Harsher Sanctions Needed Against Venezuela -OAS chief

Posted by Joseph Keefe
Tuesday, February 20, 2018
OAS boss Almagro says regime "has become more tyrannical." U.S. weighs tougher sanctions after Tillerson tour.
Sanctions should be stepped up against Venezuela's leaders and oil sector in response to the country's repressive political climate, the head of the Organisation of American States (OAS) said on Tuesday.
Under President Nicolas Maduro, "dictatorship has become more tyrannical" and the suffering of its 30 million people has increased amid dire shortages of food and medicine, said Luis Almagro.
"Sanctions have to become harsher, this is the way to move forward. Those against dictatorship should unite," the secretary general of the 34-member OAS told a Geneva human rights forum organised by UN Watch, a non-governmental organisation.
"We must apply sanctions, harsher ones. We must starve the regime financially."
Sanctions have so far focused on individual members of Maduro's government and a ban on buying new Venezuelan debt.
Restrictions on Venezuela's all-important oil industry would represent an escalation of financial pressure on the OPEC member state.
Almagro, asked by Reuters to elaborate on his remarks, later told reporters: "The sanctions should be not only personal sanctions, but sanctions also against the regime itself.
"That makes it necessary of course to target oil production, it makes it necessary to target the family of the dictators, it makes it necessary to target money-laundering."
Maduro will stand for re-election in April in a ballot opposition leaders plan to boycott. Critics say it is a farce, with his main rivals barred from standing and a compliant election body bound to favour the ruling socialists.
Maduro denies the system is undemocratic and calls the OAS a pawn of U.S. policy.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said two weeks ago at the end of a five-nation tour of Latin America that the United States was closer to deciding whether to impose sanctions on Venezuelan oil.
Irwin Cotler, a former Canadian minister of justice serving on an OAS panel investigating alleged crimes against humanity in Venezuela, said it would report its findings next month.
"We heard compelling witness testimony and we received documentary evidence of extrajudicial executions and widespread systematic attacks on civilians as a matter of state policy," Cotler told the forum.
He cited cases of torture, rape, and arbitrary detention.
"We are witnessing a dismantling of democracy, an assault on the rule of law and on the independence of the judiciary," he added.
Rights groups have said than 125 people died in anti-government protests last year.
Venezuelan authorities have previously dismissed reports of such rights abuses as baseless.

Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay 

Categories: Legal Finance Energy Maritime Security Government Update

Related Stories

Op-Ed: Kazakhstan’s National O&G Firm Positioning Itself as Global Energy Player

‘Ultra-Mega’ Offshore Deal for L&T at QatarEnergy LNG’s North Field Gas Scheme

CIP Reaches Financial Close for Offshore Wind Farm in Taiwan

Woodside Inks Long-Term LNG Supply Deal with China Resources

China Unveils Plans for New Offshore Wind Farms to Tackle Carbon Emissions

Eco Wave Finds Partner for Wave Energy Project in India

European LNG Imports Up with Asian Influx

BP Targets 44% Oil, 89% Gas Increase from India’s Mumbai High Field

CNOOC’s South China Sea Oil Field Goes On Stream

ADES’ Fourth Suspended Jack-Up Rig Gets Work Offshore Thailand

Current News

Chuditch Gas Field Up for Summer Drilling Ops as Sunda Reshapes Ownership Structure

EnQuest Bags Two Production Sharing Contracts off Indonesia

Hanwha Drilling’s Tidal Action Drillship En Route to Petrobras’ Roncador Field

China's ENN, Zhenhua Oil Ink LNG Supply Deals with ADNOC

MODEC Wins ExxonMobil Guyana’s Hammerhead FPSO Contract

India Stretches Bids Deadline for 13 Offshore Deep-Sea Mineral Blocks

Indonesia Awards Oil and Gas Blocks to Boost Reserves

Sapura Energy Nets $22.6M in Offshore Support Vessel Contracts

CNOOC Puts Into Production New Oil Field in South China Sea

Sunda Energy Starts Environmental Consultation for Chuditch-2 Well Drilling Plans

Subscribe for AOG Digital E‑News

AOG Digital E-News is the subsea industry's largest circulation and most authoritative ENews Service, delivered to your Email three times per week

https://accounts.newwavemedia.com