As more and more dissidents are being arrested by the regime in Venezuela in the wake of its election fraud, the hemisphere’s top diplomat was in Miami on Thursday and condemned the repression.
Luis Almagro, secretary general of the Organization of American States, or O.A.S. — the U.N. of the western hemisphere — visited Miami City Hall to receive recognition from local expat leaders for his efforts to democratize Venezuela.
He joined their protest of the massive vote fraud the international community has now concluded was committed by dictatorial Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in last week’s presidential election — a scam Almagro called “disgusting.”
“You have to be very low, vile and repulsive to steal the electoral sovereignty of your own people,” Almagro said of Maduro’s claim that he won the July 28 election.
Credible exit polls and precinct ballot tallies gathered by poll workers across Venezuela indicated the intensely unpopular Maduro lost by a landslide to opposition challenger Edmundo González, who is estimated to have won at least two-thirds of the vote.
Almagro also decried the growing wave of arbitrary arrests of opposition leaders and election workers that human rights groups say is creating a “climate of terror” in Venezuela.
“It brings an even more inhumane dimension to the crisis,” Almagro said.
As a result, Almagro added, it now seems time for the International Criminal Court in the Hague to issue charges against the Maduro regime, given the history of accusations of crimes such as torture and extrajudicial killings that victims have leveled against it. (A U.N. investigation has in fact has accused the regime of crimes against humanity.)
Last week the O.A.S. voted on whether to demand that Maduro make public the official July 28 vote tally — which he has so far refused to do — but the resolution failed because Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, all governed by leftists like Maduro, abstained.
MORE ON VENEZUELA'S ELECTION:
- An aid worker's airport disappearance stirs fear of repression following disputed Venezuela election
- Maduro stole the election. Can only the military get it back?
- Dear lefty-loosey, righty-tighty zealots: Spare us your Venezuela 'bulla'
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