citizens leave the country every hour, and also explains how many have died trying to flee through land or sea. David Smolansky, exiled mayor and coordinator of the OAS Workgroup for our migration crisis, asked the member states to adopt the Cartagena Declaration (1984) to recognize Venezuelans as refugees, and called for the creation of regional identity card to allows movement across Latin America and the Caribbean. Later, with 20 votes in favor, the OAS General Assembly approved the resolution “The situation of Venezuela and the crisis of Venezuelan migrants,” in recognition of our migration crisis, urging the holding of free presidential elections as soon as possible. The resolution also restates the recognition of ambassador Gustavo Tarre Briceño, appointed by caretaker President Juan Guaidó.

The non-country

Last night, several inmates escaped the Simón Bolívar Reclusion Center (previously known as La Planta.) Presumably, men with long weapons assaulted the facilities and helped three Mexicans detained for drug trafficking escape: Manuel Trujillo Cardona, Enrique Gastelum Inzunza and Jorge Pedro Alarcón. 

Aside from these operations that could put the State’s capacity to keep order in doubt, Nicolás claimed yesterday that even without electricity in most of the country and with mobile operators trying to subsist with the technology they have left, they’ll start to experimentally install the 5G platform in Venezuela. Although Nicolás didn’t mention the sanction against his son, he did sign an agreement with China for $2.3 billion with which he’s promising to reactivate Siderúrgica del Orinoco (Sidor,) paralyzed for the past two years. He also announced that he’ll bring 2,000 Yutong buses for the public transport system, although he also spoke of expanding the assembly plant opened in December 2015.

Let’s talk about PDVSA

PDVSA is modernizing one of its main processing operations, which used to supply U.S. clients, to generate the crude demanded by Asian refineries, says Reuters after reviewing internal documents. 

In July, Petropiar will become the facility to mix heavy and light oils, seeking to obtain a heavy crude called Merey through the mixture of extra-heavy oil with some light oil. PDVSA’s plan faces important logistical challenges, starting with the production of light oil for mixing, because sanctions have restricted imports. The Merey will represent 822,000 bpd out of the approximately 900,000 bpd for PDVSA’s planned exports for July, compared with some 500,000 bpd at the start of the year. Meanwhile, a press release of the Prosecutor’s Office claims that after a filed accusation, CITGO officials José Pereira Ruimwyk, Tomeu Vadell, Alirio Zambrano, Jorge Toledo Kohury, Gustavo Cárdenas and José Luis Zambrano would be sent to trial, for being allegedly involved in a corruption scheme, and they’d be in custody in the offices of the Military Counterintelligence Directorate in Boleíta, because prisoners escape from La Planta, as you know.

Movements on the board

  • U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton warned the regime that his country will continue sanctioning the Executive Branch to achieve the end of usurpation. Meanwhile, Donald Trump met with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who told him to be patient with Venezuela because “things take time.” Both studied measures to cut “the financial support of all countries that help Venezuela,” said Bolsonaro spokesman Otávio Rego Barros.

  • Regime Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza criticized the OAS General Assembly and claimed that it’s an event to attack Venezuela, cautioning that “They’re trying to remove Venezuela from the United Nations.” He also announced that Nicolás will take actions against Donald Trump in coming days.
  • Germany’s Foreign Ministry recognized the appointment of Otto Gebauer (appointed by Juan Guaidó) as Venezuelan representative in that country.

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The LGBTI Pride Day was born after the demonstrations against the repressive police force in Greenwich Village (New York,) on June 28th, 1969, starting demands for the community’s human rights. The situation of LGBTI rights in Latin America is unequal and Venezuela’s particularly behind in legislation to allow them to marry, adopt children, work without discrimination, become members of the military, recognize gender changes and even have the possibility to donate blood. There’s discrimination and the State doesn’t promote educational campaigns on the matter, leaving the members of this community even more vulnerable.

Naky Soto

Naky gets called Naibet at home and at the bank. She coordinates training programs for an NGO. She collects moments and turns them into words. She has more stories than freckles.

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