South American Governments Slam Obama Over Venezuela Sanctions

Source: Huffington Post

South American Governments Slam Obama Over Venezuela Sanctions
Posted: 03/16/2015 9:40 pm EDT Updated: 29 minutes ago
Roque Planas
roque.planas@huffingtonpost.com

South America's governments aren’t pleased with the Obama administration’s recent characterization of Venezuela as a “national security threat.”

President Barack Obama issued an executive order on March 9 sanctioning seven Venezuelan government and military officials accused of committing human rights abuses and participating in the detention of such opposition leaders as Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma Diaz. Venezuelan authorities jailed Ledezma last month after accusing him of participating in a coup plot. Ledezma has denied the charges, and critics of President Nicolás Maduro's government view his arrest as politically motivated.

The U.S. property of the seven individuals under sanction is being frozen, Americans are barred from doing business with them, and the seven cannot travel to the U.S. But the main object of South American ire may be the language leading off Obama's order. It describes the situation in Venezuela as constituting an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”

The Union of South American Nations, which speaks for the continent's 12 independent countries, demanded the U.S. drop the sanctions in a statement issued Saturday, calling them “a threat to sovereignty and the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states.” The foreign ministers of all UNASUR's member nations signed the declaration at a special meeting in Quito, Ecuador, according to Argentine news site Infobae.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/16/unasur-venezuela-sanctions_n_6881886.html