9 00 p. M. Followed by after words with senator jeff flake at 10 00 p. M. Eastern and Robert Oneill at 11 00 p. M. On cspan to book tv. Venezuelan democracy activist talked about the eroding political situation in the south american nation yesterday at the council on the americas. They spoke for about an hour. Hello everybody, good afternoon. Welcome to the council of the americas for our latest conversation on venezuela. I apologize for keeping you waiting. I actually had to go get my reading glasses. I turned 50 years old and im not too proud to admit it. Anyway, here we are. Thank you everybody for coming for what promises to be a fascinating and timely and important conversation on the country thats of increasing concern to all of us. That is venezuela. For those of you who may not know, and for those of you who are tuning in, thank you for doing so. The council of the americas is an organization that, for over 50 years, has promoted democracy, open markets and the rule of law. Most people associate us with the business agenda and thats absolutely true, but notice that democracy comes first. The reason why is because Everything Else that we tried to promote in the western hemisphere context is much more difficult to do if democracy is not strong and healthy and growing across the region and thats one of the reasons why we are so deeply concerned about the direction of venezuela today. Most of you know the situation on the ground. You know the humanitarian crisis thats developing, the fact that food is increasingly unavailable to many citizens of venezuela, the fact that the average weight loss in venezuela is dramatic and significant, the fact that basic healthcare, especially outside the capital is increasingly unavailable. Theres difficult security situations, i could go on and on, but it also is relevant to note, for example that the imf projects that inflation, next year, 2018, will top 2000 . This is hyper inflationary rates that we have not seen in the western hemisphere in a generation. Many of us thought we would not see it again for this is a country that many would say is failing. We have seen an accelerated pace of difficulty on the ground in venezuela, particularly since the july 30 Constitutional Assembly which we will hear a little bit more about in a few minutes. It has empowered the government to take additional steps, antidemocratic steps, which it has taken total advantage of and accelerating the caseload of stuff so, taking venezuela in a direction that we believe is not the correct direction for the people of the country. Having said that, it is a real privilege to welcome to this table, to very prominent democracy activists in venezuela and for venezuela, to people who are doing on the ground what people like me just sit in washington and talk about. They are the ones were literally on the front lines of these discussions about the actions. Their biographic information is before each of you or at least available to the extent that you would like to have it. For those who dont have it in front of you, notice my 9dollar readers. They are impressive, arent they. To my immediate right, your left is mr. Henriquez who is the coordinator and we will hear from him on what that is and what his role is. Hes an immigration and human rights attorney. Hes the International Coordinator of the human rights ngo and the director of the bostonbased refugees freedom program, he represents Political Prisoners, asylumseekers and does so very effectively, i must say. Before the system of human rights and un agencies as well. He is committed to practice law in new york in venezuela. He is a very impressive background as an immigration attorney. He will talk to us about the political prisoner situation as well some of the other difficulties there. Carlos is to his immediate righ right. He is a National Political coordinator and board member. He is also a venezuelan lawyer and politician in 2009, he cofounded the organization and is the National Political coordinator within the movement. In 2011 he participated as Campaign Manager for lopez, one of the more famous Political Prisoners in venezuela today. In 2012 he participated as general manager of the opposition candidate, another leader of the opposition in venezuela. He has organized grassroots movements and activated young people. He has designed and executed campaign rallies, he is really somebody who is the nuts and bolts of the vertical movement within venezuela. His bio is also impressive and for those of you who do have the opportunity to read it, i would call that your attention, but instead of taking the time to introduce our gas, let me up a offer them the opportunity to speak for themselves. It is a real privilege and pleasure to have both of you to this table. We thank you for the important work you are doing on behalf of the people of venezuela paired with that, maybe ill begin with you and give you the opportunity to talk a little bit about your work, what you see on the ground and where you see things headed in the native country of meadows weller. First of all, thank you. This is for all venezuelans a personal issue, but for a lot of people in the International Community, its more comp located to grasp the severity of the issue and this opportunity allow the International Community to understand what really is happening. Thank you everyone for being present. I come here today as an International Coordinator which is then described as a network of pro bono authority. There are a good number of things, but its mostly known for two, one representing people detained for political motivations. If youre detained and you are taken to a court and you do not have an attorney, they will appoint an attorney on your behalf and that is a very good friend of the prosecutor. They basically represent people pro bono and its a network with over 200 Attorneys Nationwide and over 3000 detainees. The other thing we are very known for his documenting the situation. There are no numbers. The government is not out there issuing propaganda of how many people they have killed and how many people live detained. These numbers are not available. They are available because of the work which is, on a daily basis monitoring how many people have been detained, how many people are taken to civilians to military tribunals and the government is also trying to make this work a lot more complicated. I would like to start giving you some raw data. I will give you a brief overview of how we got to where we are and i want to conclude with the direction with which venezuela is going. Regarding raw data, we have a humanitarian crisis that is happening in venezuela that has been brewing for years and that had been coupled with the crackdown on all the Democratic Institutions of the rule of law. Most people is not happy. Theres growing inflation, poverty, subsidy and no democracy. They are not happy. Some people took to the street and have taken that different point but most recently, as of april 1 we saw a new wave of protesters and the government crackdown like never before on these process. I would like to give you an explanation of the numbers that we saw from people through jul july 31, of the numbers that we have seen. 133 people have been killed. 101 of them directly at demonstrations and then these have not been accidents. Theres a very clear connection between the government repression and these deaths and theres an obvious intent. 83 of that, of the people have died of bullet ones. 44 directly at the hands of a government officer, 62 of them at the hands of a pro regime civilian arms group and its important to highlight that these pro regime civilian arms group that we know are coordinated with the lawenforcement agencies through government plans. The government has defense plans that include these people cracking down. Its not like they just show up. The government has included them in their plan. We see over 5000 people detained in just four months. That is a significant number. Today we have 1400 people behind bars. About 15 of the people detained are tortured. The norm for pretty much any detention is being a victim of cruel treatment. For women, Sexual Assault is the norm. We have seen even 12yearold little girls being victims of Sexual Assault. There are reports of rate for men and women alike. The numbers of Political Prisoners, to give you an idea when maduro got to power there were 11 Political Prisoners paired as of february 2013, there was an irruption and protest to the numbers of political prayer protesters started rising to a new level and they came up with this concept to understand how the number of clinical prisoners was working. They going to the revolving door affect. Basically Political Prisoners go in and go out. Some of them are detained and others are released. They keep, from 2014 until march of this year, they kept an average of 100 political business. That was the average and they were very careful every time imprisoned a few people they would release a few others and say we release to prisoners. The average kept very steady, around 100. Today we have 620. The revolving door is open. The use of military tribunals to crack on civilians is one new method that has become systematic as of april 1. 609 civilians have been tried. Many have been ordered detained. For instance, when you try a civilian in a criminal court, and a regular criminal court, you know where the court is, you know who the prosecutor is and you can show up. If you try living in a military court, there is no court. Its just a military for where they wont let you in and they just use the random room that they decide that to be the court that day. The prosecutor is a military officer in their uniform. They report to the ministry. They are on a systematic way, and a lot of this happened in connection to the fact that the attorney general became very critical of the government. One of the things we saw as a response to this way of protest as of april 1 is that the government came up with a new idea. Its a group of people that have super constitutional powers and they can appoint and change any law and one of the first few things they did, the attorney general was not cooperating with political prosecution and they appointed a person that has been very loyal to them. Obviously this is entirely unconstitutional, but thats what they do. That gives you an idea of what is happening. A lot of specific phases have suffered the persecution. I would like to highlight the case, he became famous for going to the protest, standing up in front of them the national guard, shooting at people and he would just play the National Anthem and other pieces with his violin. He is in jail now. He was tortured, they shot rubber bullets on his face. They also conducted his arraignment secretly, they hit him from the attorney. He was appointed a progovernment defense attorney. The requirement is another systematic thing they are doing. Theyre coming up with some entirely legal requirements that would keep someone in jail for about 45 days until they can come up with all the requirements. They been awarded bond that he will probably be in jail for the next 45 days until he can complete all of the requirements. They have been trying to represent but theyve been denied the opportunity and the government is not allowing this to happen. In july 27, deputy director. The director is in exile because he is being tried for treason. After representing a group of detainees, he was kidnapped by a group of armed civilians taking to a town and tortured for about five hours. He was hanged and beaten severely, and then he was told run and dont look back or you will get shot. That happened july 27. Today he was represented in court again. That is where we are. Its very important to understand the concepts of the government. Its not like they can say okay, lets turn around and go to election, lose the election and become the opposition. The Vice President has been labeled by the u. S. As a dropped kingpin and the nephews of the president , they are widely known in venezuela, two of them are in jail today in new york for Drug Trafficking and a lot of them have committed crimes against humanity. There is universal jurisdiction for the crimes of these top leaders have committed. They dont have an exit strategy. They have to hold onto power or they will go to jail. With this in mind id want to explain the direction we are going. We have super constitutional powers their striking any International Human rights standards. We have the International Community cracking down and reacting for the first time on a massive level, recently, 12 countries signed a declaration acknowledging that there is no democracy in venezuela. Fortyone countries have refused to recognize the victory. The oes is evaluating whether venezuela has committed crimes against humanity. The union has expressed their concern that systematic Human Rights Violations, at the same time weve seen people show up, videos that have come up with armed members of the armed forces thing that the launch thing that they call operation david which is some sort of rebellion, and to be quite honest, we dont know how do you put that with whats happening, and the government has no exit strategy so we have red flags waving left and right for mass atrocity to happen in venezuela. Or to continue happening to an even much worse degree. At the same time we have factions happening from the government, people who have been traditionally progovernment arent defecting at a level, every time more outspoken, the Popular Support of the government is nonexistent so, we could see either a mass atrocity or the government imploding. What we know fairly is that we need to keep documenting the situation, the Human Rights Violations need to be documented and we need to continue to stand up for democracy and the rule of law and most importantly, we need to prepare for a scenario of transitional justice. Thank you very much. Its compelling and a great way to get us going. Its not terribly optimistic, but thank you for your realistic discussion. Carlos, your perspective is similar, but somewhat different so in your perspective, lets keep the conversation going. Thank you for this invitation. Its an honor for me being here to talk about the venezuela crisis. The me give you a little bit of context, especially for those people who are coming here, to be very clear, we are facing a dictatorship in venezuela. A new form of dictatorship. We dont have separation of power. We have Political Prisoners and we dont have a respective human rights. They dont respect. [inaudible] we dont have freedom of speech or freedom of press. We dont have fair elections. From the political point of vie view, in my view, we have a dictatorship. From an economic point of view, we have a catastrophe that this is our worst economic crisis in our entire history. You just saw certain numbers, our economy has reduced 30 or 40 . We have the highest inflation in the world it is killing the poor people. And, people dont have a future. From the social point of view, the poverty has increased close to 80 and we are one of the most violent country in the world. As eric said the beginning, people in venezuela are dying because of lack of food or medicine. That is a reality. Thats why people are demonstrating. Thats why we want to change the system in venezuela. We want to bring progress to bring i venezuela and the rule of law and democracy and respective human rights. Thats what we want. This crisis is not only affecting venezuelans. Its affecting the region, and in certain ways, the rest of the world. Why . Because we have a mafia and power. Officers are involved in money laundering, Drug Trafficking and terrorists. Thats why the venezuelan crisis matters to the rest of the world, particularly the u. S. We need to keep attention on this and thats why the International Community is a key actor in this fight. Thats the context. Let me tell you how i get here. It hasnt been easy for me. In 2014 i decided to go to the street with a lot of young people, students and other Political Parties to demonstrat demonstrate, to defend our right and the peaceful manner and the government or the regime reacted in a brutal way. My Political Party leader was arrested. Later they issued an order of arrest against me. I had to resist three violent attempts of arrest. They couldnt capture me. I spent the 100 days in hiding. I received a lot of threats against me and my family. My wife was pregnant at that moment the name of my son is sebastian. Many blasted why that name and i said i didnt have a time to discuss another name. And then, their dad, i took the most difficult decision i ever made in my life. I had to leave my country for political reasons. They dont have evidence against me. I was defending my right, the right of the venezuelan people according to our constitution, and because of that they issued the order of arrest against me. I love my country. Leaving my country in the middle of the 21st century because of my rights. I will fight for the rest of my life to have democracy in our country. I decided to leave my country to express that we believe what is happening in our country and we are looking for help. Ive been traveling around the world doing what im doing right now. If i were not here i would have been in jail. Understood we had to play like a team, a soccer team. Someone has to play the goalkeeper and the other one could be forward in the other one has to recover the ball. Ive been doing that as a team. For the past three months we have been on the streets fighting for democracy. Basically we have been acting for three things, one, general election in venezuela, fair and transparent including a president ial election to have a new government in venezuela, too, the release of all Political Prisoners without condition. There cant be more Political Prisoners in venezuela, and the last one is the full respect of the constitutional of the National Assembly which was elected in 2016. We won the majority although we didnt have a fair election. We have been fighting for the past month. We just gave you the numbers, people have been killed, tortured, and the government, we forced the government to call for an election, but it was a fake election and they call this a superpower, to put it into simple words, in this moment in time, venezuela does not have constitution. It is fake. That is whats happening right now. They removed the attorney general in the first session and it took only 30 seconds without any type of debate. You will see what we are facing right now in our country. Let me give you a final highlight. Right now we are in the worst case scenario. They are trying to impose a dictatorship to the majority of the people. The people who work with the ruling party, they are forcing that. If you force that, you will bring more confrontation and the only way to preserve power is with intimidation, execution and terror and using force because they dont have the support of the people to keep that in mind. What we will see in the future is more confrontation and some of the leaders will be in jail because of this type of confrontation. The outcome will be unpredictable. The social conflict will increase because they will not resolve economic and social problems. It will deepen those problems. It will increase in the months to come. Something that in my view is relevant after the july 30 in which they pass this fake assembly. He lost his legitimacy in my view. He has been declared a dictator and that has to be recognized, not only by venezuelan but for the International Community in the way they have done it. You can say well, if they have this assembly now, they have everything under control, we could think about that and they tried to show that. They are very strong that nobody can just destroy them and they can take any decision they want, but in my view they are showing Different Things because the crisis is there. The crisis hasnt gone anywhere and it will be even worse and the cell element is quite relevant and will be important to you today and im confident we will have change. In my view there is irreversible political change. Our society decided to digest that change. Venezuelans do not want this type of regime. The majority. They will fight until we restore democracy in our country. We need to push for that. They could extend or extend the agony, but they wont be able to stop the chain. When that will occur . I dont know, but we need to keep pushing in order to get it. So the opposition has to reconnect with the spirit of change. They have to again put united political agenda. They have to put in place a democracy in our country. Finally, the International Community will play an Important Role at this stage. We had a declaration from many foreign ministers. It was good that this was the reaction. They were very strong. They said they do not recognize, that we dont have democracy in venezuela and that they will continue putting pressure to facilitate a decision. This is the moment to translate those words in clear actions and we have seen some of them on the right path. For example, that has to be done by the rest of the western countries and the European Union. Let me give you an example that the International Community needs to move forward on this. The venezuelan government wants to issue to restructure, and for that they need the u. S. System and banks. International community should not allow those type of transactions without the approval of the National Assembly elected in 2015. Thats one that we can use besides targeting sanctions against officers. Thank you. Those are powerful comments. Thank you for delivering them with your usual clarity and purpose. Thank you very much to both of you. We will open this up to all of you for your questions in just a minute and the time that we have remaining, but before we do that, there is one question i have to ask because it comes up all the time when were talking about opposition in venezuela. Whether were doing interviews or Panel Discussions or meeting with government officials, to encapsulate what they say is the old saying in politics, you cannot beat something with nothing. In other words, you may not approve of the direction of the current government but the state of the opposition is choose your words, organize, divide, effective, whatever. The implicit criticism is that the opposition itself is somehow to blame, but nonetheless you need to do a better job organizing and a better job opposing. Masking in this direct way because i know both of you have been asked this question before, but i want, once and for all to hear the answer from you leading opposition figures as to what is the response that question that is frequently asked in this context. I dont know who wants to go first. It doesnt matter. Thank you. Im in a little bit around this. Some of the most, some of the strongest arguments that you will find against the assembly, you will find in books and essays by this constitutional scholar. Its now a member of the Constitutional Assembly so this man who is now the face, the one writing the document has a career, a lifelong career explaining how what is happening right now is absurd. Another person who has a lifelong career champion human rights and actually was one of the leading voices in 1999, two for bed, once and for all military tribunals to try civilians in venezuela is a man who has said absolutely nothing against the massive amount of citizens fighting the tribunal. These people are going against a lifelong career because theyre not allowed to dissent. Theyre not allowed to say i dont agree with this. That is the government we are dealing with. They will not allow you to keep a different narrative from what they are given. The opposition is quite different. Its looking for democracy and the vast area of players that you have in the opposition from every standpoint from the left and the right and the center, from a mixture of both. They are expressing their voices and their voices are different. The entire ideological spectrum is there. When you see the opposition is not united, they have vast opinions on what needs to happen. Thats why the democratic opposition. If you had a Single Person in opposition, when everyone says yes, sir, that wouldnt be very democratic. Thats democracy. The most important thing is the important issue we agree in the united agenda. If you help with that decision in 2009 until now, we have contributed in the dictatorship. Also, if you dont value them you will find the same thing. The important thing is that at this moment in time, we need to reconnect with the spirit of change and set a united political agenda. We have done that in the past and i think we will be able to do it again. If we reconnect with the people, the people will be there. Thank you very much. We have a short amount of time remaining. Lets take those questions if we can fit them in. I see one into it if you can identify yourself by name and organization, we have a microphone coming to you. The gentleman i hear please. First, thanks for being here and for outlining what you talked about. I have basically two areas i would like you to explore. One, you talked about the value of personal sanctions, but you didnt really mention some of the other sanctions that appear to be on the table. Could you talk about what your view is on whether the sanctions are useful from the perspective of the opposition, and to, since you know and have worked with the proposal for so long, can you give us an update on how hes doing with his statuses and what his condition is given the recent events . Thank you. Then we will take the question as well from margaret. Market page of georgetown university. There are Security Issues in latin america that we will be talking a lot about in venezuela this semester. Two questions. You mentioned support for the violence in the street, but is the economic problem downturn and other things, is that affecting some of these people and how secure is support of these groups. Second question, refers to a presentation made at another think tank here in washington and hypothesizing that perhaps there might occur to within the military, a rejection by some of the officers of the direction, what are the prospects there. I understand an awful lot of these folks have been promoted well above their due rank and so forth. One of the prospects that the military might turn against this administration. These are both super, all four of them are very important questions. Lets deal with these in the time remaining. Im not sure well get to it but lets start with you. Give us an update and the sanctions and then they will come to you in terms of securit security. Very important questions have been asked. I have talked with him. He has been tortured in the last few weeks and has been very difficult for him when he went back to jail again. Now he has two talking cannot express any idea but he is fine. About the sanctions, in my view its quite important to have all the options on the table. I think that is good. I think they have to continue to extend targeted sanctions. The officer related with violations of human rights but also related to corrupt deals, that is important and has to include an associate from men and family, and the important thing about this is those type of measures have to agree with the International Community. They need to bring the European Union on this in the way they did with the iran case. That for me is quite relevant. If you engage the other countries on this type of sanctions. I express this to the extent that the u. S. Law permits that they have to release all the evidence that the u. S. Has in order to prove to people. Understand that they have an account for 500 million in the u. S. So we need to show that to the people and the media. Also, the u. S. , to thi extent that the u. S. Law permits, they should not allow in the u. S. Financial system which has not been approved by the venezuela and they can limit oil and joint ventures that company could do. So thats another approach that the u. S. Can take and the most important thing is to include more countries on this type of sanction and i understand they want to go gradually to get to the final decision. I think they are taking the right approach. They are trying to include the rest of the International Community. To be clear, the latest wave of humanitarian crisis of the Economic Issues are affecting most of the people with lower income brackets so, clearly we are seeing a response and weve seen protesting in rural areas come away seen labor unions, over 300 labor unions call for strike recently. We have seen Indigenous People turning into refugees, we have seen a lot of groups that in the past would be associated as supporting the government, suffering, turning against them yet they still have a robust group of armed, they are very well, i dont know what the word is, basically mentors on how to keep them happy and unfortunately, we have actually seen different groups, organizations opposing and the ones that have most of the weapons are the government , but weve seen people turning away people with weapons and that is a very scary situation because there is a good number of weapons in the streets and weve seen reports of more weapons being stolen from military facilities and that is a very scary situation right there. Is it your sense from either of you, ive heard also this idea that there is a to thats eminent, is that something you would give credence too. The government had systemati systematic, they call it shaking the tree, basically getting rid of her waiting out all of the people who would not support them within the military and had different waves starting in 1999. They have cleaned the high ranks within the armed forces, lets say partly cleaned so i do not think you will see, or i do not expect a clue. I will say on this, the majority of the people are looking for a change. The military forces part of the venezuelan community. They have family. They are suffering the crisis so the discontent is there as well. Thats inside the military force. Clearly we have been asking them not to do a military coup. We want to respect the constitution and they have to comply with the democratic principle and they dont have to follow instruction from the dictator. Thats what we have been asking the military for. I dont have any doubt that there is a discontent inside the military force and that will be expressed depending on how we move forward with the people in venezuela. Our time is quite limited this afternoon. In fact we are at the appointed hour. Unfortunately, i mean that because we could continue this conversation for longtime, but you have important work that you have to attend to as well. Let me leave, as we close, with one final statistic and that is, for those who suggest that chavez has been good for the poor of venezuela, poverty today is higher than when chavez came to power at the end of last century. For those who still have this romantic idea that he has been good for venezuela, thats all they need to know. We will leave you with that. Ladies and gentlemen would you please join me in thanking their terrific commentary today. [applause] [inaudible conversations] all this month, numbers of the house and senate are back in their home states and districts. Heres a look at what they are up to during the august recess. We are about to get to the site so please follow along and stay tuned what we get out there and try to muscle up a few pythons and kill them. Right now its so hot, a lot of these guys are on the move