[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 208 (Wednesday, December 20, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8170-S8171]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     VENEZUELA HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, a second subject that I wish to talk about 
today on human rights deals with the collapse in Venezuela. I come to 
the floor to speak about Venezuela's growing humanitarian tragedy and 
accelerating economic collapse.
  Late last June, here on the Senate floor, I described Venezuela as a 
nearly failed State, where authoritarian leaders profit from links to 
corruption and drug trafficking, while the Venezuelan people are 
subject to precarious humanitarian conditions and human rights abuses. 
Disturbingly, the situation has only deteriorated since the time I was 
last on the floor talking about the circumstances.
  With Venezuela's humanitarian crisis growing daily, conditions facing 
Venezuelan children are particularly dire. This week, the New York 
Times published a heartbreaking investigation of how Venezuelan 
children dying of hunger. It states:

       Parents go days without eating, shriveling to the weight of 
     children themselves. Women line up at sterilization clinics 
     to avoid having children they cannot feed. Boys leave home to 
     join street gangs that scavenge for scraps. . . . Crowds of 
     adults storm dumpsters after restaurants close. Babies die 
     because it is hard to find or afford infant formula, even in 
     emergency rooms.

  That is in our hemisphere in Venezuela.
  The Catholic relief organization Caritas has determined that over 50 
percent of the children are suffering from nutritional deficiencies. 
They project that 280,000 Venezuelan children could eventually die of 
hunger without an urgently needed humanitarian response.
  As the Venezuelans increasingly suffer the ravages of hunger, the 
country's hospital system is collapsing. Essential medicines are in 
short supply, and more than half of the Nation's operating facilities 
no longer function or have sufficient supplies. Disturbingly, 
international relief organizations have found that over 60 percent of 
the Venezuelan hospitals don't even have potable water.
  Amid these crisis conditions, Venezuelan President Maduro repeatedly 
denies the existence of this country's humanitarian crisis. He has even 
taken to the unprecedented step of setting up a party-controlled food 
distribution system referred to as CLAPS, and his government now uses 
food as a tool of political patronage.
  The result is that the United States and our partners in the 
hemisphere now confront the situation where the Maduro regime would 
rather see its people go hungry than accept the foreign assistance the 
Venezuelans desperately need. This man-made tragedy is absolutely 
unacceptable.

[[Page S8171]]

  Today I have written to Ambassador Nikki Haley, our Ambassador to the 
United Nations, to urge her to call an emergency special session of the 
U.N. Security Council to evaluate which United Nations mechanisms, 
including U.N. Security Council resolutions, should be pursued to 
alleviate the humanitarian suffering inside Venezuela.
  As humanitarian concerns mount, human rights abuses of Venezuela are 
rampant. Last month, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights told 
the U.N. Security Council that this year Venezuelan security forces 
``systematically resorted to the arbitrary detention of more than 5,000 
protestors.''
  A more recent report by Human Rights Watch and Foro Penal, a 
Venezuelan nongovernmental organization, documents how Venezuelan 
security forces have subjected political opponents to ``torture 
involving electric shock and asphyxiation.''
  In response, Luis Almagro, the Secretary General of the OAS, has 
convened a series of hearings to receive testimony to ascertain whether 
members of the Venezuelan Government have committed crimes against 
humanity that should be referred to the International Criminal Court 
for prosecution. These efforts deserve our attention and our support.
  Against this alarming backdrop, we require no explanation for why the 
United States has received more asylum requests from Venezuela than 
from any other nationality for 2 years straight.
  These challenges will only grow as Venezuela's economy continues to 
collapse. The country is in a selective default on its bonds. 
Hyperinflation and rapid currency devaluation are ravaging family 
incomes. This week, the country's parallel exchange rate reached 12,000 
times the official rate, meaning that the average Venezuelan now earns 
less than $10 a month.
  The reasons for this collapse are simple. Venezuela's economy is 
plagued by endemic corruption and gross mismanagement. As this calamity 
grows, Senators need to be aware that Venezuela will eventually need a 
major IMF program that may well surpass the $17 billion intervention 
that Ukraine required in 2014. The international community will have to 
respond, which will also include, of course, the United States.
  We also need to recognize that Russia and China are now major 
stakeholders in Venezuela, in our hemisphere, and will be at the table 
as the international community copes with the pending collapse.
  Russia, in particular, is playing geopolitics with the situation--
refinancing Venezuela's debt, offering loans in return for financial 
stakes in U.S.-based CITGO, securing stakes in Venezuela's oil 
industry, and expanding its influence in our hemisphere.
  In response to these growing challenges, the Trump administration has 
applied greater pressure by imposing targeted sanctions against a 
number of individuals, including President Maduro. With this 
designation, President Maduro has joined the list of notorious heads of 
state on U.S. sanction list, including the likes of North Korea's Kim 
Jong Un, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Zimbabwe's former President 
Robert Mugabe, and Panama's former President Manuel Noriega.
  President Trump has also imposed financial sanctions blocking the 
issuance of new bonds to fund the Maduro regime's ongoing repressive 
and economic mismanagement. The bond market has been one of the last 
lifelines for the Maduro government. Investors are right to lose trust 
in Venezuela's ability to pay its debt.
  We must recognize, however, that sanctions alone will not resolve the 
challenges the people of Venezuela are facing. We need a comprehensive 
strategy that utilizes all elements of U.S. diplomacy. We must provide 
critical foreign assistance to help mitigate the humanitarian crisis 
and bolster essential support for human rights and democratic civil 
society.
  In May I introduced S. 1018, a bipartisan bill that lays out a 
comprehensive strategy for U.S. policy. My bill includes humanitarian 
assistance and funding to protect and promote human rights and 
democracy. It also includes a more aggressive approach to tackling the 
endemic corruption.
  Earlier this month, the House of Representatives approved its version 
of this bill. It is time for the Senate to act. While I see an 
opportunity for bipartisanship in the Senate on U.S. policy toward 
Venezuela, I must say that I was alarmed by President Trump's statement 
in August about a potential military option. Such cavalier comments are 
not helpful and, once again, call into question whether he has the 
temperament and judgment for dealing with serious national security 
challenges.
  We must rise to the challenge of Venezuela as a great nation, 
bringing our full diplomatic resources and skills to bear and avoiding 
stooping to mere saber rattling.
  I urge our colleagues to take on this challenge, to help the people 
of Venezuela, who are suffering from this humanitarian crisis, and to 
allow America's entire toolkit to be used to help resolve this problem 
in our hemisphere.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________