The United States slapped sanctions on 21 senior Venezuelan security and cabinet officials Wednesday for leading a crackdown after President Nicolas Maduro’s bitterly contested July reelection.
The fresh measures come a week after Washington said it recognized opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia as president-elect, amid accusations of fraud against Maduro.
“Maduro and his representatives’ repressive actions in the wake of the Venezuelan presidential election are a desperate attempt to silence the voices of its citizens,” Bradley Smith, the acting under secretary of the Treasury Department, said in a statement.
Fifteen leaders of the Venezuelan security apparatus are among those sanctioned, including the heads of the intelligence service, military counterintelligence service, the national guard and the police.
The sanctions also target the Venezuelan communications minister and the head of the prison service.
“All of these entities are part of Maduro’s security apparatus and are responsible for violently repressing peaceful protesters and carrying out arbitrary detention,” a senior US administration official told reporters.
The US Treasury said Venezuelan security forces had also issued an “unjustified arrest warrant” for Urrutia, forcing him to flee to Spain.
In September, the United States announced sanctions against 16 Venezuelan officials over alleged election fraud.
They included senior figures in the Venezuelan electoral council and Supreme Court, with the US Treasury saying at the time that they “impeded a transparent electoral process and the release of accurate election results.”
Maduro claimed victory in the election and defied intense domestic and international pressure to release detailed polling numbers to back up the assertion.
Amid an outcry at home and abroad, the former bus driver handpicked by the late authoritarian strongman Hugo Chavez is now serving his third term. The oil-rich country’s economy is a shambles, as Venezuelans endure acute shortages of food, medicine and other basic goods.
Maduro is accused of leading a harshly repressive leftist regime, with a systematic crackdown on the opposition
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