Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado sharply criticized the US-backed new leadership in Venezuela after a meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, with whom the government works in Washington, is not trustworthy, Machado told reporters in Washington. “Everyone knows what this regime is about. We’re talking about criminals here.”
“You have caused a third of our population to leave our country and flee,” the opposition politician added. The Venezuelan government has created “the most criminal system of torture and repression in the history of this hemisphere,” Machado said. Rodríguez is “an essential part” of this system of “state terrorism.”
When asked by a journalist whether she would be willing to share power with Rodríguez in an interim government, Machado replied: “We are working to provide a real transition. This is not a Russian-style transition where the mafia stays in power and ultimately the citizens suffer.” She will continue to work for real change – and not for part of the ruling apparatus to remain in power.
Rodríguez reacts with a disguised threat
Interim President Rodríguez responded by calling on the opposition to stay away from their homeland. “Those who want to cause harm and suffering to the people of Venezuela should stay in Washington,” Rodríguez said on Wednesday (local time) at an army and police ceremony in Caracas.
Rodríguez came to power as a result of the US military intervention in Venezuela. She had previously been deputy to the authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro, who was captured on January 3 during a US military operation in the capital Caracas and then taken to New York. He is to be tried there for alleged involvement in drug crimes.
Since the change of power, the South American country has been in a phase of political upheaval. Rodríguez is apparently the person within the Venezuelan government with whom the US government is negotiating directly – especially over the management of the South American country’s vast oil reserves.
