REASONS TO ACTIVATE THE DEMOCRATIC CHARTER TO THE VENEZUELAN GOVERNMENT

This brief document, prepared by GANA (Great National Alliance), is directed to all the citizens of the American countries, but particularly to the Ambassadors accredited to the Organization of American States (OAS), to raise awareness of the urgency of activating the Inter-American Democratic Charter against the Venezuelan government, before a great tragedy occurs in our country. Caracas, March 01, 2017

http://VenezuelaGana.org – Email: [email protected] –Twitter: @Venezuela_Gana

1. Background On May 30, 2016, the Secretary General of the OAS, Mr. Luis Almagro, produced a 132-page document of the serious Venezuelan crisis –known as the “Almagro Report”– by which it not only denounces a “grave alteration of the democratic system”, but also describes in detail the violation of human rights and freedom of the press, as well as “simultaneous concurrence of multiple crises”, among them, the increase of poverty, extreme inflation, extreme scarcity, the collapse of health, widespread insecurity and widespread corruption (available here at http://www.oas.org/documents/spa/press/OSG-243.es.pdf). In this report, Almagro requested “the convening of an urgent meeting of the Permanent Council of the Member States” in order to consider the activation of the Inter-American Democratic Charter to Venezuela. However, the activation was not approved, in part because, inexplicably, some Venezuelan opposition leaders asked to postpone the decision; and, in part, because the possible holding of a recall referendum was underway, and an alleged dialogue between Government and Opposition was initiated, with very questionable international mediation. Almost one year has elapsed since the Almagro Report was drawn up. The situation in Venezuela has worsened considerably: the dialogue failed, the number of political prisoners increased, the humanitarian crisis worsened, the Government blocked the recall referendum and regional elections, the Supreme Court neutralized the National Assembly, censorship of the media increased and even the CNN channel was banned. If that were not enough, there are evident links between the ruling party and drug trafficking. Last February 24, a large group of non-governmental organization (NGOs), sent a letter to Almagro, asking him to continue the process of activating the Democratic Charter (http://bit.ly/2l3XCLV). For his part, Almagro announced that soon he will present an updated version of its report on Venezuela. As explained below, the situation of our country worsens from day to day. There is an urgent need to implement the Democratic Charter as a means of pressure on the Venezuelan government in order to regain democracy, freedom and move towards progress.

2. Legal reasons The Inter-American Democratic Charter (IDC) was approved on September 11, 2001, in a special session of the Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Lima, Peru. It is an instrument which main objective is to strengthen and preserve the democratic institutions of its Member States (available here http://bit.ly/1fnFkX7). The IDC contains several recitals and 28 Articles, which have been violated, almost all of them, by the Venezuelan government. The Maduro regime violates Articles 1 and 2, because in Venezuela there is no democracy. It breaches Article 3, because it violates fundamental freedoms, blocks free elections and there are no division of powers. It violates Article 4, because there is no freedom of expression and of the press. Article 5 is also breached because the State´s resources are at the service of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (its Spanish initials PSUV). Furthermore, the Maduro government violates Article 7 of the IDC, as it systematically violates human rights. It infringes Article 9 because it discriminates and represses those who think differently. It transgresses Article 10 because it forces public workers to comply with the ideological doctrines of the ruling party, under penalty of dismissal. It also violates Article 11 because it suffocates private economic activity. The Venezuelan regime violates Article 12 of the Democratic Charter, because it fosters poverty with its misguided economic policies. It violates Article 14, because it prevents a sincere dialogue. Article 15 is breached, because it destroys the environment through the irrational exploitation of the so-called Mining Arc. It vulnerates Article 16, because it destroys education in the interest of communist indoctrination. The rest of the Articles refer to the mechanisms approved by the OAS to ensure the preservation of democratic precepts in the region. 3. It is imperative to deactivate the “social bomb” The Inter-American Democratic Charter should be activated as soon as possible, because the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela has reached catastrophic levels, and it can no longer be postponed to alleviate the suffering of so many citizens who lack food, medicines and services of all kinds. In October 2016, the well-known Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report of 82 pages, titled “Humanitarian Crisis in Venezuela, the Inadequate and repressive response of the government to the serious shortage of medicines, inputs

and food” (http://bit.ly/2mafKDV). After presenting alarming images and statistics on the scarcity of food, medicine and necessities, HWR recommends “Exercise a firm international pressure on the Venezuelan government –through an attentive and continuous monitoring of events in Venezuela within the process of the Democratic Charter– until it demonstrates concrete results to address the political and humanitarian crisis”. During the year 2016, Venezuela's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) suffered a drop of 23%; while inflation reached the stratospheric figure of 830%, with a strong acceleration in the last three months of the year, when prices increased more than 22% month-on-month (http://bit.ly/2ijTTXV). “750 mothers and 10,500 children died in hospitals in 2016”, says the headline of El Nacional newspaper, dated January 4, 2017. “There is a 59 year setback in comparison with what we had developed so far. This is the same mortality rate of 1957”, said José Félix Oletta, a former Health minister (http://bit.ly/2iH0QmB). “Venezuela continues to be the most miserable country this year”, a headline of El Nacional newspaper, dated January 18, 2017. The note reads “For the second consecutive year, Venezuela tops the list of Misery Index for having the worst economic conditions of the planet, accumulating last year a reading that was almost seven times greater than Argentina, its closest competitor in the world ranking” (http://bit.ly/2iASxcI). The indicator is based on the sum of the rate of inflation, unemployment and of interest. It is produced annually by Professor Steve Hanke of the University Johns Hopkins. For more than a decade, Venezuela has maintained the top positions, but this year it distanced itself from the rest, because of its formal entrance into an inflationary spiral. But these figures are not just statistics, the represent real and concrete suffering of the Venezuelan people. It is a social bomb that could explode at any moment and, if not contained, will have repercussions throughout the region. One way to measure this reality is by monitoring the large increasing numbers of Venezuelans who migrate. In recent months, there have been at least four major episodes of social revolt and looting, in the cities of Cumaná, Carúpano, Tucupita and Ciudad Bolivar. Revolts that could become a widespread social explosion if the problem of hunger and scarcity is not resolved.

4. Political Justification The activation of the Inter-American Democratic Charter against Maduro is fully justified because, apart from violating almost all its Articles, as explained above, Venezuela has become a disturbing element in the region. Socialism of the 21st Century, promoted by Fidel Castro and financed first by Chávez, and then by Maduro, imposed a new doctrine in the region, by which the continuity of the “Revolution” is above any other consideration. This doctrine broke with democratic alternation and promoted indefinite re-election in several IberoAmerican countries. In 2010, there was a political crisis in Honduras. President Zelaya, influenced by the Venezuelan government, pretended to illegally amend the Constitution, in order to allow his own re-election. The crisis in Paraguay, which broke out in 2012, was due to interference of the countries related to 21st Century Socialism, headed by Venezuela, which did not accept the constitutional impeachment of President Lugo, because the latter was part of their ideological current. Maduro neither accepted the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, which he called a “coup d'état”. At the end of 2016, Venezuela was a source of discordance in Mercosur, for not complying with the democratic precepts of that organization. Venezuela was finally suspended from Mercosur. We could continue listing many other cases, in which Venezuela has been the cause of alteration and conflict in the region. 5. Implications for regional security On February 13 of this year, the website of the Embassy of the United States in Venezuela published a press release titled “The Treasury Department imposes sanctions on prominent Venezuelan narco-trafficker Tarek El Aissami and his main figurehead, Samark Lopez Bello”. There are so many evidences collected by the US authorities that the Embassy did not refer to El Aissami as “Vice-President of Venezuela”, nor as “presumptive”, but directly as a “prominent drug trafficker”. The note informs that “In the exercise of his functions, (El Aissami) supervised narcotics shipments of over 1,000 kg from Venezuela, including some with final destination to Mexico and the United States, or was one of the owners of narcotics shipments. He also facilitated, coordinated and protected others drug traffickers operating in Venezuela.

In particular, El Aissami received money for facilitating the transportation of narcotics owned by the Venezuelan drug trafficker Walid Makled García. El Aissami is also linked to the coordination of narcotics shipments to the violent Mexican Los Zetas drug cartel (http://bit.ly/2kNWUAT). On November 18, 2016, an American jury found Ephraim Antonio Campo Flores and Francisco Flores de Freitas guilty of conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States. The condemned are President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores’ nephews (http://bit.ly/2fND5oF). The scandal, which is known as the case of the “narco-nephews”, implied that these citizens received support from senior Venezuelan officials to carry out their criminal activities. Given the number of Venezuelan hierarchs designated by the United States as drug traffickers, and given the alarming increase in activity narcotic-related crime, Venezuela is already considered a narco-State (http://bit.ly/2l8IRYq). Venezuela is also singled out as an accomplice to terrorism. On February 10, US Senator Marco Rubio brought to the Senate plenary session the result of a special investigation that CNN network carried out for over one year on the irregularities in the emission of visas and passports to persons related to terrorism. Rubio denounced before the Senate that Vice President Tareck El Aissami was related “to the 173 passports issued to individuals from the Middle East, including people linked to the Hezbollah terrorists” (http://cnn.it/2lvKRWC). The entire Venezuelan government, starting with Maduro, lined up publicly with El Aissami and, instead of investigating CNN's complaint, banned the signal of that TV network in Venezuela, thus showing that this issue of the passports was a State policy and not the result of an individual action of the Vice-President. Rafael Isea, Minister of Finance of Venezuela during the government of Hugo Chavez, revealed that in 2007 there was a meeting between Nicolas Maduro, then Minister of Foreign Affairs of Venezuela, and Hassan Nasrallah, head of Hezbollah. The purpose of the meeting was to negotiate the presence of the terrorist organization in Venezuela. According to Isea, Maduro stablished with the leader of the Lebanese terrorist group, a relationship that included Drug trafficking, money laundering, arms and passports supply (http://bit.ly/2lvKI5I). The alliance of the Venezuelan government with Colombian narco-guerrilla groups has been more than documented. After the death of the FARC leader, Raúl Reyes, Hugo Chavez criticized his “cowardly murder” and effusively defended this “revolutionary commander” from the “infamies” against him. “We pay tribute to the good revolutionary who was Raul Reyes”, Chavez said (https://youtu.be/LF0Us1FeLWQ).

6. Violations of human rights The activation of the Inter-American Democratic Charter is practically a moral duty for OAS member countries. The Democratic leaders of the American Continent cannot continue to allow the Venezuelan government not only to destroy its nation, but also to keep so many innocent people in prisons, for the mere fact of expressing their disagreement with the regime. From January 2014 until September 30, 2016, the Penal Forum Venezuelan (as its Spanish initials FPV) registered 6,535 political arrests, for various reasons, ranging from the publication of messages on social networks against the national government or against any public official, or for having participated in a political demonstration or social protest against the scarcity of food or products, the insecurity or malfunction of a public service, among others. Currently, of that number of people, 101 remain unjustly deprived of their freedom, according to the report on repression of the Venezuelan State as of September 2016, issued by that organization. Since then, the amount of political prisoners has increased (http://bit.ly/2mHNmp5). The organization Amnesty International, in its annual report 2016/2017 (available at http://bit.ly/1A7sKoF), points out that in Venezuela there is impunity, excessive use of force, arbitrary detentions, prisoners of conscience, and violations of freedom of expression. In its most recent pastoral exhortation, dated January of this year, the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference states that “The attempt to curtail the constitutional powers of the National Assembly and the wave of repression and political persecution that has been unleashed in recent days seriously affect the exercise of democratic institutions. Only in totalitarian regimes the autonomy of the public powers are disregarded and freedom of expression is forbidden” (Http://bit.ly/2mIsLRK). 7. Censorship to the media The Venezuelan government has implemented a progressive mechanism to end freedom of the press and information. At first, the government acted awkwardly, shutting down the RCTV television channel and confiscating its equipment. But considering the political cost that this meant, decided to “buy” other media, instead of simply shutting them down, using resources taken from the national treasury. Later on the government developed a new mechanism to close

printed media, by means of denying them printing paper, on the grounds of the scarcity of foreign exchange. The Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) condemned “The recent actions and decisions of officials, agencies and the Security apparatus of the State of Venezuela aimed at censoring the press and the other media that investigate facts of public interest in Venezuelan soil”. Coinciding with the position set by the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, the IACHR condemned the suspension of CNN in Venezuela (http://bit.ly/2lxHChq). Open aggressions against journalists, ferocious attacks on media communication, theft of equipment to radio stations and digital media, court decisions that promote censorship... The arsenal with which the Government of Hugo Chávez, first; And Nicolás Maduro, during four years, have intimidated the independent press, and has only increased during the first seven months of 2016, and in general, the already gloomy panorama of Freedom of the Press in Venezuela has worsened this year, according to the report “Freedom of Expression in deterioration”, published by the Institute for Press and Society (IPYS) on its website. The NGO that defends the rights of Venezuelan journalists, which has denounced for years the abuses of the “chavismo” against journalists and media, accounted for 546 violations of freedom of expression (two and a half daily) in 233 cases during the first seven months of 2016. Understanding these attacks as: “aggressions and threats against journalists, attacks on media outlets, limitations on the coverage of issues of public concern by hostile groups, arbitrary detentions by security forces, interrogations and intimidation, judicial decisions that result in censorship, threats and actions of a legal nature, offensive statements by public authorities, decrease and suspension of editions due to shortage of printing paper and aggressions in the digital environment” (http://bit.ly/2dhHxeq). For its part, Reporters Without Borders expressed great concern over the situation of freedom of expression and information in Venezuela, which has constantly deteriorated with the intensification of the economic and social crisis that strikes the country (http://bit.ly/2lxxg18). But the Maduro government’s last measure to end the freedom of Information is to empower the Armed Forces to control and monitor the media and the social networks. “In case censorship against the press and attacks to freedom of expression were not sufficient in Venezuela, the Government of Nicolás Maduro has empowered the Army to seize the media and equipment of civilians who

criticize the Chavista revolution as well as to monitor social networks on the Internet and of the opposition leaders,” reports the Newspaper ABC of Spain (http://bit.ly/2l64cBJ). 8. Conclusion As Mr. Luis Almagro explained in his report, “Venezuela lost the purpose of politics. It forgot to defend the greater and collective good in the long run over the short term individual interest. A ruler must base his action on a vision of State, a long-term vision. The immoral politician is the one who loses this vision because the only thing that interests him is to remain in power”. What is currently happening in Venezuela is precisely what Almagro denounces. The only interest of the Government is to remain in power, at any cost, regardless of the consequences. The Maduro regime closed the electoral routes to achieve a change of government, blocking the holding of the recall referendum and postponing indefinitely any other election, because "that is not the priority." Nor does it accept calls within and outside the country to release political prisoners, opening a channel for humanitarian aid or sincere dialogue with the opposition to solve the serious national problems. The insensitivity and cruelty of the Venezuelan government has reached inconceivable extremes. Not only does it deny the existence of a humanitarian crisis, but ignores malnutrition-related deaths of the weakest, the newborn children. In 2016, the Caritas organization of Venezuela initiated a project of child survival in four federal entities: Miranda, Vargas, Zulia and the Capital district. Caritas found that 25% of the children evaluated showed some form of acute malnutrition and 28% are at risk of malnutrition (http://bit.ly/2lbe0KD). The same can be said of diseases and epidemics, which have grown rapidly in our country. Paradoxically, this situation of poverty, death and malnutrition developed in a nation that has received multi-million dollar resources during the last 18 years, due to increases in oil prices. Which proves that the crisis is the sole and exclusive responsibility of the mismanagement of the Government. In the past, the Democratic Charter has been activated because of less serious reasons. This catastrophe, which has a strong impact in Venezuelans and threatens to affect the whole region, cannot continue to be ignored by the InterAmerican System. It is time to activate the regional mechanisms to defend democracy, liberties and human rights in Venezuela.