WASHINGTON — The families of eight U.S. citizens who remain imprisoned in Venezuela have come to President Joe Biden’s defense over his outreach to the nation’s autocratic leader, Nicolás Maduro, asking him to stay the course with dialogue in the face of political headwinds at home.
Maduro released two Americans last week after meeting March 5 with senior U.S. officials in Caracas — the first high-level engagement between the two countries in years. While lawmakers in Washington have praised Biden for securing the release of the Americans, both Democrats and Republicans have expressed concern over broader talks on oil imports with Maduro that might strengthen his hold on power.
“There is no question that President Biden’s approval of this outreach was a risk,” the families wrote in a letter to Biden first obtained by McClatchy. “But we have an opportunity, and it requires a principled leader who is prepared to face potential controversy.”
The detained Americans include the remaining members of the so-called Citgo 6, American executives from the state-owned Venezuelan oil company who have been held since 2017, as well as three former U.S. soldiers who were arrested in 2020.
McClatchy reported last week that the State Department worked quietly for months to set the stage for the release of Gustavo Cardenas, one of the six Citgo Petroleum Corp. executives, and Jorge Fernandez, a Cuban American tourist, from Venezuelan prisons.
The Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, led by Roger Carstens, established a channel of communication with Caracas in the fall, and visited in December to seek the freedom of all the Americans being held there.
But it was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine that scrambled alliances around the world and created a diplomatic opening for the Biden administration to engage with Maduro directly. The meeting included the first official visit to Caracas by a senior White House official since the inauguration of Hugo Chávez in the late 1990s.
“It was the American response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine that may have kicked that door wide open,” the families wrote. “But none of this would have been possible without President Biden’s decisive leadership from the top.”
“We applaud, stand behind, and are ready to publicly defend an administration and public officials of either party that rise above the political quagmire in Washington to do the right thing to bring innocent Americans back home,” they wrote. “For as long as this administration continues with its genuine effort to bring them home, they can count on us to have their back.”
Responding to the letter, a State Department official told McClatchy that the U.S. “will not stop working every day to bring home every U.S. national held hostage or wrongfully detained anywhere in the world, including those who remain wrongfully detained in Venezuela.”
“The practice of wrongfully detaining U.S. nationals represents a threat to the safety of everyone traveling, working and living abroad,” the official said. “The United States opposes this practice everywhere. ”
The letter was posted Monday to the website for the James W. Foley Legacy foundation, which is focused on hostage advocacy and journalist safety. It was established in the memory of James Foley, a freelance journalist who was kidnapped in 2012 in Syria and executed two years later.
Last week, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the administration would take every opportunity to engage with adversarial governments — in Venezuela, Russia, China, Iran and elsewhere — on unjustly detained Americans.
“We’ll continue to discuss a range of issues, including, first and foremost, Americans unjustly held. Unfortunately, they’re not the only individuals held there,” Psaki said. “Those are conversations we are always going to want to engage in.”
The five remaining Citgo executives — José Ángel Pereira, Jorge Toledo, José Luis Zambrano, Tomeu Vadell and Alirio José Zambrano — were detained in Caracas in November 2017, after flying in from Houston for an “emergency meeting.” They were charged with embezzlement, money laundering and organized crime and racketeering, charges the families of the detained men deny and the State Department has called “specious.”
Vadell’s daughter, Veronica Vadell Weggeman, had previously criticized Biden for holding up efforts to free the detained oil executives.
In May 2020, former Green Berets Airan Berry and Luke Denman were captured as part of the failed Operation Gideon, an attempt to spark a popular uprising in Venezuela. The pair had been working for Florida-based security firm Silvercorp USA, led by another ex-Green Beret, Jordan Goudreau, and were sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Former New Mexico governor-turned-hostage-negotiator Bill Richardson, who had earlier been involved in efforts to help win the release of the detained Americans, previously suggested to the Miami Herald that Denman and Berry may have been duped.
“The Green Berets are innocent of the crimes they are charged with. They were not mercenaries, they were not part of an invasion,” he said.
Finally, former Marine Matthew Heath was arrested in September 2020 and accused of being part of a covert operation to sabotage power plants and oil facilities. Heath’s family has denied these accusations and said he had been trying to visit friends in nearby Aruba by boat. The State Department has similarly questioned the charges against Heath.
Richardson echoed the sentiments of the families in Monday’s letter.
“Any efforts to bring back American prisoners should be praised and supported publicly, regardless of where you stand on policy and politics” he said in a statement. “I commend the Administration for their effort last week, and call on President Biden to continue these efforts. The price might not seem fair or just, but it is the right thing to do for our fellow Americans and their families.”
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