By Sarah Kinosian
(Reuters) -Washington needs to take further action against Venezuelan leader President Nicolas Maduro, opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said, including enforcing sanctions and fighting criminal networks she says are connected to the government.
Machado was barred from running in the 2024 presidential election but is the country’s most popular opposition figure.
Western countries and the opposition say Machado roundly won last year’s election, while Maduro’s government says he was re-elected but has not released detailed vote tallies.
“Would we like more action more quickly? Yes, yes,” Machado, who has been in hiding for nearly a year, told Reuters in a Zoom interview late on Tuesday. “For the United States, Venezuela is a hemispheric security issue.”
The 57-year-old industrial engineer, who urged her supporters to boycott recent legislative elections, said Maduro is the head of a “criminal enterprise.”
“We’re asking for law enforcement,” said Machado about her position on what the United States, Canada, and Europe, among others, should do. “We need the international justice system to function because the justice system in Venezuela doesn’t exist.”
Machado said the opposition also urged the U.S. government and others in Europe to release information about the criminal networks allegedly connected to Maduro.
The United States has sanctioned several individuals in Maduro’s government, levied drug trafficking indictments against many high-ranking members of Venezuela’s government and military and Maduro himself, among other actions.
The U.S. revocation of Chevron’s license to operate in Venezuela was a financial blow to Maduro, and Machado said cutting off financing was crucial to creating internal pressure against him.
Under the new authorization, Chevron can no longer operate in Venezuelan oil fields, export oil, or expand activities.
Maduro and his allies have always rejected sanctions, referring to them as “economic war” and hailing what they say is the success of the economy in spite of the measures.
Venezuela’s government has increased taxes on the private sector since the Chevron license change to compensate for lost revenue, business leaders and analysts told Reuters this month.
(Reporting by Reuters;Editing by Bernadette Baum)
