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Venezuela Opposition Split by Oil-for-Food Proposal

Reuters

   CARACAS -- A proposal to modify U.S. oil sanctions on Venezuela to
   allow crude exports to be bartered for food has divided the country's
   opposition between those who say the move would stave off famine and
   those who predict President Nicolas Maduro would abuse it.
   Henri Falcon, the former governor of western Lara state, said Thursday
   that he wrote to the United Nations and the U.S. House of
   Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs requesting such an
   exemption for food and medicine imports.
   Falcon attained international prominence last year when he broke a
   boycott to challenge Maduro in a vote many opposition parties deemed a
   sham. He faces an uphill battle to convince the United States and other
   opposition politicians of the merits of the program.
   The U.N. implemented a similar program in Iraq, another oil-dependent
   economy, from 1996 to 2003 to help citizens cope with U.N. sanctions
   after former leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990.

   Through early 2019, the United States was Venezuela'slargest crude
   importer. State oil company PDVSA got cash from the oil it sent to U.S.
   refiners, while it used exports to other major customers like China's
   CNPC and Russia's Rosneft to pay off debt.
   But since the Treasury Department sanctioned PDVSA as part of the Trump
   administration's bid to pressure Maduro to step down amid a
   hyperinflationary economic collapse, PDVSA's shipments to the United
   States have disappeared, and Venezuela's crude production has fallen to
   around half of last year's levels.
   That has reduced the government revenue available to import food and
   medicine, in short supply for years. Defenders of the sanctions argue
   that any oil sale proceeds are more likely to be embezzled than used to
   import humanitarian goods.
   Maduro remains in power despite the sanctions and a six-month campaign
   by JuanGuaido, the president of the opposition-controlled National
   Assembly, to get the South American country's armed forces on his side.
   "While politicians are seeking to distract attention exclusively, in
   some cases, toward the political element -- but without results,
   without effect -- people are still dying of hunger," Falcon said in a
   news conference, arguing that Venezuela was "at the doors of a famine."

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