MIAMI — Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson plans to travel this week to Venezuela to urge President Nicolás Maduro to free several jailed Americans as a goodwill gesture aimed at easing tensions with the U.S.
The
Richardson Center, which seeks freedom for Americans held by hostile foreign
governments and criminal organizations, announced Monday the planned meeting
with Maduro on social media.
Richardson
didn’t say on whose behalf he was traveling to Caracas or what day he would
meet with Maduro, who was recently indicted on U.S. drug trafficking charges.
But
among the U.S. citizens jailed in Venezuela are two former Green Berets — Luke
Denman and Airan Berry — arrested in May while participating in a botched raid
organized from neighboring Colombia to oust Maduro.
Also
being held are six oil executives from Citgo — five Venezuelan-Americans and
one a permanent U.S. resident — who were lured to Caracas for a meeting in late
2017 at the offices of the Houston-based company’s parent, state-run oil giant
PDVSA, when masked security agents swarmed a boardroom and hauled them away.
While
Richardson’s visit is a private mission, he coordinated with the State
Department and has kept U.S. officials briefed of his plans, according to
someone familiar with the trip, on the condition of anonymity to discuss
planning details.
The
face-to-face diplomacy stands in contrast to U.S. policy of “maximum pressure”
on a leader considered by Washington to be a dictator and drug kingpin. The
Trump administration closed the U.S. Embassy in Caracas in March 2019 after it
recognized Juan Guaidó, the head of the opposition-controlled congress, as
Venezuela’s rightful leader.
Lately,
however, President Donald Trump has shown signs of losing faith in Guaidó’s
ability to remove Maduro, who has shown a surprising degree of resilience amid
ever-tougher U.S. sanctions that have accelerated the OPEC nation’s economic
collapse.
“He
seems to be losing a certain power,” Trump said of Guaidó Friday in an
interview with Telemundo. “We want somebody that has the support of the people.
I support the person that has the support of the people.”
Richardson,
a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the Clinton presidency,
has opened diplomatic backchannels to several hostile governments, including
Iran, Cuba and North Korea, to win the release of some 40 Americans. They
include former U.S. Navy veteran Michael White, who was released last month by
Iran after two years in jail as s part of a deal that spared an
American-Iranian physician any more time n jail in the U.S.
His
relationship with Maduro stretches back to when the Venezuelan would travel to
the United Nations as Hugo Chávez’s foreign minister. The two also crossed
paths at the 2018 inauguration of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López
Obrador. Richardson also worked behind the scenes to bring home another
American jailed in Caracas, former Mormon missionary Joshua Holt, who won his
freedom in 2018.
Maduro’s
government last month released a video showing the six American oil executives
in relatively good condition after their loved ones expressed fear about the
men’s health amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“Given
limitations, our conditions here have been good,” one of the men, former Citgo
President José Pereira, said between clips of the men dressed in orange jail
garb playing ping pong and lifting weights. “They treat us with respect
regarding our human rights.”
Less is
known about the condition of the former U.S. special forces soldiers. The two
appeared in videos shortly after their capture and said they had been hired by
a Florida-based company run by a former special forces colleague, Jordan
Goudreau, to train a volunteer army of Venezuelans to carry out an assault.
The
Trump administration has denied any involvement in the attack, which consisted
of a small contingent of lightly armed men who were easily subdued when they
arrived to Venezuela’s coastline on a few skiff boats.
***AP, Joshua
Goodman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/APjoshgoodman