Ratcheting up tensions with the US, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday ordered a sharp reduction in the number of diplomats at the US embassy in Caracas, said US citizens would now need visas to enter the country and took other measures to retaliate for sanctions imposed by Washington on Venezuelan officials.
Maduro announced the steps at a rally at the presidential palace, hours after four missionaries from North Dakota who had been held and questioned by Venezuelan authorities since Wednesday left the country. It was not clear if they were deported or left voluntarily.
Venezuela, a major oil exporter to the US, is mired in a deep economic crisis marked by recession, high inflation and shortages of basic goods and medicines. Maduro, a leftist whose popularity is slumping, blames capitalist enemies and the US for the country’s troubles, and has accused Washington of plotting a coup to oust him.
The US denies those allegations and has pressed Maduro to release arrested opposition politicians and guarantee protections for antigovernment demonstrators.
Calling for “equal terms between countries, respect between countries,” Maduro said that the US must immediately reduce the number of officials at its embassy. “They have 100 officials, and we have 17 there,” he said.
If the reduction in embassy staff members includes a significant number of consular officials who process visa applications, it would be more difficult for Venezuelans to get visas to enter the US.
Maduro said that embassy officials must now get permission to meet with Venezuelans, saying: “The conspiratorial meetings in Venezuela are over.” He routinely accuses US diplomats of involvement in plots against him, although without offering proof.
He also said that US citizens would now have to obtain visas to enter Venezuela, and would have to pay a fee equivalent to that paid by Venezuelans to receive visas to the US.
Moreover, Maduro moved to retaliate for sanctions, including visa restrictions, recently imposed by the US against Venezuelan officials accused of involvement in human rights abuses during antigovernment protests last year.
He said that he would bar from Venezuela “a list of political leaders from the United States who have violated human rights by bombing the people of Iraq, the people of Syria, the people of Vietnam.” He said it was “a terrorist list that will be headed by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, the ex-CIA chief George Tenet.”
The list, he added, would also include several members of US Congress who have been critical of his government, including New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez and Florida representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart.
Maduro also appeared to refer to the four US missionaries who were detained on Wednesday in Ocumare de la Costa, a small coastal town west of Caracas, the capital.
“We have captured some Americans engaged in undercover activity,” he said, characterizing the activity as “espionage, trying to win over people in towns on the Venezuelan coast.”
He also said that another US citizen had been “captured” in the western state of Tachira, describing the man only as a pilot of Latino origin.
Glenn Guimond, a spokesman for the US embassy, said he was “unable to make any comment because we have yet to receive any officials diplomatic communication from the Venezuelan government.”
The four US missionaries flew to Aruba on Saturday morning on their way home, according to Bruce Dick, the pastor of the Bethel Evangelical Free Church in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, where they live.
Dick said that the group of missionaries — three men and a woman — had been providing medical aid to the coastal town’s residents and support to a local church.
“That’s our only agenda; it’s not politics at all,” Dick said. “We have no ill will against the Venezuelan government.”
“They don’t themselves understand,” he said of the reason they were detained. “They were interviewed by the intelligence service. They were interviewed multiple times.”
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