Executive Calendar
Floor Speech
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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it was about 5 or 6 weeks ago that I accepted an invitation and an opportunity to visit Caracas, Venezuela. I had never been to that country before and spent 4 days. It turns out that not many Members of Congress go to this country and very few are given permission if they ask, but for some reason, I was given permission and went down there to meet with the leaders of the government and to take stock of what was happening in Venezuela.
Sadly, I have to report that Venezuela--that proud nation--is teetering on collapse. I met with President Maduro, members of his government, opposition leaders, civic and humanitarian leaders, medical experts, victims of the regime's political repression, and an American who is currently jailed on political charges in Caracas.
What I found there and recounted on the floor a few weeks ago was a heartbreaking set of overlapping crises--humanitarian, economic, and political. While these three inexcusable crises of the government's making continue, the people of this poor nation are increasingly suffering and leaving in desperation. It is one of the most desperate situations I have ever seen in a country that is not in the midst of a war. In my discussion with President Maduro, I urged him to help get his country out of the international isolation that it currently faces and put an end to the human suffering by starting with a clean election.
Last Sunday, there was an election. It was a farce. I asked him to release political opponents so they could run for office. I asked him to authorize parties to field candidates. I asked him to create enough time in the election cycle so there could be a real campaign. I told him, if he didn't and went through with his election campaign, it would not be a credible result. We know the Maduro regime was using food, among its starving people, to manipulate votes. The regime had, unfortunately, no credible election monitors before or during the vote, and, of course, it rushed the election to get the result it was looking for.
I recently joined with Senator Menendez of New Jersey. We said, quite simply, that Maduro should have the courage to have an open election, a democratic process. As we arrived at the airport, we noticed the great hero of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. Hugo Chavez won his first election in a democratic manner, and I urged President Maduro to now do the same.
I was also direct in saying to him that he had to release the American, Josh Holt, who is being held in prison, in Caracas, on political charges. Why is he being held? It is that he traveled to Venezuela to be with and to marry the woman he loved and to bring her and her two daughters back to his home State of Utah? He crossed the Maduro regime, and in that process, he was arrested on charges that are outrageous. He has been held now for almost 2 years without having had a meaningful trial or a resolution of the dispute.
As the events of the last few weeks have shown, the obvious path forward for Venezuela has been rejected by the Maduro regime. Instead, it went ahead with last Sunday's widely discredited election in which his regime jailed or disqualified any meaningful opponent. It was a farce. It will only result in the further isolation and suffering of the Venezuelan people. I know President Maduro is blaming Yankee imperialists for the problems his country is facing or the opposition to his leadership. He need only look to neighboring nations in Central and South America to see that they also reject what he has done politically.
Despite stirring video pleas from the prison in which Josh Holt, the American, is being held, Maduro's regime wouldn't even meet with our top diplomat in Caracas. Todd Robinson is the Charge d'Affaires who represents the United States since we are not allowed to have an ambassador in that country. He went to the Foreign Ministry on behalf of Josh Holt when he heard about the prison riot and the danger to this American prisoner who is being held on political charges. Obviously, he got under President Maduro's skin, and he has now expelled him.
The Trump administration has been unequivocal in claiming that the Venezuelan election was a sham and also in imposing new economic sanctions in order to put pressure on the leaders in the Venezuelan Government to change. As I told President Maduro and members of his government, both parties in America may have their squabbles and differences, but when it comes to Venezuela, we stand together. Republicans and Democrats agree that things need to change dramatically in Venezuela if it wants to enter the family of civilized nations around the world.
President Maduro has responded not by reaching out to the opposition and not by showing any true reform but by rejecting every overture. He refuses to release Josh Holt and his Venezuelan wife and daughters to allow them to come to the United States. He still keeps Leopoldo Lopez, a political leader in Venezuela, under house arrest. I spoke to Mr. Lopez by phone and met personally with his wife. It is shameful what they are doing to him.
By restoring the power of a legitimate national assembly, President Maduro would show he is willing to move toward the Constitution which guided his country, but he refuses. He refuses to start a meaningful dialogue with the Lima Group--other nations in the region--that want to work with him toward moving Venezuela to a better day. He refuses to work with neighbors and humanitarian groups that truly want to address the suffering in that country.
It was not until the public health briefing I had in Venezuela and a personal visit to a local hospital that it really hit me and hit me hard how bad things are. This is a country--one of the few on Earth-- that is not at war but that is currently facing epidemics of measles, diphtheria, and malaria. When you go to Caracas city hospitals--not to remote, rural hospitals--and ask them what they need, they tell you vaccines, antibiotics, cancer drugs--the basics. They don't have them in that country.
You can just see on the streets of Caracas that the people are starving. They are starving. They don't have enough food to eat in that country. The inflation is so out of control that people stand in line for an hour a day to get the maximum withdrawals on their credit cards, in hard currency, because the withdrawals are worth the 60 cents they need for round trip bus fare to their places of work. At 11 o'clock at night, in the darkness, you will see people standing by ATM machines to withdraw wads of currency worth 60 cents so they can board the buses the next morning.
The expulsion of our Charge d'Affaires, Todd Robinson, was really disgraceful. He was accused of conspiring against the Venezuelan Government. What did he do? He stood up for the American prisoner, Josh Holt. That is all. Todd Robinson is one of the Nation's highly respected diplomats who carries the rank of Ambassador and has served with distinction in some of the most challenging countries in the world. I spoke with him on the phone yesterday. He is disappointed. He knows there is much work to be done in Venezuela to protect innocent people and to make sure the Americans have a strong presence in order to protect them as well, and now he is being expelled.
During my visit to Caracas a few weeks ago, I watched him try to establish a dialogue with the Maduro regime. It was next to impossible. A dialogue requires someone on the other side who will listen and respond in good faith. That was not the case. When I spoke to him--our Charge d'Affaires, Mr. Robinson--he was packing up and helping the Embassy staff prepare for his departure. He will be back in the Washington area over the weekend. I thanked him for his service in Venezuela and for his team that continues to soldier on under some of the most difficult circumstances in the world.
Until the Maduro regime stops dismantling its country's democracy and starts to address the true humanitarian crisis which exists in its country, I will continue to support U.S. and regional measures to put pressure on the Maduro regime to change. I know of no other way to do this that will not bring more suffering and death to the innocent people of Venezuela. This once great nation will not be great again until its leadership understands that the current approach--denying democracy, denying the electoral process, refusing to have an open dialogue with democratic nations around the world--will only sink them further into the abyss.
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