Lima Group rules out Venezuela military action: Update

Includes joint statement on further actions against Venezuela.

Latin American countries and Canada that oppose the regime of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro pledged tougher measures but specifically ruled out military intervention at a Lima Group meeting today.

In an 18-point communique issued at the end of today´s meeting in Bogotá, Colombia, the group condemned the Maduro government´s repression, called on the United Nations to investigate human rights violations, and petitioned the International Criminal Court to consider the country´s humanitarian crisis, repression and denial of aid as human rights crimes. The group also vowed to urge the recognition of an interim government in multilateral organizations.

The group reiterated that Venezuela´s transition to democracy "should be led by Venezuelans peacefully and in the framework of the Constitution and international law, backed by political and diplomatic means, without the use of force."

The countries that issued the declaration are Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela, nominally in the name of an interim government of opposition leader Juan Guaidó, whom they recognize as president.

Mexico is still a Lima Group member but has distanced itself under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is urging dialogue and neutrality.

In separate remarks at the end of today´s meeting, Colombia´s foreign minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo said Guaidó, his wife and their families have been threatened, and anything that happens to them would be Maduro´s responsibility.

"There is now no doubt the dictatorship has no limits on the repression of its own people," Peru´s vice minister of foreign affairs Hugo de Zela Martínez said at the opening of a closely watched meeting of the Lima Group this morning, amid ongoing clashes at Venezuela´s border with Colombia. "The time has come to adopt more measures to isolate the regime."

De Zela said reports of pending military action are "false" and reiterated that the Lima Group is seeking a "peaceful solution" to the Venezuelan crisis.

Venezuela´s opposition has called for humanitarian aid to be delivered through any means, including an international military coalition.

The Lima Group has limited practical leverage to bear on Venezuela, other than to try to persuade more countries to abandon Maduro and support the country´s opposition.

US vice president Mike Pence, invited to address today´s meeting, urged countries to freeze the assets of Venezuelan national oil company PdV and transfer title to an interim government. But no significant assets are in Lima Group countries.

The US imposed sanctions on PdV on 28 January, on top of earlier financial sanctions and sanctions targeted at senior Venezuelan officials. The EU and Canada have targeted individual sanctions in place, while Colombia recently imposed travel bans on Venezuelan officials and their families. But none of the Lima Group countries depends on Venezuelan oil exports, which are now focused on the Chinese and Indian markets after the US sanctions effectively closed off the US market.

The meeting is taking place two days after Venezuela´s opposition led by Guaidó — whom the US, the Lima Group, and most EU countries recognize as Venezuela´s interim president — failed to introduce more than token humanitarian aid through the country´s borders in a campaign that was supposed to break the resistance of Venezuela´s armed forces.

According to Colombia´s migration service, 167 Venezuelan national guard, police, special forces and navy, among other armed forces branches, have defected across Venezuela´s border with Colombia since 23 February.

But the high-profile aid campaign did not persuade most of the armed forces to let in the food and medicine, mostly supplied by the US, and abandon Maduro.

Guaidó also participated in today´s meeting amid swirling speculation over when he will return to Venezuela, where he risks arrest for violating a government order to stay in the country. He left Venezuela on 22 February and showed up to enthusiastic crowds at an aid concert that day in the Colombian border city of Cúcuta. The next morning violent clashes erupted on Venezuela´s border with Colombia and inside Venezuela near the border with Brazil as aid trucks tried to get through.

His representatives say he will return to Venezuela soon.

The closed borders with Colombia remained tense today, with scattered clashes on the Venezuelan side of the main crossings.

The next meeting of the Lima Group will be held in Chile at an unspecified date. The Lima Group was established in 2017 to coordinate actions aimed at transitioning Venezuela to democracy.