The ruling PSUV party rejoined the beleaguered opposition-controlled National Assembly today, after leaving parliament in 2017 in a show of disapproval over the opposition. Since then, the National Assembly had been meeting without the presence of any PSUV deputies.
PSUV deputy Francisco Torrealba said that he hoped that his party’s return to the parliament would result in “an opportunity to return to a dialogue” between the two sides. At the same time, he said that the National Assembly was still in contempt of the country’s Supreme Court, and called parliament “a disaster”.
Since the opposition won control of the National Assembly in 2015, the regime-controlled Supreme Court has issued a string of rulings limiting the powers of the body, and eventually ruled that parliament was in contempt and that all of its future actions were null and void.
During today’s session, Juan Guaido took the opportunity to chastise the PSUV deputies in attendance, saying that they were complicit in denying the crisis that has been gripping the country for years and only began to publicly acknowledge in this year. He also called on the deputies to turn away from the Maduro regime, saying:
You have to decide today if you want to be on the side of the solution, or if you want to be complicit in crimes against humanity.
US Treasury Sanctions Eight Entities Over Oil Sales to Cuba
The United States Department of the Treasury issued sanctions today against eight new entities related to Venezuela (four companies and four vessels) accused of conducting illicit oil transfers to Cuba.
According to the Miami Herald:
“Maduro’s Cuban benefactors provide a lifeline to the regime and enable its repressive security and intelligence apparatus,” Mnuchin said in a statement. “Venezuela’s oil belongs to the Venezuelan people, and should not be used as a bargaining tool to prop up dictators and prolong the usurpation of Venezuelan democracy.”
The sanctions came at the same time that United States President Donald Trump spoke at the United Nations General Assembly. During his speech, Trump called Maduro “a Cuban puppet”.
Cabello Visits Pyongyang as Maduro Travels to Moscow
Ruling party vice president and Constituent Assembly president Diosdado Cabello arrived in North Korea early this morning while Maduro visited Moscow, both on missions to strengthen ties with the respective governments.
Cabello’s arrival in North Korea was announced with a set of images from Lisandro Solorzano, a member of the Constituent Assembly who is evidently part of the Venezuelan delegation to Pyongyang:
[Constituent Assembly] President [Diosdado Cabello] leads the high-level delegation from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela which is arriving in the People’s Democratic Republic of North Korea to strengthen cooperative ties among different strategic areas for each nation [sic].
We will not be made to submit!
At the same time that Cabello arrived in North Korea, Maduro was in Moscow on a similar mission:
We’ve arrived at the Russian nation to strengthen our historic and very positive relations of interchange and respect between our peoples. The brotherhood that we’ve built over the past several years is key to building a prosperous future in Venezuela.
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