As the fallout of Venezuela's elections continues, with President Nicolas Maduro and his allies facing increasing pressure to provide documentation to back its victory claim, many eyes have been on the Biden administration to see how it handles the situation. While previous reports suggested the U.S. may be negotiating with Venezuela on how to move forward, it remains unclear whether officials have offered Maduro amnesty for ceding power.
The question has been met with opposing reports from major news outlets.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that the U.S. has discussed pardons for Maduro and top lieutenants of his who face Justice Department indictments, quoting three people familiar with the Biden administration.
That report said the U.S. has put "everything on the table" to persuade Maduro to leave before his term ends in January, and that the U.S. would be open to providing guarantees not to pursue those regime figures for extradition.
That would be a significant offer for Maduro, who currently faces a $15 million bounty from the U.S. for information leading to his arrest on charges of conspiring with his allies to flood the country with narcotics.
However, The Miami Herald was quick to dispute those claims, reporting that while the U.S. is open to all possibilities to end Maduro's regime, it has not yet offered amnesty.
"We have not made any offers of amnesty to Maduro or others since the election," said a U.S. official told The Miami Herald, who spoke under condition of anonymity. "We are considering a range of options to incentivize and pressure Maduro to recognize the election results and will continue to do so."
"The responsibility is on Maduro and the Venezuela's electoral authorities to come clean on the election results," the official added.
But despite reports, it remains unclear whether the U.S. has actually made an offer to the Maduro regime, as other reports continue to cite The Wall Street Journal and The Miami Herald's pieces.
However, whether or not that conversation has been carried out, amnesty could represent a flicker of hope for Venezuelans in the country and abroad, given that since the initial election fiasco took place, hundreds of thousands of citizens have taken to the streets across the country to protest the apparently fraudulent results presented by the National Electoral Council (CNE) on election night.
Those actions have resulted in arrests, deaths and even the temporary banning of popular social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
International efforts to negotiate Maduro's exit have increased as protests intensified.
The opposition claims opposition candidate and retired diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia beat Maduro by a margin of 65% to 30%, and has been able to provide the official election tallies from 80% of the voting stations. Those tallies have been independently verified by reputable sources like the Associated Press.
The regime, on the other hand, claims Maduro won the contest against Gonzalez with close to 52% of the vote, but they have been unable to provide any sort of proof for their claims despite repeated calls from the international community to do so.
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