Venezuelan politics contaminate Mercosur parliament session

Venezuela failed in removing members from the Mercosur Parliament Human Rights Committee for allegedly having interfered in Venezuelan internal affairs. The initiative which turned into a deplorable incident occurred this week during the XII session of the regional parliament in Montevideo. Uruguayan Deputy Adriana Peña and her colleague from Paraguay, Mirta Palacio, president and vice president of the Human Rights Committee recently visited Caracas, “as Mercosur legislators” to collect information from government offices and private sources on the proscription of 272 political leaders from the coming provincial and city November elections in Venezuela. “We went to listen to all sides involved” those who have been proscribed and the government but “officials couldn’t receive us and that is why we did not finalize a report on the situation”, said Peña who is a member of the main opposition party in Uruguay. The issue was formally presented at the Parliament session by the Venezuelan delegation headed by Deputy Saul Ortega who demanded the removal of Peña as president of the Committee, but the initiative did not have the sufficient support.