CITGO headquarters in Houston, Texas, with the flags of the US, Venezuela, the state of Texas, and the CITGO emblem. Photo: Reuters.
The Venezuelan deputy minister for anti-blockade policies, Willian Castillo, made a series of statements regarding the actions taken by the local far-right opposition, following Washington’s directions to make the Venezuelan economy “scream” in order to unsuccessfully oust Chavismo from power. The senior official informed that the robbery of CITGO has caused thousands of deaths.
“The country would not understand that justice is not applied after this brazen, criminal robbery, which caused thousands of deaths in Venezuela,” Castillo stated this Wednesday, 17 January, during an interview by Venezolana de TelevisiĂłn. “Indirect deaths in operating rooms, due to deficiencies in the health system, operations that were not performed. The Children’s Cardiology Center performed 1,200 free operations in 2012, but could only perform less than 200 in 2020.”
Castillo added that the legal regulations are already in place so that the people involved in these events can be prosecuted. However, when asked about what the Penal Code stipulates for the crime of treason, he maintained that it should be reformed, because the penalty it establishes is too short.
He added that billions of dollars were no longer received as income starting in 2017, since the blockade of CITGO Petroleum Corporation, a US-based subsidary of Venezuela’s state-owned company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) was carried out in 2019. Additionally, two years before—under the administration of then-US President Donald Trump—executive order 13808 was issued, which prevented CITGO from granting dividends to Venezuela.
“The accounts were frozen and are not auditable,” Castillo recalled. “The financial resources that CITGO had to deliver to Venezuela for education, healthcare, salaries, social development, and public services, were not received. It is not known what CITGO’s accounts are today, how it was managed, and who has that money.”
En este sentido, acotĂł que el paĂs cuenta con normas jurĂdicas para que las personas puedan ser procesadas por estos casos.#VenezuelaFuerzaEconĂłmica pic.twitter.com/Kj9b9PScYF
— VTV CANAL 8 (@VTVcanal8) January 18, 2024
Venezuelan patients affected
The deputy minister reported that the most dramatic case in terms of the consequences of the theft of CITGO is that of the SimĂłn BolĂvar Foundation, which coordinated the care of Venezuelan patients abroad with highly complex operations, such as bone marrow transplants or liver transplants.
“52 of those patients have died, most of them children and adolescents, since the first financial aid they had was from the SimĂłn BolĂvar Foundation,” he said. “Juan GuaidĂł’s people appropriated that money and—through Roland Carreño—they brought it to Venezuela to pay mercenaries, mainstream media, and internet trolls, financing the entire dirty war campaign against the government of Venezuela.”
Castillo took care to further reiterate the fact Venezuelans died due to the impact of no longer receiving resources from CITGO.
CITGO now finances US schools
Castillo also reported that instead of CITGO continuing to finance Venezuelan patients abroad, it now finances schools in Texas and Virginia, among other US states. He clarified that the company is also now facing numerous lawsuits, as a result of the operation to steal the company as carried out by José Ignacio Hernández and Juan Guaidó, who are the main perpetrators responsible for the debt issue.
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He added that people should not buy the narrative that Juan Guaidó is being investigated in the United States or that the FBI is going to put him in prison. “The main drug cartel is in the United States and is managed by the DEA,” he stated, adding that, at this moment, “[Guaidó] is playing tennis, he is playing Padel, and he owns EVTV, buying that TV station with money stolen from Venezuela, and today he is a tycoon of the [gusano] media.”
He said that there are numerous “vultures” who are after CITGO, including former minister Rafael RamĂrez, and that there are responsibilities owed to Venezuela from “abroad” and others “locally.”
“The so-called G4 owes an explanation to [Venezuela],” he pointed out, “they are sitting at the dialogue table, they owe an explanation of what they did in MonĂłmeros, with CITGO, what they tried to do with Venezuela’s oil terminals in the Caribbean, what they have tried to do with the CVG companies in Costa Rica, what they did in Spain with the freezing of accounts. That is, they have straw tails everywhere.”
In Castillo’s opinion, all the parliamentarians who signed the so-called “statute of transition” are also responsible for this theft; despite this, some of them are brazen enough to sporadically come to Venezuela, he noted.
(Ăšltimas Noticias) by Aura Torrealba with Orinoco Tribune content
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/AU
