Before Russia crisis, quiet talks between U.S. and Venezuela paved way for prisoner release
.JPG "People shop along Sabana Grande boulevard on Christmas Eve in Caracas, Venezuela, on Dec. 24, 2020, amid the new coronavirus pandemic.")
Quiet negotiations that began in the fall between the Venezuelan government and a small office at the State Department led to a rare high-level meeting between the two nations — and the release of two Americans on Tuesday night.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro released Gustavo Cardenas, an oil executive, and Jorge Fernandez, a Cuban-American tourist, from prison in a gesture of goodwill to the United States three days after the meeting.
The talks in Caracas between Maduro and top White House and State Department officials included a discussion of potential U.S. sanctions relief on Venezuela’s oil sector after gasoline prices soared in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
But the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs had been laying the groundwork for the meeting since last year, when the special envoy, Roger Carstens, established a channel of communication with Caracas and visited in December to seek the freedom of several Americans being held there, senior administration officials told the Miami Herald.
“There was a lot of homework done in the lead-up to this,” one senior official said. “Carstens had put several months of work into developing this effort, well before the crisis between Russia and Ukraine.”
In those discussions, the Maduro regime signaled to Carstens’ team that direct contact with senior leadership in the Biden administration could lead to a breakthrough.
That led to planning for the March 5 meeting in Caracas between Maduro and senior U.S. officials, including Carstens, Ambassador on Venezuelan Affairs James Story and Juan Gonzalez, senior director for the Western Hemisphere at the White House.
It was the first official visit to Caracas by a senior White House official since the inauguration of Hugo Chávez in the late 1990s.
“The regime has been wanting to engage directly with the United States for quite some time,” said a second senior administration official. “They haven’t talked to this administration directly. They haven’t received a White House visit. And we thought that we would make this gesture, really convey the views of this administration, just in terms of foreign policy toward the Americas.”
One of the men released, Cardenas, was from a group of six oil executives with Citgo, a U.S. refining company owned by Venezuela’s state oil firm, who were arrested during a business trip to Caracas in 2017.
The other, Fernandez, was detained in 2021 for bringing a drone into Venezuela.
“Tonight — two Americans who were wrongfully detained in Venezuela will be able to hug their families once more,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “These men are fathers who lost precious time with their children and everyone they love, and their families have suffered every day of their absence.
“Unjustly holding Americans captive is always unacceptable,” Biden said. “And even as we celebrate the return of Cardenas and Fernandez, we also remember the names and the stories of every American who is being unjustly held against their will — in Venezuela, in Russia, in Afghanistan, Syria, China, Iran, and elsewhere around the world.
“My administration will keep fighting to bring them all home,” he added.
Their release came on the same day that Biden said the United States would not be importing oil from Russia because of its war on Ukraine.
The United States severed diplomatic ties with the Maduro government in 2019 and recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela.
A high-ranking member of Guaidó’s team had said earlier this week that U.S. officials gave them a description of the meeting after it had concluded.
Maduro demanded an end to all sanctions and investigations directed at his family, and that he be recognized as Venezuela’s legitimate ruler until 2024, the Guaidó official said.
The United States has targeted Venezuela’s oil sector in recent years in an effort to pressure the Maduro government to restore democratic institutions. The country produces roughly 600,000 barrels of oil a day, most of which goes to China.
A U.S. official had said the delegation pushed for the release of all Americans held in Venezuelan custody, including other members of the Citgo 6 and Matthew Heath, a retired U.S. Marine.
This story was originally published March 9, 2022 at 12:51 AM.
