Venezuela slams EU-demanded ICC probe

VENEZUELA hit back on Thursday night after the International Criminal Court (ICC) opened a probe and MEPs ordered new sanctions.

Venezuelan security officials may soon have the dubious distinction of being the first non-Africans bounced through the notorious imperialist kangaroo court in The Hague following Thursday’s announcement by ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda.

A Venezuelan Foreign Ministry statement rejected the move, saying it came as a surprise with no previous official communication from Ms Bensouda.

Ms Bensouda said the preliminary investigation will look into MUD claims the security forces "frequently used excessive force to disperse and put down demonstrations," last year and abused some detained opposition members.

Four months of opposition regime-change violence from April last year left 124 people dead, including several burned alive on the mere suspicion of being government supporters.

The Gambian lawyer’s own country’s exit from the ICC was halted by a Senegalese invasion and coup against president Yahya Jammeh last year.

The Venezuelan statement stressed that the ICC’s founding Rome Statute defined its jurisdiction as “complementary” to those of member nations and can only investigate cases that national courts refuse to hear — which it said was not the case in Venezuela.

And it said Ms Bensouda’s “preliminary investigation” had no basis in the Rome State, calling it an “inquisition-style process” which set up a perpetual “infamous media blackmail” against member states.

The demands for an ICC probe was part of Thursday’s European Parliament resolution moved by members of the conservative European People’s Party group by by 480 votes to 51.

It also extended existing sanctions on Venezuelan officials — mirroring those imposed by the US — to President Nicolas Maduro and armed forces commanders.

Among other alleged government abuses, the motion claimed Venezuelan police helicopter pilot Oscar Perez and six of his cohorts “were extra-judicially executed despite the fact that they had already surrendered” last month.

Last June the pilot hijacked a police helicopter and attacked the Supreme Justice Tribunal building with grenades an a rifle.

Mr Perez’s gang killed two police officers and the leader of a local pro-Maduro “collective” — who knew some of them personally — when they tried to negotiate the group’s surrender during an armed siege.

Several MEPs from former colonial power Spain’s ruling People’s Party sponsored the motion, along with one from Germany’s Christian Democrat Union.

Last year German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed leaders of Venezuela’s putchist Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) coalition.

The resolution came after MUD representatives at talks with the government in the Dominican Republic refused to sign an agreement on April’s presidential elections.

That was despite government insistence that all opposition demands were met and former Spanish PM Jose Luis Zapatero’s call for them to sign.

National Electoral Council President Tibisay Lucena announced the election would go ahead regardless on April 22.

COLOMBIAN President Juan Manuel Santos announced more than 2,000 more troops to patrol the border with Venezuela — claiming a refugee influx loomed.
Speaking in the border city of Cucuta, he said consumer shortages in the neighbouring country — which Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro blames on US-directed economic warfare — was prompting a stream of illegal immigrants.
"Colombia has never experienced a situation like the one we are encountering today," Mr Santos said.
"This is a tragedy," he claimed. "And I want to reiterate to President Maduro: This is the result of your policies."
Last month Mr Santos said no international bodies would recognise the results of Venezuela's early presidential election, since scheduled for April 22, without the approval the US-backed opposition.
Around five million refugees from Colombia’s 55-year dirty war against communist guerillas are currently sheltered by Venezuela, whose own population is about 25 million.
By contrast an estimated 300,000 Venezuelans are in Colombia.
Mr Maduro closed the Colombian border in December 2016 after troops patrolling the border were fired on by Colombian smugglers — who buy highly-subsidised Venezuelan food and fuel to sell across the border.

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