OPINION | Winter isn’t coming to Venezuela; it’s already there

Winter has arrived, and not just in the HBO hit show, “Game of Thrones.” Across Venezuela, epic battles are raging. Water cannons, fire, blood and mayhem are splattered across our screens. The free folk of Venezuela have risen, and they are fighting for their lives.

However, the new all-powerful leader of Venezuela is a far cry from the TV series’ “breaker of chains,” Daenerys Targaryen. In fact, President (King?) Nicolas Maduro has placed the Venezuelan people in chains. He has enslaved Venezuelan democracy. 

{mosads}Last week, Hugo Chavez’s incompetent and authoritarian successor hammered the final nails in the coffin of Venezuelan democracy. He has installed a new constituent assembly, which has the authority to rewrite the constitution. 

So after months upon months of pro-democracy protests, abject poverty, empty shelves, a broken health system and anarchy on the streets, Maduro has decided to take his crooked ruling elite and add yet another layer of corruption. 

The purge has begun. Step one was to oust the opposing voices that remained within the system. Venezuela’s first chief prosecutor was dismissed without process or hearing; a symbolic “off with her head.” 

Next were the dissenting mayors; Ramon Muchacho and David Smolansky, mayors of Chacao and El Hatillo municipalities of Caracas were sentenced to 15 months in prison for allowing demonstrations in their districts. Both mayors remain in hiding, and their supporters will not go away quietly. 

The Trump administration has responded with the right noises, and at the Venezuelan American Leadership Council (VALC), we welcome the most recent round of sanctions announced by the U.S. against officials involved in the creation and establishment of the new and illegitimate constituent assembly. The sanctions once again demonstrate the U.S. commitment to democracy in my suffering country.

Let us not forget that Maduro and his cronies were warned not to take these dangerous steps. However, despite numerous admonitions by the U.S. and the international community, the defiant dictator Nicolas Maduro went ahead with the installation of this new body, which has declared itself “a super-power over the other government branches.”

This illegitimate constituent assembly was the outcome of a rigged and underwhelming “vote.” Indeed, the Venezuelan people are the only ones who can call on such a vote to rewrite the constitution. Maduro pushed through this vote without the people’s approval and without any due process. More than 40 countries and a number of regional blocs, such as the European Union, have already rejected the vote and disavowed its results.

But in Maduro’s “Game of Thrones,” there are no rules, and as far as he sees it, there are no ramifications for his actions. This is why the United States’ sanctions are so important. Let us remember whom these sanctions are targeting. This is no normal government. This is a criminal narco-funded mafia with close ties to FARC, Iran and Hezbollah.

Numerous senior officials in the Maduro government, including his notorious vice president, have been directly linked to unlawful activities such as drug trafficking in collaboration with some of the most dangerous Mexican cartels, corruption, money laundering, support for countries such as Iran (helping it avoid sanctions) and the regular financing of international terrorism (such as the aid that the Venezuelan state has provided to Hezbollah and other Islamic terrorist groups). 

Some of the names on the sanctions list have decades’ worth of blood on their hands. Take Diosdado Cabello, perhaps the most radical and dangerous of all Chavistas, who gives direct orders to armed paramilitary groups that the government protects and that, according to a U.N. report, have been responsible for at least 27 deaths since protests began in April.

Likewise, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, “the hand of the king,” is also a terrible human right violator. He is the force behind the current brutality of Maduro’s security forces, responsible for most of the 125 deaths in recent months.  

These individuals employ front men and straw companies that manage and move their resources through the U.S. financial system. Some of them even live in the U.S. Both the officials and their front men should be sanctioned. The time for impunity is over.

Venezuela’s state-sanctioned mafia has been pillaging the country’s coffers for the last two decades. So while the average Venezuelan starves, the regime’s gangs profit. U.S. officials — with whom I have been in regular contact — dedicated to investigating corruption in Venezuela have been completely astonished by the magnitude of corruption there. 

So here at VALC, we are calling for broader, biting sanctions. Why? Well, quite simply, they work. Sanctions weaken the criminal structures underpinning these powerful individuals and hits them where it hurts — their capital resources and their ability to move that capital across a number of tax havens worldwide.

We also believe that the next target must be PDVSA, the regime’s state-run oil company; its “dragons,” if you will. PDVSA props up the regime, and has been turned into a criminal organization. It has been widely used to launder money, provide financial support for terrorist entities and countries such as Iran, help them evade sanctions and conduct state-level drug trafficking activities while guzzling the nation’s precious natural resource. 

Sanctions on the oil industry will not hurt the Venezuelan people as many believe. In today’s Venezuela, the vast majority of revenues from oil exports are stolen by government officials and used to finance the illicit activities of a corrupt few at the expense of the many. 

King Maduro has enslaved his people. In Venezuela’s “Game of Thrones,” if you kill the dragons, you remove the king.

Martin Rodil is the president of the Venezuelan American Leadership Council, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group for freedom and democracy in Venezuela.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.