The sending of a delegation of high-ranking US officials to Venezuela continues to generate debate in Florida, the state with the largest Venezuelan community in the United States, within which there are different opinions, although Republican leaders consider it an “insult” for everyone .
A group of Republican congressmen from Floridasome in full campaign for re-election, demanded on Thursday to the Government of United States that does not soften the policy towards the dictatorship of Nicholas Maduro negotiating or lifting the sanctions, and also requested more information on various aspects pointed out by his constituents.
“By negotiating with the Maduro dictatorship, his administration is undermining foreign policy toward Venezuela and neglecting the United States’ engagement with the Venezuelan exile community.”Congressman Carlos Giménez wrote in a letter addressed to the president Joe Biden and the Secretaries of State and Energy, Anthony Blinken and Jennifer Granholm, respectively.
The letter has the signatures of Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott and Congressmen Mario Díaz-Balart and María Elvira Salazar, Giménez reported today on his social networks.
“Maduro is a puppet of (presidents) Vladimir Putin in Russia and Xi Jimping in China. The sending of the delegation to Venezuela that used the US sanctions as a bargaining chip is an insult to the thousands of Venezuelan-American citizens that we represent”Republicans say.
diverse opinions
José Antonio Colina, president of the Organization of Politically Persecuted Venezuelans in Exile (Veppex), said that “Negotiating with Nicolás Maduro is a betrayal and disrespect for Venezuelans. We have political prisoners, we have six million displaced people, we have thousands of dead and assassinated by the tyranny”.
Helena Villalonga, leader of the Multicultural Association of Activists, Voice and Expression (Amavex), a platform of Venezuelan organizations in the United States, indicated that she is not in favor of giving “more oxygen” to Maduro, but at the same time he believes that it is necessary to put a stop to Russia’s advance in the region and that opening a channel of communication is always good.
“Furthermore, the sanctions and all the heavy-handed policy (imposed during the Presidency of Donald Trump) have not served to change anything in Venezuela”says Villalonga, who has lived in the United States for more than 20 years and lost one of his brothers to the “chavismo”.
Villalonga rejects that politicians “play with the pain” of those who have had to leave Venezuela and underlines, when Efe asks if there is an electoral interest, that there are barely 150,000 Venezuelans with the right to vote in the entire United States, where there are almost a million immigrants from their country.
Giménez’s letter follows the recent visit to Caracas of a delegation of high-ranking US officials, led by presidential adviser Juan González, to meet with representatives of the Venezuelan government, which was followed by the release of two US prisoners in Venezuela.
Criticisms and explanations
Given the criticism that the visit to Caracas aroused, a senior official from the Biden Administration, who requested anonymity, assured this Thursday that the United States did not make any concessions in exchange for the release of the two Americans.
The source claimed that the United States sent a “important sign” to Maduro when organizing the first trip to Caracas “since the late 1990s” and denied that the envoys offered to buy oil in exchange for the release of Americans. “We would never do that,” the official stressed.
Before the letter from the Republican congressmen to Biden became known, the Florida Democratic Party came out to criticize the administration.
Manny Díaz, president of the Democrats in Florida, a state governed by the Republican Party and whose voters supported Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential elections, indicated that “President Joe Biden has made it very clear that he stands firm with the Venezuelan people”.
According to Díaz, the high-level meeting between representatives of the White House and Maduro had two purposes: “bring home Americans unjustly imprisoned in Venezuela and promote democracy in the Latin American country”.
“President Biden has always been on the side of Venezuelans and there is no doubt regarding his commitment to the return of democracy to Venezuela,” he said, recalling later that a year ago he granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to thousands of Venezuelans. who live in the United Stateshe added.
However, Colina declares “disappointed” with Biden. “Those who sit with Maduro have disrespected the sacrifice of the Venezuelan people”sentence.
The letter from the Republican congressmen concludes “with a reminder of the atrocities that the Chávez-Maduro political machine has committed once morest the people of Venezuela and once morest our own strategic interests” and with several questions to Biden from his constituents, starting with whether he still considers Juan Guaido as the interim president.
Another question is: Is the Biden administration considering weakening current sanctions once morest Nicolás Maduro, his family, his associates, the oil, banking and related industries, or entities placed by the United States in exchange for more oil production from Venezuela or for any other reason? ?
