Condemning Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro

"I would like to see the states from the G7 agreeing to refer the matter of crimes against humanity to the International Criminal Court for a prospective investigation and prosecution."
"We have a persistent and pervasive culture of impunity finding expression in a massive assault on the rule of law [in Venezuela]."
"There is no independent judiciary. There is no independent prosecutors. There is no independent justice system."
"This is the archtypical example of why a reference is needed, as to why the ICC [International Criminal Court] was created."
"The testimony that we heard in our public hearings, of the graphic examples of torture and rape and imprisonment, and then the humanitarian crisis -- we can't forget that behind all these findings of fact and conclusions of law are suffering human beings. They need justice. They need relief."
Irwin Cotler, former Canadian Liberal Cabinet Minister, human rights lawyer, activist

"We are appalled, though not surprised, by the evidence the panel found supporting the allegation that crimes against humanity have been committed in Venezuela."
"...It is because of the Maduro regime's ongoing abuse of its people and attacks on democracy that Canada has taken a series of punitive actions, including imposing targeted sanctions."
Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland

Venezuelans cross the Simon Bolivar International Bridge into Colombia. (Fernando Vergara / Associated Press)

 

The legacy of Hugo Chavez, he of the infamous 'Bolivarian Revolution' using the Cuban revolutionary political model for his guide in socializing Venezuela and in the process setting it on the road to wrack and ruination, has been nicely completed by his chosen successor and protege, Nicolas Maduro, who like his predecessor, is determined to make common cause with those other models of statescraft and superior executive administration of a nation's affairs, taking cues from Iran, Cuba and North Korea.

Venezuela, a once-moderately well-off nation with vast oil resources and related revenues which Chavez as its long-time president sprinkled generously among his neighbours, providing free oil to Cuba and neighbours like Bolivia, neglected to use some of that largesse to upgrade infrastructure in the country, including oil extraction facilities and to build refineries for that oil. Corruption and mismanagement in the extreme have resulted in a breakdown of all the normal parameters of civil administration resulting in critical medical and food and energy shortages.

Like Zimbabwe, under its long-time tyrant Robert Mugabe, now deposed, the country has soaring unemployment rates, violent crime, shortages of all consumer goods, and no hope for the future. Criticism of the government is viewed as a crime resulting in imprisonment. Inflation continues to soar, and desperate Venezuelans exit their country of birth, anxious to find haven anywhere else, crowding into neighbouring countries to escape Venezuela's violence and social breakdown.

Now, a report issued by the Organization of American States calls for the removal of the Maduro regime, accusing it of murder, extra-judicial executions, torture and allied human rights abuses. Canada, under its Liberal government, seeking as always to 'punch above its weight', has become the first country to 'take action' on this file on which Luis Almagro, secretary general of the OAS stated "nobody could do worse" in governing than the Maduro claque.

A Venezuelan woman is vaccinated against measles in Cucuta, Colombia, at the Simon Bolivar International Bridge on the border with Venezuela. (Schneyder Mendoza / AFP/Getty Images)

 

A specially assigned OAS panel of which Mr. Cotler was a member, heard from victims, witnesses and human rights crimes experts, to find Maduro responsible for murders, thousands of extra-judicial executions and tens of thousands of arbitrary detentions, cases of torture, of attacks against the judiciary and a "state-sanctioned humanitarian crisis", leading hundreds of thousands of people to become refugees.

Canada has decided -- to step up to the plate, jump the gun on others, call it what you will -- to impose sanctions on 14 Venezuelan elite with connections to the regime, inclusive of Maduro's wife, as part of larger efforts by the U.S. to bring the Maduro government to an end. Yet Canada made no effort to sponsor the OAS panel report to mount a formal investigation by the International Criminal Court. Which, years ago, in the wake of the Darfurian humanitarian outrage in Sudan, sat in judgement of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, accusing him and others in his entourage of being war criminals.

A judgement that none of Bashir's Arab leader colleagues seemed to take seriously, since they all without exception ignored their responsibility as signatories to the ICC, to apprehend him while in their countries, and turn him over to the ICC for trial. Canada will be hosting a meeting of the G7 next week at Charlevoix, Quebec, where the issue of Venezuela's plight will be further discussed among the leaders of Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.

It will be their collective opportunity to round out the initial work of the 'little country that could' by imposing meaningful pressure on the Maduro government, including referring the OAS file to the ICC since they all together rejected Venezuela's presidential elections of the last week stating the obvious, that Maduro was solidifying an "authoritarian grip" causing great suffering to his unfortunate people.

Leonardo Albornoz, an unemployed heavy equipment mechanic from Venezuela, stands with his family as he tries to sell candy for coins to passing motorists. "I'm being forced to beg because there is no work," he said. (Chris Kraul / For The Times)