International pressure mounts on Venezuela's Maduro

The US government imposed sanctions on Wednesday on eight more Venezuelan officials, including the brother of late former president Hugo Chávez, for their role in the creation of the so-called constituent assembly, a legislative superbody aimed at giving President Nicolás Maduro unlimited power.

On late Tuesday, government officials from 16 countries, who gathered in Lima to discuss the Venezuelan crisis, condemned Maduro and rejected his constituent assembly, which was set up following elections late last month that were marred by claims of fraud.

Foreign ministers from Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Paraguay and Guyana, as well as government officials from seven countries in Central America and the Caribbean, condemned ongoing political violence in Venezuela, demanded the release of political prisoners and offered their support for the country's opposition-dominated congress.

The constituent assembly, which is made up almost entirely of Maduro loyalists after the opposition boycotted the elections, declared its rulings will override those of the opposition-controlled congress.

"Democratic order has been broken in Venezuela. What there is in Venezuela is a dictatorship," said Peru's foreign minister Ricardo Luna. "The enormous efforts for dialogue made by governments and the Vatican have merely served to buy time for this de facto regime which has no way out."

In a joint statement, the Lima ministerial summit also called for a ban on arms sales to Venezuela, free and fair elections under international supervision and proposed the formation of a group to monitor the crisis.

Venezuela, where anti-government protests have left at least 120 dead and over 1,000 injured over the past four months, is struggling to cope with shortages of food and medicines, electricity and potable water cuts, spiraling hyperinflation and rising crime. Tens of thousands of Venezuelans have been forced to migrate to neighboring countries, while Maduro's government was criticized for refusing to allow in shipments of humanitarian aid.

"We cannot permit a dictatorship among us," Brazil's foreign minister Aloysio Nunes said at the same meeting. "Nor can we permit this horror in Venezuela."

The joint statement added to mounting pressure from Venezuela's trading partners as the country was suspended from the Mercosur trade bloc last week, and government officials including Maduro had their assets frozen in the US President Donald Trump has warned he may ban Venezuelan crude oil imports.

On Wednesday, Adán Chávez Frías, brother of the late socialist leader and member of the constituent assembly, was among the latest individuals to be targeted by the US Treasury Department, which will freeze any assets under US jurisdiction.

Maduro has responded by sacking critics in his own government and arresting opposition leaders and thousands of protesters, spurring criticism by the United Nations, which accused the Venezuelan armed forces of torturing detainees.

"These violations have occurred amid the breakdown of the rule of law in Venezuela, with constant attacks by the government against the national assembly and the attorney general's office," UN high commissioner for human rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said in a statement. "The responsibility for the human rights violations we are recording lies at the highest levels of government."

The region is far from united on its stance regarding Maduro, however. Officials from the 11-member trade bloc Alba – which includes Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador and Bolivia – met at the same time in Caracas to reject the meeting in Lima as US-backed interventionism.

The Venezuelan crisis has become more acute since 2014 due to slumping oil prices, which accounts for 95% of the country's export revenue. Venezuela, a member of OPEC, has the world's largest oil reserves but has seen production dwindle to an estimated 1.9Mb/d from over 3Mb/d in 1997, according to the US energy department.

Maduro, a former bus driver, rose to power as an ally of former president Hugo Chávez, who began his socialist revolution in 1999. Maduro succeeded Chávez upon his death in 2013.