National Assembly’s President Threatened with Sanctions by the US – Here is His Response (US Desperation?)
New sanctions against the inner circle of deputy Luis Parra, President of Venezuela’s National Assembly, were announced by the charge d’affaires for the external office of the United States for Venezuela (based in Bogota), James Story, this Friday, June 5.
“We are doing our research because those who undermine Venezuelan democracy are punishable. We are going to sanction and block the visas of all the members of that Luis Parra circle,” the official announced in an interview on the TVV news channel.
Some Venezuelan analysts believe that this might be a response for the long awaited possibility of having deputy Juan Guaido pay for his crimes, but also a sign of desperation by the US regime due to the Covid-19 catastrophe they are facing along with the George Floyd Uprising, both very damaging to the chances of Donald Trump’s re-election.
Parra was already illegally sanctioned by the US Treasury on January 13, “for leading a failed attempt to illegally take control of the National Assembly” in alliance with the Nicolás Maduro government and “for trying to avoid the re-election of opposition leader Juan GuaidĂł as president of this body,” according to US officials.
The Supreme Court of Justice, headed by Maikel Moreno, validated Parra’s board with a ruling issued on May 26.
“This might be the US sending signals to what remains of the opposition they control in order to avoid an unavoidable realignment of forces after the absence of Juan Guaido, currently wanted by Venezuelan justice according to sources, and after the Supreme Court ratifying Parra’s control on the legislative branch along with the imminence of Parliamentary elections,” a political analyst said to Orinoco Tribune.
James Story @usembassyve informĂł que EEUU investiga a los miembros "del circo" de Luis Parra para sancionarlos y bloquearles las visas por socavar la democracia en Venezuela. #4Jun pic.twitter.com/WqPACjKGXL
— Gabriel Bastidas (@Gbastidas) June 4, 2020
The President of the National Assembly Responded
The president of the National Assembly (AN), the opposition deputy Luis Parra, rejected the statements of James Story, issuing an statement that was posted on his twitter account:
“The lamentable declarations issued by Mr. James Story constitute due interference in the internal affairs of our sovereign nation; and they demonstrate their deep ignorance about the provisions of our Constitution,” the AN director’s statement read.
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https://twitter.com/LuisParraVe/status/1268992336194830338
It also highlights: “The representative of the US government intends to decide from the embassy of his country who the legitimate authorities are on the sacred and sovereign soil of the Bolivarian republic of Venezuela; pretending to establish itself as a supra-constitutional electoral and judicial authority to decide who is who in our country.”
The sanction against the deputy elected by Primero Justicia is carried out because Parra led the so-called “rebellion of the regions” in which a majority of opposition parliamentarians decided to remove Juan GuaidĂł from the legislative body board on January 5, 2020.
According to Story, the United States regime “did an investigation” because “those who undermine Venezuelan democracy are punishable . . . We already have sanctions against Parra and his group, but we are going to sanction and block the visas of all the members of that Luis Parra circus,” the US official threatened in a clear violation of the most elemental rules of diplomatic relations.
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