Statements on Venezuela

Here is the Washington Office on Latin America's press release on Venezuela. It goes much further than the most recent statement from John Kerry. Kerry's statements, meanwhile, have been much more mild than anything from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

If anything, then, the Obama administration has been pretty circumspect. Nicolás Maduro is lambasting Kerry on Twitter, but it's hard to get a lot of traction when he's well behind multiple NGOs that focus on human rights.

It is also harder to get traction given Maduro's treatment of CNN, which was an amazingly stupid decision. He backed off, but the threat remains, and provides more meat for human rights accusations against him. Unfortunately for Maduro, he has a habit of providing compelling evidence just by opening his mouth.