Gail Alexan­der

It's the Nico­las Maduro regime's fault!

"The re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis in Venezuela lies square­ly with the failed poli­cies and abus­es of the Maduro regime," US Am­bas­sador Joseph Mon­del­lo said yes­ter­day.

The US Em­bassy is­sued Mon­del­lo's state­ment yes­ter­day where he weighed in on the cur­rent con­tro­ver­sy con­cern­ing T&T’s re­cent de­por­ta­tion of a group of Venezue­lans and re­lat­ed is­sues.

Mon­del­lo said the US con­tin­ues to work with T&T to help mit­i­gate the con­se­quences of the cri­sis which has em­anat­ed from Venezuela's prob­lems.

He said, "In Sep­tem­ber, the Unit­ed Na­tions’ In­de­pen­dent Fact-Find­ing Mis­sion on Venezuela doc­u­ment­ed that since 2014 - long be­fore the cur­rent OAS and US lead­er­ship took of­fice - Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties un­der Maduro have com­mit­ted grave hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions and crimes in vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al law, in­clud­ing ex­tra­ju­di­cial ex­e­cu­tions, tor­ture, ar­bi­trary de­ten­tions and ex­ces­sive use of force.

"At the same time, the eco­nom­ic in­com­pe­tence of the Maduro regime has thrown a once pros­per­ous, re­source-rich coun­try in­to pover­ty and tur­moil. Many blame sanc­tions, but the Venezue­lan econ­o­my was in free-fall long be­fore the Unit­ed States be­gan to im­pose sanc­tions in Au­gust 2017 and the Eu­ro­pean Union in No­vem­ber 2017. Venezuela’s gross do­mes­tic prod­uct shrank 5.7 per cent in 2015 and an­oth­er 18.6 per cent in 2016.

"At the same time, in­fla­tion topped 180 per cent in 2015 and 800 per cent in 2016. Oil pro­duc­tion, the lifeblood of the Venezue­lan econ­o­my, had fall­en to 2 mil­lion bar­rels per day by the end of 2016, a lev­el not seen since 1990. It is Maduro and his back­ers, not sanc­tions, who are to blame for the mil­lions of Venezue­lans liv­ing in dire eco­nom­ic con­di­tions and who have fled their homes since he as­sumed pow­er."

Mon­del­lo added, "Un­til free and fair elec­tions un­der the watch­ful eye of rep­utable in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers are avail­able to the Venezue­lan peo­ple, the sta­tus quo will con­tin­ue. Refugees, guns, gangs and drugs orig­i­nat­ing from Venezuela will con­tin­ue to plague the re­gion un­til democ­ra­cy re­turns to the Venezue­lan peo­ple.

"We con­tin­ue to work with Trinidad and To­ba­go to help mit­i­gate the con­se­quences of this cri­sis, and we look for­ward to the day when Venezue­lans feel safe and se­cure enough to re­turn home and re­build their coun­try rather than seek refuge else­where."