[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 122 (Thursday, July 31, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5288-S5290]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         SANCTIONS IN VENEZUELA

  Mr. RUBIO. Thank you, and I know Senator Menendez is going to speak 
on this topic as well. We intended to come to the Senate floor and 
offer a unanimous consent agreement to pass sanctions in Venezuela. 
First of all, let me thank the White House for what they announced 
yesterday: sanctions against human rights violators and corrupt 
government officials in Venezuela who have been involved for a very 
long time--but especially since the 4th of February--in grotesque human 
rights violations against young people and all people in Venezuela.
  It is a topic that is not often talked about unfortunately these 
days, given all the issues that are going on around the world. What is 
happening in Venezuela in our own hemisphere is startling.
  First, you have the complete erosion of democracy which has been 
going on since the reign of Hugo Chavez and now with Nicolas Maduro it 
has gotten progressively worse. We have been seeing this and talking 
about this since earlier this year, when thousands of young people in 
Venezuela took to the streets to protest what was happening and they 
were met with some of the most brutal attacks we have seen in this 
hemisphere for quite a while. We documented that on the floor 
consistently.
  So beginning from that moment forward, we have worked in this body to 
seek sanctions against those individuals, against the people 
responsible for those human rights violations who also happened to be, 
by the way, incredibly corrupt. I would go so far as to say that almost 
every major political figure in Venezuela today in the ruling party is 
corrupt. It is absolutely amazing how these individuals in charge of 
government in that country are systemically stealing the funds of the 
Venezuelan people, and the cases are extraordinary.
  There are times, for example, when the President of that country--
who, by the way, was elected in an illegitimate election--is benefiting 
from the currency exchange rate and manipulating that, top-level 
members of his Cabinet are skimming off the top of the country's oil 
company and pocketing money, and what is even more outrageous about 
that is that they and the people who surround them in the private 
sector are taking those funds and investing them and enjoying them here 
in the United States of America.
  So I felt for a very long time--as have my colleagues--that this was 
an important issue that needed to be addressed, and it needed to be 
addressed by sanctioning those individuals and we have named many of 
them. So yesterday the White House announced that many of these 
individuals will now be denied visas to travel to the United States. In 
fact, just yesterday a government official from Venezuela who was 
headed here toward America was not able to come because of these visa 
sanctions.
  So we are grateful for that, and we are grateful for the 
administrations's implementation of this. But while we are grateful for 
the denial of visas, it does not go far enough. We also need to 
sanction their assets. That is why earlier this year I, in conjunction 
with the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and Senators 
Nelson, McCain, and Kirk proposed legislation to authorize both visa 
restrictions and also financial sanctions against these individuals, 
and we have been extraordinarily patient in working through the process 
to ensure that happens.
  The ranking member of the committee, the Senator of Tennessee Mr. 
Corker had initial reservations about it, and they were legitimate 
reservations, and as a result the chairman was kind and wise enough to 
hold a hearing where we heard testimony about the reality on the ground 
in Venezuela.
  We then proceeded to vote on this in the committee, and the committee 
voted and approved it by a vote of 13 to 2, if I recall correctly, and 
that happened on May 22.

  Then we patiently worked with our colleagues to try to bring this to 
the floor, understanding that with all the issues going on it would be 
difficult to schedule a rollcall vote on it, but we would try to pass 
it by a process in the Senate we call unanimous consent, where we ask 
all of our colleagues to approve it and we worked patiently to do that. 
While he had initial reservations earlier this week, Senator Corker 
lifted those reservations and I thank him for that and the way he has 
taken this so seriously and his cooperation in that matter.
  My intention this evening was to come to the Senate floor and ask for 
unanimous consent of this body to pass this resolution, but some of my 
colleagues expressed concern about some of the costs that are 
potentially embedded in this. Let me explain those costs for point of 
clarification. There were two, in general.
  The first was a $15 million funding for a democracy program in 
Venezuela, which I believe is a worthy endeavor. But for purposes of 
overcoming those objections and getting this done, I agreed, and I 
think the other sponsors did as well, that we would be willing to 
suspend that in an effort to get this accomplished.
  The second is a little bit more nebulous. The second describes 
administrative costs basically for identifying these assets and 
implementing the sanctions. The costs are not unique to this. They are 
not real costs in the way you and I would think of costs. You

[[Page S5289]]

don't have to write an additional check or borrow money from China to 
pay for it. It is the same thing that you would have to do if the 
President had announced these sanctions, which he has the power to do.
  What we did as a result of that is we looked at it. The total cost of 
it is between $6 and $8 million, even though that number is probably 
not that high, but it would basically involve identifying the 
individuals and identifying the assets they have that we could 
sanction. There was concern about that. We were willing to find an 
additional measure to sunset the implementation of these sanctions in 
2016 to lower the costs even further, and yet we still heard there 
might be some objections. Over the last few minutes, however, and in 
consultation with the Senator from Oklahoma, we have tried to craft 
what I believe we hope we can arrive at in the next hours, a solution 
to this problem that assuages his concern and allows us to get this 
done.
  So in the interest of trying to achieve it in that manner, I am going 
to withhold asking unanimous consent today for purposes of hopefully 
arriving at that agreement over the next few hours or early tomorrow 
morning so we can attempt to get this done in a way that achieves what 
we are trying to do.
  This is critically important.
  I point out for purposes of my point of comparison, the Senate in 
April approved a bill which I supported--and I am glad we did--that 
authorized virtually identical sanctions against human rights violators 
in Ukraine. That bill authorized $50 million for funds for the 
Democracy Program. That bill authorized $100 million in security 
assistance and visa and financial sanctions on human rights violators. 
In implementing the sanctions in the Ukrainian human rights bill, the 
cost was $10 million. None of those funds, by the way, were offset in 
the way that term is used here. There was no objection to that. There 
was no objection to that. By the way, the total cost of that bill was 
$160 million. This bill that is before us is much more modest in its 
implications, and I would argue that the costs--at the end of the day, 
while it has what we call around here a CBO score, the costs are not 
real. It is basically what they would have to do anyway.

  We are looking for language that assures our colleagues who are 
rightfully concerned about the debt and deficit but also addresses the 
grotesque human rights violations occurring in Venezuela today.
  I will yield to the Senator from New Jersey in a moment, who has 
shown extraordinary leadership on this and every single issue involving 
democracy and human rights issues in this region and around the world.
  I know there are things going on in the Middle East that are of 
critical importance to our country. I know there are things going on 
vis-a-vis Russia and Ukraine that are of extraordinary importance to 
our country. But I hope people understand that what is happening in 
Venezuela matters too because even as we speak, there are millions of 
people in that country whose rights are being systematically violated.
  Just this week the majority regime began a show trial against Mr. 
Leopoldo Lopez, a popular opposition leader, a mayor of one of the 
municipalities there. Do you know what his only crime was? Urging 
Venezuelans to demand a constitutional and peaceful solution to 
President Maduro's violent repression of demonstrations.
  In case anyone needs to understand the true nature of the Venezuelan 
regime, it is not just human rights violations or corruption or the 
fact that the cronies of the Maduro administration parade up and down 
the streets of South Florida bragging about their ill-earned gains 
without consequence. Venezuela projects itself as a defender of every 
single human rights-violating country on the planet. Anytime there is a 
vote on Iran or Assad in Syria or on any human rights violation, you 
can count on Venezuela's Government being on the side of the human 
rights violator--every single time. Just recently we have seen them 
again repeatedly pronounce themselves in opposition to Israel and 
Israel's right to defend itself.
  On top of everything else, we are not just sanctioning corruption and 
human rights violations; we are sanctioning individuals who at every 
opportunity they get seek to undermine the national security and the 
national interests of our country.
  So I think this is a worthy endeavor, and my hope is that tomorrow 
when the Senate gets into session we can reach a conclusion on this 
item and achieve it. I think it would be critically important as we go 
into August to show that the Senate made progress in this endeavor. The 
House has its own version of sanctions that are different from ours. 
That will have to be reconciled. But I think passage of this in the 
next few hours will send a powerful message to the people of Venezuela 
that the people of America, speaking through our Senate, are firmly on 
their side and for their aspirations for freedom and liberty and on the 
side of human rights.
  Madam President, I will yield the floor now for the Senator from New 
Jersey.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 
up to 4 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I thank my distinguished colleague 
from Oregon for his courtesy in allowing me to do so.
  I agree with everything my colleague from Florida Senator Rubio has 
said about this issue, and I appreciate his leadership alongside with 
us. He has been following Venezuela intimately. So many people in the 
State of Florida have exiled there, and so he personally understands 
this issue and he has been a tremendous champion.
  Since February of this year, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan 
citizens have protested about the lack of security from rampant crime 
and violence and an inflation rate that is the highest in the world and 
a scarcity of food and basic consumer goods that has become part of 
their daily lives. But instead of listening to the legitimate concerns 
of its people, the Government of Venezuela has responded with a 
deplorable display of force and brutality that was seen around the 
world. To date there have been more than 40 deaths, more than 50 
documented cases of torture, and more than 2,000 unlawful detentions.
  In May of this year Human Rights Watch released a report on these 
human rights violations. The report documented how Venezuelan security 
forces systematically violated the rights of students, women, men, 
members of the political opposition, and journalists. They said they 
did so ``to punish people for their political views.''
  Last week the Venezuelan Government opened its show trial against 
opposition leader and prisoner of conscience Leopoldo Lopez. After 
spending 5 months in a military prison just for speaking his mind, Mr. 
Lopez and his attorney were barred from presenting any evidence in his 
defense--none. No defense allowed.
  If that were not enough, we saw that recent events showed that the 
Venezuelan Government is even willing to threaten regional stability to 
get its way.
  Last week law enforcement officials in Aruba picked up Hugo Carvajal, 
the former head of the Venezuelan military intelligence and an 
individual who was designated as a drug kingpin by the U.S. Department 
of Treasury back in 2008. When indictments were unsealed last week, the 
world saw evidence of how a senior Venezuelan Government official was 
deeply involved in the international drug trade, allowing traffickers 
to operate freely in Venezuelan territory and even coordinating drug 
shipments himself.
  When this official was arrested, what did the Venezuelan Government 
do? It threatened to cut off flights from Venezuela to Aruba and 
Curacao. It threatened to end a contract with Curacao's oil refinery, 
and it moved naval vessels into the waters surrounding these islands. 
In short, it resorted to every form of blackmail and coercion at its 
disposition until the Dutch Government released Mr. Carvajal.
  We should be clear that democracy has had its opportunity. In recent 
months foreign ministers from across South America and the Vatican have 
attempted to mediate dialogue between

[[Page S5290]]

President Maduro and his allies and the political opposition, and they 
have not been able to accomplish it.
  It is time to move more vigorously forward with the types of 
sanctions and other efforts envisioned in the other legislation I and 
Senator Rubio have offered, and if we do that tomorrow we will send a 
message to the hemisphere and to the people of Venezuela that, in fact, 
they have a real opportunity to have their voices heard, and we will 
stand on the right side of human rights and democracy.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I ask to speak as if in morning 
business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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