23.07.19: Not Magic

The National Assembly approved a motion today to incorporate Venezuela into the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR, in Spanish), a hemispheric defense treaty. The motion was passed in its second reading at a special legislative session that took place outdoors in Caracas.

The move is significant because it has sparked some in some sectors of the Venezuelan apposition that the country will be able to formally request for military assistance to overthrow Maduro from the treaty’s other members, namely the United States. However, the mechanism for such a request is not clear, and there is no guarantee that the request would be granted even if it were made.

Juan Guaido acknowledged the treaty’s limitations today, saying:

The TIAR is not magic. We’ve arrived at this point after working at it for years. This isn’t a solution that sends us all home. It’s the opposite of that (…) no one can win over those who refuse to surrender.

Below, a video of Guaido speaking at today’s special National Assembly session in Caracas. In the clip, the deputies vote to approve the motion to join the TIAR by raising their hands:

Lima Group Forwards OHCHR Report to ICC

The Lima Group announced today that it had forwarded the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) report on the Maduro government’s systematic human rights abuses to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. The announcement came during a meeting of the Group in Buenos Aires.

The OHCHR report was released on July 4, and outlines some of the ways in which the Maduro regime has abused human rights in order to maintain itself in power. According to the report, Maduro has instituted a system of “social control” that runs on mass arbitrary arrests, torture, and extrajudicial killings.

In order for the ICC to examine cases that fall within its mandate (i.e., war crimes and crimes against humanity) it must have the cases forwarded to it. By forwarding the OHCHR report to the ICC, the Lima Group has taken the first step in what might become an investigation by the ICC.

The Lima Group also issued a statement after its meeting, which you can find here in Spanish.

Brito: Power Returns to Most of the Country

Minister of Electrical Energy Freddy Brito announced this afternoon that electrical power was being restored in parts of the country after a power outage knocked out virtually all of Venezuela yesterday.

Britto made the announcement through his Twitter account by saying:

#Now we’ve managed to restore 100% of electrical power in most states in the country and we are making progress in the rest of the states towards their final recovery.

Decades of mismanagement and corruption have left the country’s energy grid in a state of chronic disrepair, leading to constant blackouts. The Maduro regime has blamed these blackouts–including the one yesterday–on its enemies, but has yet to provide any concrete evidence for its claims.

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