[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
VENEZUELA'S TRAGIC MELTDOWN
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 28, 2017
__________
Serial No. 115-13
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/
or
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
24-831 PDF WASHINGTON : 2017
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office,
http://bookstore.gpo.gov. For more information, contact the GPO Customer Contact Center,
U.S. Government Publishing Office. Phone 202-512-1800, or 866-512-1800 (toll-free).
E-mail, [email protected].
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida BRAD SHERMAN, California
DANA ROHRABACHER, California GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas KAREN BASS, California
DARRELL E. ISSA, California WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina AMI BERA, California
MO BROOKS, Alabama LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
PAUL COOK, California TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
RON DeSANTIS, Florida ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
TED S. YOHO, Florida DINA TITUS, Nevada
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois NORMA J. TORRES, California
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York BRADLEY SCOTT SCHNEIDER, Illinois
DANIEL M. DONOVAN, Jr., New York THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
Wisconsin TED LIEU, California
ANN WAGNER, Missouri
BRIAN J. MAST, Florida
FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida
BRIAN K. FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania
THOMAS A. GARRETT, Jr., Virginia
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
MO BROOKS, Alabama NORMA J. TORRES, California
RON DeSANTIS, Florida ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
TED S. YOHO, Florida GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
WITNESSES
Mr. Steve Hanke, co-director, Institute for Applied Economics,
Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise, The Johns
Hopkins University............................................. 6
Mr. Russell M. Dallen, Jr., president and editor-in-chief, Latin
American Herald Tribune........................................ 18
Hector Schamis, Ph.D., adjunct professor, Walsh School of Foreign
Service, Georgetown University................................. 29
Michael McCarthy, Ph.D., research fellow, Center for Latin
American and Latino Studies, American University............... 40
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Mr. Steve Hanke: Prepared statement.............................. 8
Mr. Russell M. Dallen, Jr.: Prepared statement................... 20
Hector Schamis, Ph.D.: Prepared statement........................ 31
Michael McCarthy, Ph.D.: Prepared statement...................... 43
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 60
Hearing minutes.................................................. 61
VENEZUELA'S TRAGIC MELTDOWN
----------
TUESDAY, MARCH 28, 2017
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:08 p.m., in
room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jeff Duncan
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Duncan. A quorum being present, the subcommittee will
come to order. Before I recognize myself for an opening
statement, I would like to show a few clips of the situation in
Venezuela. And I think it is going to be on the screen, if you
watch.
[Video shown.]
Mr. Duncan. I think that is a good preface for the hearing
today.
Before I recognize myself for an opening statement, we will
welcome to the committee Congresswoman Mia Love from Utah to
participate today. Without objection, so ordered.
I now recognize myself for an opening statement.
We are at a critical point in Venezuela's history. Severe
widespread shortages in food, electricity, medicine, and the
basic goods within what was once the richest country in Latin
America have led to starvation, the highest infant mortality
rate in the world, and horrific conditions in the hospitals.
Today, Venezuela is on the edge of a complete meltdown. The
country has the highest inflation rate in the world, with a
falling GDP, its oil company PDVSA, is not generating enough
revenue, and the Venezuelan currency is worthless. Gross
economic mismanagement, widespread corruption throughout the
government, and an erosion of democracy, rule of law, and human
rights in the country have led Venezuela to its sad state
today. Americans should take note, Venezuela is a case study
for the failures of socialism.
This is the third hearing that this subcommittee has held
on Venezuela since I became the chairman in January 2015, and
we remain deeply concerned for the welfare of the Venezuelan
people and potential regional implications from Venezuela's
instability.
Venezuela has the largest oil and second-largest gold
reserves in the world. But, incredibly, under President
Maduro's tenure--and dating back to President Chavez's tenure--
the country has become practically a failed state.
Last year, the economy shrank by almost 17 percent. This
year, the International Monetary Fund estimates that inflation
will increase to over 1,600 percent. The poverty rate is the
highest in four decades and the homicide rate is at a 35-year
high. Such indicators provide little hope for a recovery absent
significant changes in the country's policies.
Those who can afford to leave are fleeing the country in
droves. Thousands have gone to Chile, Colombia, and Brazil,
seeking food and medicine. And here at home, Venezuelans make
up the largest percentage of asylum requests to the United
States, with those numbers growing by 150 percent since 2015,
according to the United States Department of Homeland Security.
If the crisis in Venezuela continues, we could all have a
situation on our hands where we are faced with massive refugee
flows and public health threats from rising numbers of malaria
and diphtheria cases in Venezuela, and those do not respect
borders.
In addition, Venezuela's PDVSA continues to creep along,
but corruption and low oil prices have led to slower output.
This situation has the potential to greatly impact gas prices
here at home, as the United States is the third-largest
importer of Venezuelan oil.
The recent news that PDVSA received a $1.5 billion loan in
exchange for giving Russia's state-owned oil company Rosneft
49.1 percent of its shares in CITGO is problematic for U.S.
interests. Should Venezuela default on its debt obligation to
Rosneft, the Russians would become the second-largest foreign
owner of U.S. refining capacity and thereby take control of a
critical U.S. energy infrastructure, including three U.S.
refineries and a network of pipelines. This is an untenable
situation and undermines U.S. energy security interests.
Furthermore, Venezuela's Petrocaribe program no longer
provides energy with the same preferential financing terms as
it did before. Its beneficiaries in the Caribbean and Central
America should continue to seek alternatives for their own
energy security, including from the United States' own
abundance of oil and natural gas.
Moreover, the political landscape in Venezuela looks bleak
as well. While the people turned out in droves last year and
spoke loudly at the ballot box in December 2015, giving the
opposition a two-thirds supermajority in the legislature, the
Maduro government refuses to listen to its citizens. Instead,
Maduro has used the Supreme Court and Electoral Commission to
nullify all legislative action, and he has thrown over 100
political prisoners in jail.
Maduro refuses to submit to the people's accountability. He
has stolen their right of free expression, nullified their
vote, and continues trampling on the Constitution and the rule
of law.
This month, OAS Secretary General Almagro provided evidence
of the further deterioration of the state of affairs in
Venezuela and has issued yet another call for the Venezuelan
Government to hold free and open general elections.
On March 23, 14 countries in the Americas released a joint
declaration supporting Almagro's efforts, calling for Venezuela
to hold elections, affirm democratic institutions, and free all
political prisoners. The U.S. supported that effort. And while
it called for dialogue, it also left open the possibility for
further action, including suspension of Venezuela from the OAS
if change does not occur.
While I am hopeful that this declaration will result in a
change in Maduro's behavior, the past dialogue efforts have all
failed to do just that. The OAS member states need to think
very carefully about how long to give the Venezuelan Government
to comply, as this declaration reminds me of a very similar
situation last year in the OAS. It also begs the question for
the Trump administration: How is U.S. policy toward Venezuela
today any different than it was a year ago?
Last December, MERCOSUR suspended Venezuela for failing to
meet membership requirements. It is my view that the OAS should
take the same approach if Maduro does not immediately call for
elections and change his behavior toward his own citizens.
As an aside, it has come to my attention that the Dominican
Republic, El Salvador, and Haiti are not supporting the OAS
General Secretary's efforts to promote democracy in Venezuela.
If this is the case, I think it would be difficult for the
United States Congress to justify continued U.S. financial
assistance to these countries, and I respectfully urge them to
reconsider and support democracy in Venezuela.
In conclusion, the United States is watching the situation
in Venezuela closely. Last year, I, along with Ranking Member
Sires and nearly 30 Members of Congress, urged the Obama
administration to advocate for the release of Francisco Marquez
and Joshua Holt from prison there in Venezuela. Today,
Francisco is free, and he is sitting with us today in the
audience.
Francisco, I applaud your courage in the face of extreme
brutality. Would you stand and be recognized?
[Applause.]
Mr. Duncan. He was supposed to be here in the audience.
Hopefully, he will make it.
I want to urge President Trump to prioritize the release of
Joshua Holt and continue U.S. vigilance in countering the
Venezuelan Government's activities in drug trafficking,
organized crime, and assistance to Islamist militants. This
hearing could not be timelier, in view of today's OAS Permanent
Council meeting, and I look forward to what our witnesses will
share with us.
With that, I will turn to the ranking member, Albio Sires,
for his opening statement.
Mr. Sires. Thank you, Chairman, for holding this timely
hearing, and thank you to our witnesses for being here today.
With every month that passes, we see the situation in
Venezuela becoming more and more dire. Reports of families
searching dumpsters for food and sick children unable to access
lifesaving insulin or chemotherapy are, unfortunately, becoming
the norm. Maduro continues to keep political prisoners, like
Leopoldo Lopez, under lock and key to send a strong message to
those trying to question his actions.
Venezuela, a country with the world's largest known oil
reserves, is spiraling into a collapsed state where the people
are struggling just to survive. Make no mistake, it is the
failed Chavismo policies and the authoritarian actions of
Nicolas Maduro that have brought all this pain and suffering
upon Venezuela's people. Maduro and his cronies continue to get
richer as they traffic money and drugs, while doing nothing to
help billions of suffering people.
Instead of focusing on the economy, Maduro is staging mock
military exercises and stoking fears by spreading propaganda of
a U.S.-led invasion. Press reports show that of the 800,000
businesses that operated under Chavez, nearly 600,000 have shut
down.
Maduro's tactics are making it next to impossible to
survive. With the recent sanctions of Vice President Tareck El
Aissami under the Kingpin Act, it has become clear that
Venezuela's Government is acting as a narco-state and
facilitating the shipment of narcotics throughout the region.
The truth about Maduro is clear, and the international
community is starting to unify against him. The OAS Secretary
General Luis Almagro has wisely called for Venezuela's
suspension from the OAS unless he frees political prisoners,
accepts humanitarian aid, and holds elections without delay.
While a political solution is the only way to provide
sustainable change for Venezuela, for the Venezuelan people,
the dialogues up until now have done nothing but help provide
Maduro a lifeline while his regime is teetering on the edge of
collapse. I believe that we need to work together with our
allies around the world and continue to insist Maduro abide by
the international norms and give the Venezuela people the
freedom they deserve.
I am eager to hear how our panelists view the decaying
situation in Venezuela and look forward to their
recommendations as we continue to grapple with this complex
issue.
Thank you.
Mr. Duncan. Since this topic is so important to me as
chairman, I am going to give the other members a chance for a
brief opening statement.
I recognize Mr. DeSantis for a brief statement.
Mr. DeSantis. Mr. Chairman, thanks for your leadership on
this.
We have been following now for years the crackdown on
political dissent, imprisonment of people like Leopoldo Lopez,
but this socialist state just keeps getting worse and worse.
They are short on food, in fact, they had the government
inspecting the bakeries to make sure that the flour was not
being misused, because they wouldn't want someone to make
brownies if they are short of bread. They are short on medical
supplies. And even in the country that has some of the most
proven and largest oil reserves in the world, they are running
out of gasoline.
This is an epic failure, and it is really a testament to
the failure of socialism, the failure of central planning, and
the failure of having a repressive police state.
So, Mr. Chairman, thanks for doing this. We have got to
keep on this and do all we can to help the people of Venezuela,
because they are suffering at the hands of a really failed
system.
Mr. Duncan. I am going to come that way in just a second.
Mrs. Love, do you have a statement?
Mrs. Love. I do. Thank you so much for allowing me to come
and give a statement and ask questions during this hearing.
This is an issue that is personal to me, and I would like
to just for the record--I will enter this into the record
also--read a letter that we have written to the President of
the United States:
I write to direct your attention to the now months-
long imprisonment of Mr. Joshua Anthony Holt, a
resident of Riverton, Utah, who has been held without
trial in a Venezuelan jail since June 2016, and request
that you take action and demand Mr. Holt's immediate
release.
Joshua was arrested on fabricated charges of
possession of weapons of war on June 30, 2016. He has
not been granted a chance to defend himself or to share
his story in a court of law, despite being imprisoned
for months.
My staff and I have remained in contact with a State
Department official since his imprisonment, receiving
periodic updates regarding Mr. Holt's condition and
treatment while he is imprisoned. We understand that
Mr. Holt has lost roughly 50 pounds and has been forced
to disrobe in front of guards and deliberately been
humiliated. Moreover, he has been denied fair hearing,
as his judge has either failed to appear or postponed
his hearing dates numerous times.
His treatment, condition, and time imprisoned have
taken a significant toll on his family and the
community, and I am growing increasingly concerned that
Venezuelan officials plan to detain Mr. Holt
indefinitely while continuing to deprive him of his due
process.
I find it very difficult to believe that a country that has
landed a man on the moon, a country that is the leader in this
world cannot protect its own citizen from this wrongful
imprisonment. And so what I am asking the committee and what I
am asking the President is the same question I have had to ask
myself: Are we doing for Joshua and other wrongly, innocent
imprisoned Americans what we would do or what we would expect
our representatives to do for our children?
Thank you.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you.
Mr. Espaillat, as much time as you need.
Mr. Espaillat. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Sires. Thank you for having this timely briefing on Venezuela.
Just as we speak here today, there are ongoing discussions
in the Organization of American States regarding the plight of
the Venezuelan people and the plight of the nation. I think it
is important for us to hear directly from experts on the
current political, economic, and humanitarian situation in
Venezuela.
Venezuela has been a country that traditionally was known
for having access to great revenue and where there was
opportunity for an emerging middle class. However, we have seen
that the current government has its economic challenges. In
fact, according to the International Monetary Fund, the rapidly
declining price of oil has hit Venezuela very hard.
Under the Petrocaribe program, 10 members of the Caribbean
Community, along with the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and El
Salvador, had the ability to purchase oil from Venezuela. These
challenges for these countries have disappeared. They are now
unable to get access in many cases of this cheaper price of
oil.
We would like to hear what the status of that program is,
and also the challenges of the availability of food and the
human rights situation in Venezuela. These are all critical
issues that we must address, and I look forward to hearing from
the experts.
Mr. Duncan. I thank the gentleman.
We are now going to go to our witnesses. And I just want
you to notice the lights in front of you. It is a lighting
system. You have 5 minutes to testify. It will start turning
yellow as it is getting closer in the last minute, and then
red. If you see the red, just start to wrap up.
And so we will go ahead and recognize our first witness.
The bios and information on the witnesses have been provided to
the committee, so I am not going to go into that.
Mr. Hanke, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MR. STEVE HANKE, CO-DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR
APPLIED ECONOMICS, GLOBAL HEALTH, AND THE STUDY OF BUSINESS
ENTERPRISE, THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Mr. Hanke. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Duncan. Pull that microphone over. Everything is being
recorded, and we want to hear what you have to say.
Mr. Hanke. We are set now.
Thank you for inviting me, both you and your colleagues. I
will have six general points that I would like to raise with
regard to Venezuela. And before I do that, I might add that I
was President Caldera's chief adviser in 1995 and 1996, so I
have watched the situation as it has deteriorated and then
essentially melted down, as the committee has recognized
already.
The first point I would like to raise is that when you
think about Venezuela, you have to think former Soviet Union in
the late 1980s. You have to put the thing into context.
My second point is, well, what does this actually mean?
Some of you have already alluded to this, but the legacy that
we face there is one of socialism, incompetence, corruption,
massive oil reserves that are poorly exploited, all these
things are very common with the former Soviet Union, and the
list could go on and on.
The third point I would like to make is that there is one
precondition that must be met before all these things can be
so-called fixed, because the list of things that are wrong is
enormous and the number of reforms that will have to be made
will be absolutely huge. And the precondition is that inflation
has to be stopped. We recognize this. And I was an adviser to
the governments in the Baltics, and also in the Balkans, and
also in Latin America. And in all these cases where you have
these meltdown situations, you must fix the inflation problem
and establish stability before you can do anything. As I like
to say, stability might not be everything, but everything is
nothing without stability.
So how do you fix the inflation? It is actually quite easy
to do. There are two possibilities that are proven to work. The
first possibility is to introduce something called a currency
board system. I was involved in doing this in Estonia,
Lithuania, Bulgaria, and Bosnia, and it stopped the inflation
and stabilized things immediately.
A currency board simply allows a country to issue their own
currency, but it becomes a clone of the anchor currency. In the
case of Venezuela, it would be the U.S. dollar, because it
trades at a fixed exchange rate to the dollar. Under a currency
board system, it is fully convertible and it is backed with 100
percent U.S. dollar reserves. So in that case the bolivar would
be equal to the dollar. If you didn't like the bolivar, you
would just exchange it for greenbacks and 100 percent reserves
would cover that and you would be fixed.
The next point, the fifth point, is the second option, and
that is to dollarize the country and just get rid of the local
currency and adopt the U.S. dollar. I was involved in Ecuador
when Ecuador did this in 2001, and, of course, it stabilized
the situation in Ecuador immediately. And in Ecuador, even
though the ideological frame is the same as the one in
Venezuela, the performance in Ecuador is pretty good, actually.
I have got data in my testimony before you. You can look at and
review that.
Now, the bottom line is, well, what should the U.S.
actually do in terms of policy? And the first thing is that I
would strongly advise no meddling, no direct meddling, forget
the regime change kind of rhetoric that is so common in certain
circles in Washington.
So the question is, well, do we have any policy? Should we
have a do-nothing policy? And the answer is no. There are many
things that we can do. We have obligations with the OAS, with
the U.N. We have already mentioned the OAS. Things are going on
today. And the U.S. can take and use those vehicles to make
their points.
The second thing is something more direct that, in fact,
hits inflation. And that is one thing that could be done is
what Senator Dole did with Senator Steve Symms and Senator Phil
Gramm, where they put an amendment in the foreign ops bill in
1992 that allows U.S. quota contributions to the IMF to be used
to help establish currency boards.
As far as dollarization goes, I would just remind you that
Senator Connie Mack, when he was chairman of the Joint Economic
Committee, was tirelessly working on promoting dollarization.
And this helped, by the way, in the introduction of the dollar
in Ecuador and then a year later in El Salvador.
The last thing--I am running over, but let me just mention
the reality of either a currency board system or dollarization.
We just did a survey in Venezuela 2 weeks ago to see what
public opinion looked like with regard to currency boards or
dollarization. Number one, 50 percent of the public is sick and
tired of the Central Bank in Venezuela and they don't trust it.
And if you look further into the detail of the surveys that
were done, the majority of the population supports
dollarization, 62 percent support dollarization and 59 percent
support currency boards.
So, with that, thank you for letting me go a minute and 23
seconds over my time, Mr. Chairman, but that is it for now.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hanke follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Duncan. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Dallen, you are recognized.
STATEMENT OF MR. RUSSELL M. DALLEN, JR., PRESIDENT AND EDITOR-
IN-CHIEF, LATIN AMERICAN HERALD TRIBUNE
Mr. Dallen. Thank you, Chairman Duncan, Ranking Member
Sires, and my local Florida Congresswoman, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen,
for inviting my testimony before you today. It is an honor.
Let me begin on a personal note. I spend my days and nights
working with Latin America, by day working on sustainable
private sector financing for countries and companies across
Latin America at an investment bank, and by night overseeing
some of the best reporters and journalists around the
hemisphere at a newspaper. Both are based in Caracas,
Venezuela.
I began working with Latin America at the United Nations
Association of the USA under Assistant Secretary of State Toby
Gati and the United Nations Ambassador William vanden Heuvel
after special graduate study under National Security Council
Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and international lawyer Louis
Henkin at Columbia University and Sir Ian Brownlie at Oxford,
including a stint at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
where I was a Rosenthal Fellow.
In 2000, I moved to Venezuela to run the Latin American
operations of U.S. investment bank Oppenheimer, and 3 years
later bought a newspaper company there, The Daily Journal, a
newspaper founded in 1945, which also owned other important
newspapers in Venezuela, including Diario de Caracas and Tal
Cual.
In those roles, I have had the satisfaction of helping to
finance development not just in Venezuela, but all across Latin
America, as well as overseeing and training a host of some of
the region's best journalists. Those positions have also given
me a well-placed midfield seat in the battle for Latin
America's heart and soul, a conflict, I am sad to report, that
the forces of freedom and democracy have been losing badly in
Venezuela.
My friends and esteemed colleagues Professor Schamis,
Professor Hanke, and Dr. McCarthy will testify to the
disastrous results of the Chavez and Maduro administrations on
Venezuela. I have been asked by the committee to focus on
threats to national security, to the U.S. national security
resulting from Venezuela's communist dictatorship, and the
country's economic destruction, as well as what the U.S. can
and should do to assist.
At the top of that list--it seems to be Russia week or
Russia month lately in Washington--in late December, my teams
at Caracas Capital and at the Latin American Herald Tribune
uncovered that Russia's state-owned oil company Rosneft had
secured a lien on 49.1 percent of CITGO in the United States
from Venezuela's state-owned oil company Petroleos de
Venezuela, PDVSA by its Spanish letters, potentially making the
Russian Government-controlled Rosneft the owner of America's
sixth-largest refinery and a vast pipeline network.
That reality is made worse by the fact that Rosneft is
under OFAC sanctions from the United States, as well as being
headed by a longtime Putin deputy, Igor Sechin, who is also a
named sanctioned individual.
We made the discovery of Rosneft's UCC lien filing because
we were diligently searching for explanations for how PDVSA,
which by the end of November was 2 weeks into technical default
on some of its $35 billion in bonds, was able to come up with
the funds to pay the remaining $440 million of the $4.2 billion
in bond payments it owed in October/November and suddenly cause
the Central Bank reserves to rise $890 million as well. The
threads we pulled uncovered that Russia had loaned the
Venezuelans $1.5 billion.
While much of our attention here in the United States has
been focused on other issues, Russia's Rosneft has been active
in Venezuela as well as all over the world. In the last year,
they have acquired Indian assets, Egyptian assets, and this may
come as a surprise to Americans who have lost much blood and
treasure to liberate that country, but Rosneft is also drilling
in Iraq--where, by the way, they are partnered with China. And
this year, because of some additional purchases, but mainly
because of the sale of Venezuela's 50 percent of the Ruhr Oil
Refineries in Germany to Rosneft for $1.6 billion in 2010,
Rosneft is now the third-largest refiner in Germany as well.
My father is a career Air Force noncommissioned officer,
and he instilled in me a firm belief in the Noah principle;
that is, that there are no prizes for predicting rain, there
are only prizes for building arks. With that in mind, as I go
through each policy I will make recommendations and we can
discuss them. Obviously, because of time, we will just stick
with the first one, and that is the CFIUS analysis of CITGO.
A preliminary search of the database of the Committee on
Foreign Investment in the United States does not show that the
purchase of CITGO by Venezuela has ever undergone a CFIUS
review. Under the Exon-Florio amendment, if the party has never
availed itself of the voluntary CFIUS notification and review
process, there are no limitations for the President's authority
to investigate a past transaction, especially since the 2007
Foreign Investment and National Security Act includes energy
security, obviously something very important to the chairman.
There is more in my written testimony, but because of time
I will just conclude that allowing Venezuela to fall further
into the hands of drug kingpins with close relationships with
Cuba, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, Russia, and China, intent on
doing us harm, while sitting on top of the world's largest oil
reserves must not be an option. Likewise, allowing Venezuela to
fall further into anarchy and chaos will only open the door to
further death and destruction, heightened regional insecurity,
and Latin American instability. If the United States is unable
to bring democracy to its own backyard, what chance does it
have for bringing it to the rest of the world?
Thank you for your time, efforts, concern, and good
offices.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dallen follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Duncan. Thank you.
Mr. Schamis.
STATEMENT OF HECTOR SCHAMIS, PH.D., ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, WALSH
SCHOOL OF FOREIGN SERVICE, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
Mr. Schamis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, and
members of the committee. Thank you for this session.
To say that there is a tragic meltdown in Venezuela is
perhaps an understatement, and I will try to highlight why the
political, social, and economic dimensions and the security for
the hemisphere are involved in this tragic meltdown.
The constitutional order has broken down in Venezuela. The
National Assembly is in the hands of the opposition after the
landslide victory you, Mr. Chairman, highlighted, in December
2015, but ever since, it has lost all capacity to approve the
budget, to legislate. It has even lost parliamentary immunity.
Just this morning, the Supreme Court has ruled an across-the-
board suspension of parliamentary immunity for the members of
the National Assembly, how Congress is known in Venezuela.
There are political prisoners with no rights. Torture has
been reported. Francisco Marquez is someone we just mentioned.
And the number of prisoners is 115 today. All of these while
the government was allegedly maintaining a dialogue, discussing
the liberation of political prisoners, the release of political
prisoners.
The sphere of political rights has shrunk to the point of
extinction. The government has suspended elections
indefinitely. There are supposed to be this year regional
elections. They will not happen. And it has canceled the right
of the Venezuelan people to recall its President, the recall
referendum. There is no separation of powers nor checks and
balances. Venezuela is under a dictatorship.
There is a deep economic and social crisis that has been
mentioned already. I don't want to go too much into that. The
monetary base has expanded to 236 percent. Inflation is the
highest in the world. The population is below the poverty line
at 82 percent, and 52 percent under extreme poverty.
All of this has entailed a deep humanitarian crisis. The
basic basket is worth 15.3 minimum wages, 9.6 million people
eat two or less meals a day, and there have been reports of
weight loss and protein consumption decline. What we saw before
shows people scavenging in garbage cans. There have been
reports of children dying by ingesting poison Yuca, the tuber
that is poisonous. People in hospitals have to provide their
own medicines and everything they need for their treatment
because there are no drugs, whether that is painkillers,
antibiotics, let alone drugs for cancer treatment.
The collapse of the public health system, we have to
highlight, has been much worsened by the government's
incompetence and its criminal refusal, I want to add, to accept
international humanitarian aid. The Maduro government talks
about foreign invasion. They reject the foreign invasion of the
Red Cross to assist this humanitarian crisis.
There is corruption and crime. As the U.S. Department of
State has reported, the Vice President has been named,
designated a kingpin narcotics trafficker. The freezing of
assets of the Vice President amounts to $3 billion. This is not
the first time this has happened. Previous high officials of
the government have also been identified and charged with drug
trafficking. And the nephews of the First Lady have been tried
and are expecting conviction in New York.
Inevitably, lawlessness from above breeds lawlessness from
below. Venezuela experienced 28,000 killings and violent acts
throughout the country in 2015. Caracas is the most violent
city on Earth, with a murder rate of 120 per 100,000
inhabitants.
In my testimony, in my written testimony, I make a call for
action. We are in front of a narco-state that entails risks for
the security of the hemisphere, the U.S. and the neighbors.
Today, the Colombian Senate discussed this morning the
existence of 1 million refugees in Colombia alone. Venezuela is
a large country, 30 million people, bordering Brazil, Colombia,
Guyana, and with a coast in the Caribbean. Panama has begun to
deny visas to Venezuelans. And this humanitarian crisis that
you see normally in situations of war is happening in Venezuela
as well.
I entirely support the call for the invocation of the
Inter-American Democratic Charter. The Senate has passed a
resolution, the U.S. Senate has passed a resolution, Resolution
35, making that call as well. You just made that convocation,
you convoked to that, and Mr. Duncan as well. And we need to
certainly accomplish more cohesion. We need better collective
action in the hemisphere. The OAS is the natural place and
Secretary Almagro is certainly leading the way with that.
We started last year with Article 20, which calls for an
assessment of the Venezuelan situation, but Senator General
Almagro has now invoked Article 21, which calls for a
suspension of a country which has broken down the
constitutional arrangement. We need to put words and actions
together. Countries sitting on the fence must come on this side
and put enough pressure on the Venezuelan regime to change, to
call for elections, to release political prisoners, and to have
a timetable for attending to the grave humanitarian crisis that
the Venezuelans are suffering.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Schamis follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Dr. Schamis.
Now we will go to Dr. McCarthy.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL MCCARTHY, PH.D., RESEARCH FELLOW, CENTER
FOR LATIN AMERICAN AND LATINO STUDIES, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY
Mr. McCarthy. Chairman Duncan, Ranking Member Sires,
members of the committee, thank you for the invitation to
testify today.
Let me begin by commending the committee. This committee
has long appreciated the importance of the Venezuela situation,
and it has taken steps to raise awareness about the potential
negative impacts of the Venezuela crisis on the United States,
the hemisphere, and global governance.
It is an honor to join the committee in this ongoing
process of discussing policy options and considering potential
solutions. I look forward to your advice and questions.
Mr. Chairman, Venezuela's downward spiral has left the
country poised between crisis and collapse. As you know, over
the last 3 years the economy has fallen into a depression
marked by severe shortages and hyperinflation; social protests
frequently erupted into episodes of violent instability; and
the government dismantled what remained of one of Latin
America's oldest democracies, yielding an authoritarian regime.
Maduro and his government are hunkered down. In 2016, the
government illegally blocked the opposition's constitutional
push for a recall referendum. Then, after Vatican-facilitated
international dialogue broke down, the country's humanitarian
crisis escalated. Among other illegal detentions, the
government arbitrarily jailed an elected Member of Congress.
And as the rule of law further collapsed, the number of
political prisoners rose to well over 100.
These power grabs amount to a Presidential self-coup.
Regrettably, 2017 projects as another year of full-blown
crisis. The population is restive and it is suffering amid an
emerging humanitarian crisis. Great uncertainty persists about
whether postponed gubernatorial elections will take place this
year. And if there are no elections in 2017, then the popular
response would likely be contentious protests, perhaps
including street clashes.
For the hemisphere, the country's current trajectory
represents a fundamental threat to its economic, social, and
political stability. And I want to stress that today the
Venezuela crisis is already a regional one. There are ominous
signs out there, and there is already a substantial degree of
regional instability.
Over the last 3 years, Colombian civil society groups
estimate that had 1.2 million Venezuelans entered the country.
The breakdown of the numbers in terms of the type of migration
is unclear. What we do know is that overall an estimated
350,000 Venezuelans stayed in Colombia.
In 2016, Venezuelans submitted the most asylum requests of
any nationality in three countries: The United States, Brazil,
and Spain. In Central America, Costa Rica and Panama have
experienced significantly increased levels of migration from
Venezuela, while Caribbean countries continue to report high
numbers of migration.
In Europe, governments in Italy, Portugal, and Spain are
casting a watchful eye over events. There are between 800,000
and 1 million Venezuelans with European Union passports. The
overwhelming majority of these passport holders are from these
three countries.
The Venezuelan Government is responsible for this manmade
disaster, and it will be up to Venezuelans to address the
toughest problems, but the international community cannot
remain idle. The crisis is already regional in its effects, and
sustainable reconstruction will require determined
international leadership and well-coordinated assistance
efforts.
For the United States, facilitating reconstruction can
start with formulating a full-fledged policy for democratic
stability in Venezuela. And I want to talk to you about
messages, preparations, and actual policy options in the time
that is remaining.
The United States can start by sending an important
message, in private and in public, that any transition must be
peaceful and constitutional or else it will lack legitimacy. It
also should send a message by speaking out about the importance
of protecting legitimate political spaces. The opposition is
under constant harassment, and it is crucial the United States
work with regional partners and European allies to protect
spaces for civil and political mobilization.
Moving along to actual planning options. To address the
immediate effects of the crisis, the United States should
consider options for delivering humanitarian assistance to
support the health sector. This needs to be done through secure
multilateral or third-party channels. President Maduro's
request for technical medical assistance from the United
Nations is not credible. We need evidence of deeds that clearly
demonstrate the government's willingness to accept relief via
nonpoliticized channels of distribution.
The United States can consider three areas of policy action
in the following order. First, I think we need to redouble
efforts to apply the Inter-American Democratic Charter,
supporting Secretary General Almagro's efforts. And I think it
is important that we work with regional governments in the
region to bring along those who thus far are not convinced that
the application is justified.
At the same time, we need to make clear the cost of
nonaction regarding applying the Inter-American Democratic
Charter. Not pressing to hold Venezuela to account would set a
very bad precedent. In fact, it would send a dangerous message,
that those who implement the model of authoritarian government
may avoid being held accountable for their actions.
I think that the Trump administration should strongly
consider policy continuity with regard to the Caribbean Energy
Security Initiative previously led by Vice President Biden. I
think that effort is crucial to addressing the structural
problem of dependence on subsidized Venezuelan oil.
Now, moving along to the issue of sanctions. I think it is
important to recognize that to maximize targeted impact,
sanctions need to be seen as a tool, as part of a policy. Their
effectiveness ultimately depends on the ability to advance a
policy.
In this respect, two questions need to be asked in the
context of considering action: Does the measure achieve high
targeted impact at a low multilateral cost? And do they raise
the costs of the status quo for the government without
disproportionately raising exit costs for government leaders.
And I will conclude with one policy option that is new in
terms of the policy toolbox out there. In 2016, the Global
Magnitsky law came into being as a result of the Defense
Authorization Act. My understanding is that it still needs
implementing regulations, but the statutory language seems to
be pretty clear based on its prototype. And the innovation with
regards to this piece of legislation is that it would allow the
United States Government to sanction human rights abusers
without also invoking the International Emergency Economic
Powers Act, and that is the act that requires the United States
Government to declare the situation in a country an unusual and
extraordinary national security threat to the United States.
So summing up, if utilized, the Global Magnitsky Act might
create greater clarity about the intention of U.S. sanctions.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McCarthy follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Duncan. Thank you.
Votes will be called at 3, so we are going to try to get
through as many questions as members can.
Dr. Hanke, we know that there is a glut of oil that has
kept prices down. If there is an increase in the price of a
barrel of oil, how will that help Venezuela in the short term?
Mr. Hanke. Well, in the short term PDVSA, the state-owned
oil company, might actually move from a negative cash flow--
they are spending more money than they are actually taking in
right now. So they are running a negative cash flow. And they
are exploiting their proven reserves at a very slow rate, and
the rate is so slow, actually, that the reserves are actually
worthless. And the reason they are doing that is that they
haven't been able to maintain their production capacity or
expand it.
So if the price goes up--I think my models show that the
oil prices will probably reach $70 a barrel by the end of the
year, which is quite a bit above where we are now, we are a
little bit below $50--that would be helpful, but it is just
going to be a little bit of a Band-Aid on PDVSA, to directly
answer your question. It will help them. The bleeding will slow
down, but they will keep bleeding.
This is the worst run state-owned oil company in the world.
I have looked at all of these things, and it ranks at the
bottom. It takes, to get the median reserve exploited and
brought to the ground, almost 200 years in Venezuela. Exxon, it
takes 6.8 years.
So all these oil companies, the name of the game is, if you
have resources, you have got to get them above ground and sell
them. Otherwise, they are not worth very much if you just keep
them under cover forever and you discount those reserves that
you have in the cupboard at, like, 10 percent rate of interest.
For Exxon, the present value of the reserves, the average is 46
percent of the price of the wellhead price of oil right now.
For Venezuela, PDVSA, it is zero. Zero.
Mr. Duncan. The way I look at it, he has got a hungry
nation to feed, $10 billion in debt or whatnot, and creditors
are going to want some of that money if the oil prices do jump
up. So I am assuming that China and Russia will want some of
that.
Let me shift gears real quick and just ask Mr. Dallen about
Russia. Talking about the debt and the amount of money owed to
Rosneft, in the event of a default, which looks all but
definite at this juncture, Rosneft and, by operation of the
transitive property Russia, would own a majority share of a
U.S. corporation. I think you have touched on that in your
comments on that as well. Do you think that Rosneft's
investment in CITGO and PDVSA is a calculated part of Moscow's
strategy to gain power in the region?
Mr. Dallen. Thank you, Chairman Duncan. And the short
answer is yes. Mr. Putin and Mr. Sechin both wrote their
graduate theses on using oil as a geopolitical tool. And some
of the decisions that Rosneft has made have not been
economically rewarding, but they have given them access and
control of important markets all over the world, including our
allies in Germany, making them the third-largest refiner now in
Germany.
We actually don't know how much Russia owns of Rosneft--how
much Rosneft owns of CITGO. We know that they have this lien,
but we don't know what triggers it. We don't have access to
those documents. When they filed the UCC lien, they only had
two pages of the contract. I have excerpted one of them in my--
part of them in my remarks. We actually don't know what the
trigger is. It could already be triggered. We have no idea.
In addition, PDVSA also mortgaged the other half of CITGO
by collateralizing some debt when they did a renegotiation of
$2.8 billion swapped into a new bond, because they couldn't pay
the short-term bond. And so they collateralized that with the
other 50 percent of CITGO.
So it is very much possible, and we don't have access to
this. The courts are trying to get it. But a CFIUS review would
certainly be helpful. Russia may own a majority of those bonds,
making them the majority shareholder and owner of CITGO in the
United States.
Mr. Duncan. Yeah.
Just shifting gears to a completely different topic, Mr.
McCarthy, you mentioned the need for humanitarian aid,
multinational humanitarian aid. I don't disagree with you
there, when I see starving people eating out of dumpsters and
hear the stories that we have heard. But we also hear that a
lot of that foodstuffs are prioritized. You see the lines of
people waiting, but then the apparatchik ends up getting first
choice and the bulk of it.
So what kind of assurances do we have that any sort of
multinational humanitarian aid would get to where the real
problem is, where the rubber meets the road, in a closed Maduro
government?
Mr. McCarthy. Thank you, Chairman.
I agree with you that making progress on delivery of food
would be extremely complicated. In fact, that is why I
suggested that it would be perhaps more intelligent to use----
Mr. Duncan. Let me just ask you this first: Would the
Maduro government even be open to a multinational humanitarian
aid effort?
Mr. McCarthy. The answer to that, I think, is no. But I
think that there is the possibility of some type of work on a
technical front with regards to the health sector. And I don't
want to take Maduro's word seriously, because we need to see
real deeds that show genuine interest in trying to obtain some
relief for the country.
But I think if there is one area where it makes sense to
try and press for alleviating the crisis, it is in the health
sector, and that is because there are more opportunities for
international engagement that would take place with
multilateral institutions, and they would also take place
outside channels directly controlled by the military. So in the
case of food distribution, the Armed Forces control the process
from the imports to the delivery; whereas, in the health
sector, the role of the military is not as strong.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you for that.
I am going to turn to the ranking member.
Mr. Sires. Can you please tell me--we have been hearing
about Venezuela being on the verge of collapse for the last few
years. What further can go wrong until it collapses? I mean,
they have no food, they have no health, they have no
government. What else can happen that it will collapse?
Mr. Hanke. Let me address that first, if I may. This can go
on for a long time.
Mr. Sires. It has been going on for a long time.
Mr. Hanke. Actually, it has been going on for a long time.
Even when I was President Caldera's adviser, things were
deteriorating massively, and that is why he brought me in to
see if something could be done. It turned out he didn't have
the political power at the time to make some of the changes
that would have probably corrected the situation.
But, at any rate, you have to think of the following. If
you go to Yugoslavia, for example, Yugoslavia in January 1994
had an inflation rate in 1 month--this is 1 month--of 313
million percent. So Venezuela is peanuts compared to what was
going on in Yugoslavia. It took a Balkan war, bombing in
Belgrade, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, to finally get
Milosevic out in 1999. That is a long time.
Now, if you want even a worse case, of course, the
inflation rate in November 2008 in Zimbabwe was going so fast
that the prices were doubling every 24 hours. And we still have
Mugabe. Mugabe has been there over 30 years. Nothing happened.
The place spontaneously----
Mr. Sires. What has collapsed in Venezuela? That is what I
am looking for.
Mr. Hanke. Well, I am telling you that if you think it is
going to collapse tomorrow, you might have to think a couple of
more times, because there are plenty of cases where you have
had----
Mr. Sires. Look, I don't think--I want to interrupt,
because we have to go and vote. I mean, over the years--I have
been here now 10 years. For 10 years, I have been hearing about
Venezuela. Okay, maybe different grades of how bad it is.
But I just think this is a typical playbook of communists
and socialists to lead into a one-man rule. I mean, they get
people involved in trying to survive the 24 hours a day that
they have no time to think. And I think this is exactly what is
happening in Venezuela. And then you have all these other
external forces basically managing Venezuela and their moves.
Mr. Hanke. You hit the nail on the head. I completely agree
with you.
Mr. Schamis. If I may add, I don't know what the definition
of collapse would be that we are discussing here, but to me the
next step and the real collapse is a refugee crisis, which we
haven't seen yet.
Mr. Sires. Well, I spoke to the President of Costa Rica the
other day. He is telling me----
Mr. Schamis. The President of Costa Rica----
Mr. Sires [continuing]. He is starting to see a number of
Venezuelans.
Mr. Schamis. Exactly, and all countries around Venezuela. A
refugee crisis in Venezuela, we are talking about a 30 million
people country, it is not a small island in the Caribbean,
countries which have had a refugee crisis, a number of them.
This is a country on the continent and a 30 million people
country with borders with in turn large countries, Colombia----
Mr. Sires. I am going to let somebody else. But, Mr.
McCarthy, can you just be short?
Mr. McCarthy. Yes, I will be short. I think collapse
entails civil strife. I think at this point it is relative. By
most standards, Venezuela has collapsed. At this point, it is
about preventing open civil strife in the country.
Mr. Sires. Thank you.
Mr. Duncan. All right. Just trying to stay in order here.
Looks like Mr. Rooney.
Mr. Rooney. Thank you.
There are a lot of questions I would like to ask. First of
all, maybe Professor Schamis or Russell.
Given the fact that all the countries of the region except
Salvador, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Bolivia recently denounced
Venezuela, which was a positive move, and talked about, even
raised the specter of, as a last resort, kicking them out of
the OAS. If the OAS is incapable of moving them forward, what
do you think of odds of that happening are?
Mr. Schamis. The odds are higher than they were in June,
the last meeting of the Permanent Council to discuss Venezuela,
because of a variety of circumstances. First and foremost,
Venezuela has gotten worse.
Secondly, there is a new administration in the U.S. that
has begun to voice concern about Venezuela. It is reported in
the newspapers that President Trump discusses Venezuela
whenever he is on the phone with Latin American Presidents,
which hadn't happened before, we must recognize.
Lastly, there is a change of cycle in the politics of Latin
America. Center government, center-right governments you may
say, have been winning office and are expressing more concern
with Venezuela, who, in turn, are less dependent on the
Venezuelan old tricks. With the oil over $130 per barrel, that
drove Hugo Chavez's foreign policy and later Maduro's foreign
policy. Oil is not $130 per barrel, and those new governments
are less dependent. They have less ties, strings attached to
the Venezuelan regime.
So the odds are better than they were before, and I am
hopeful the OAS will increase its capacity for collective
action regarding Venezuela.
Mr. Duncan. Got one more?
Mr. Rooney. We need to get everybody, Chairman, because we
don't have much time left. I would yield to someone else.
Mr. Duncan. Mrs. Love.
Mrs. Love. Thank you. I wish we could spend so much more
time on Venezuela. But I guess my question would be, and anyone
who can offer the best opinion that they can in terms of
correcting human rights abuses and releasing political
prisoners, what kind of pressures from the U.S. do you think
would be most likely to help?
I know we are talking about sanctions. We talked about some
of these other tools. And at this point I believe we are in a
place where anything that we do is going to affect the people
that are there. But their needs are so incredibly dire that
unless there are some major disruptions, nothing is going to be
changed.
So I guess I am asking, what are the tools that we have in
our arsenal in order to change the environment there, first of
all, to release American prisoners, and second of all, to start
seeing a little bit of change in the government?
Mr. McCarthy. Let me try this. Thank you. It is a very
difficult question, but it is absolutely urgent, I agree.
The truth is that if you were trying to establish a link
between implementation of sanctions and then change in
behavior, thus far there is not a positive link. But that
doesn't mean that there isn't another effect taking place. So I
think, unfortunately, I would counsel patience with regards to
the broader human rights situation in the country. I think that
it is going to take some time before these problems can be
fully addressed because, unfortunately, the government sees the
human rights situation as part of a broader political
negotiation.
Mrs. Love. What about the immediate?
Mr. McCarthy. With regards to Mr. Holt, I think that that
is a private matter, and that has to be dealt with in terms of
how the family and the U.S. Government are addressing it.
Mrs. Love. Okay. So we have tried quite a bit with the
former administration, and it hasn't been moving. We have an
American citizen who is there on charges. So I guess what I am
trying to say is that I cannot accept that the United States
Government can't do anything. I cannot accept that. In terms of
if we can't squeeze or try and do everything we can with
Venezuela, what about the other countries, some of the ones
that we were talking about, that have not denounced Venezuela
yet? What about their friends and their allies, like El
Salvador, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Bolivia? Is there a way to
actually do that?
Mr. McCarthy. I think that there has been quite a bit of
discussion about what strengthening sanctions would entail, and
I think the truth is that multilateral sanctions tend to be
more effective than unilateral ones. And I think in that regard
the Global Magnitsky Act is one option to think about a way to
bring other countries on board, to see if there could be a
statement, not just from the United States but from other Latin
America countries as well, speaking out about the human rights
crisis in Venezuela, which has to be dealt with in terms of
results for this American citizen that has unlawfully been
jailed.
Mrs. Love. Okay.
Do you have an opinion on this, Dr. Schamis?
Mr. Schamis. Yes. Thank you. Briefly, something else the
U.S. can do and has happened yesterday or the day before is to
enlarge the coalition in support of the Inter-American
Democratic Charter and the possibility of suspension or any
other form of approach toward Venezuela, which has already been
going on, and it has been mentioned. And more members will have
more capacity to put pressure on Venezuela.
Whether that is going to be suspension or any other
decision remains to be seen. But the bottom line is produce an
election, release political prisoners, and attend the
humanitarian crisis in a reasonable amount of time.
Mrs. Love. And I would actually say that we need to start
looking at the U.N., because here we are. They have a seat at
the table. Yet they do not have elections. They do not have
freer treatment. They are the worst when it comes to human
rights violations. Why they have a seat at the table is beyond
me.
So thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Duncan. I want to thank Ms. Love for being here, and
with that kind of passion for the subject, you are welcome back
to any committee hearing we have any time. So thank you.
I want to thank the panelists. I apologize, with 4 minutes
and 40 seconds left on the clock over at the Capitol, we are
going to have to go vote. And with about an hour worth of
votes, I am not going to ask you to sit here that long and wait
for questions.
Members may have additional questions for you, and if they
do, we will submit those and ask you to submit answers in
writing.
Pursuant to committee rule 7, the members of the
subcommittee will be permitted to submit written statements to
be included in the official hearing record. Without objection,
the hearing record will remain open for 5 business days to
allow those statements, questions, extraneous materials for the
record, subject to length limitations in the rules.
There being no further business, again I do apologize, but
let me reiterate, this is not the last hearing we are going to
have on this subject. Venezuela is important to the United
States Congress, and it is important to the chairman of the
Western Hemisphere Subcommittee. We want to do what we can to
keep awareness raised for the Nation and the world to the
plight of the people in Venezuela.
And with that, we will stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:12 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[all]