Bio coming soon more here.
[We will be taking a break next week but will publish the Venezuela Weekly again in third week of August.] Venezuela's main opposition parties announced that they would not participate in the December 6 legislative elections. In their statement they say they took this...
A few months before the U.S. presidential elections Democrats are discussing potential policy changes regarding Venezuela if their candidate were to win. According to the party platform, a Biden administration would review sectoral sanctions and seek "more effective...
The Center for Human Rights of the Universidad Católica Ándres Bello released a report on how the government discriminates and violates the human rights of migrants that return home. They demanded that the government to stop criminalizing them and abstain from using...
On July 15, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michele Bachelet presented a second detailed report on Venezuela. This one details a justice system that has been undermined, generating impunity and human rights violations; and urges the government to...
On July 5, Venezuela’s Independence Day multiple civil society organizations—from human rights groups, to the union sector, to business associations--released a video and carried out a social media campaign demanding the construction of “spaces of understanding” and a...
After the European Union (EU) sanctioned eleven Venezuelan officials, Nicolás Maduro announced he was giving EU Ambasador Isabel Brilhante Pedrosa 72 hours to leave the country, saying the sanctions were evidence of European colonialism and racism. It is a significant...
All of these are probably over-interpretations, as the clearest takeaways seem to be: how lightly Trump seems to take Venezuela and Guaidó, how poorly informed the administration is about Venezuela, and how little planning they have done for anything other than a quick push for regime change.
The Maduro government is using the Supreme Court (TSJ) to marginalize the dominant opposition coalition led by National Assembly president Juan Guaidó and create a new opposition more amenable to its plans. On Friday June 12 the TSJ went ahead and appointed the new...
The possibilities for broadly accepted legislative elections this year seem to be fading. Venezeula's Supreme Court (TSJ) ruled last week that the National Assembly had failed to name new rectors to the directorate the National Electoral Council (CNE). It is expected...
The muted response reveals once again the political tight-rope walked by Juan Guaidó as he tries to attend to civil society and moderates’ demands to attend to the population’s needs, while keeping on board radicals who think any relief only helps Maduro. Opposition leader Antonio Ledezma, exiled in Madrid, tweeted that as long as Maduro’s “poisonous regime” is in power “no health plan will be worthwhile.”