Mike Pompeo calls on OAS to kick out Venezuela

The U.S. and Venezuela traded barbs at the annual Organization of American States summit in Washington on Monday, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging the hemispheric body to suspend Caracas’ membership and support increased economic sanctions against socialist Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

“[It] would show that the OAS backs up its words with action and would send a powerful message to the Maduro regime,” said Mr. Pompeo, referring to the Trump administration’s attempt to persuade Latin American governments to counter the Venezuelan president’s authoritarian streak with economic pressure and diplomatic isolation.

Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza, who demanded and was allowed by the OAS to take the floor directly after Mr. Pompeo, accused the U.S. government of “perpetrating a coup d’etat against [Venezuela] for 20 years” and said the push for sanctions is just Washington’s latest “imperialist” tactic.

“We are an independent nation, we are free, we are sovereign,” Mr. Arreaza told a room packed with other Latin American diplomats at the OAS around the corner from the State Department headquarters in Foggy Bottom.

“No imperialist will be intervening in our country and try to hinder that people can vote for their own authorities and have their own democracy,” he said, arguing that Mr. Maduro won Venezuela’s presidential election two weeks ago fair and square.

The OAS delegates were expected to vote Tuesday on the U.S.-backed demand to suspend Venezuela. Despite widespread unhappiness with the long-running crisis in Venezuela, a number of Caribbean and Latin American nations fear that the vote could set a precedent.

The Trump administration and a number of several OAS member nations have sharply criticized the Venezuelan election as a sham that was boycotted by the opposition and moved up to aid the government. Critics also characterized the vote as the latest in Mr. Maduro’s push to consolidate power and undermine democratic institutions in Venezuela.

U.S. governments clashed repeatedly with anti-American populist leader Hugo Chavez, a political mentor to Mr. Maduro. Although his country holds some of the world’s largest oil reserves, Mr. Maduro has presided over an economic implosion that has undermined social services, sent inflation and joblessness soaring, and created a refugee crisis that threatens to destabilize neighboring countries such as Brazil and Colombia.

Mr. Maduro in turn has accused the Trump administration of “imperialist” designs to bring down his government.

But international rights groups and many of Venezuela’s neighbors have joined Washington in criticizing the Maduro government’s consolidation of power, including a rewriting of the constitution to undermine the power of the opposition-dominated National Assembly.

After Mr. Maduro won the election, tensions with Washington rose anew. Mr. Maduro kicked out the top two U.S. diplomats in Caracas on charges that they tried to sabotage the vote by persuading opposition candidates to boycott the proceedings.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration announced even tougher financial sanctions against Venezuela. The administration dramatically escalated sanctions last year and accused Mr. Maduro’s vice president of being a drug kingpin who was laundering money for narcotics traffickers.

The Trump administration — as did the Obama administration — has slammed the Maduro government for detaining scores of opposition figures.

In the wake of Mr. Maduro’s election win, the Venezuelan president has suddenly freed dozens of opposition activists from jail in the hope of uniting the politically fractured nation.

Mr. Pompeo told the OAS on Monday that while the U.S. welcomes the releases, “Our policy toward Venezuela remains unchanged.”

Accusing the Venezuelan president of engaging in a “full-scale dismantling of democracy,” he said the “Maduro regime’s effort to move toward unconstitutional government and its human rights abuses are now well known by all.”