USA: Rio Treaty nations agree to extra sanctions against Venezuela govt.

M/S Officials shaking hands at meeting of Foreign Ministers of States Party to the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance or 'Rio Treaty,' New York City
SOT, Carlos Holmes Trujillo, Colombian Finister of Foreign Affairs (Spanish): "For the generation of the biggest humanitarian crisis that the region has lived, which has made five million Venezuelans leave their country and for the collusion of the Nicolas Maduro regime with transnational crime and terrorist organisations, violating international obligations like the 1363 resolution of the UN Security Council from 2001."
M/S Meeting attendees
SOT, Carlos Holmes Trujillo, Colombian Finister of Foreign Affairs (Spanish): "We are in front the only inter-american instrument that gives us the juridical strengh to use measures that are not allowed by other instruments, and therefore advance in the protection of democracy, safety and peace of the region."
W/S Meeting
SOT, Ernesto Araujo, Brazilian Foreign Minister (Spanish): "The magnitude of the crisis in Venezuela includes clear and increasing elements that challenge peace and security in our region. The Venezuelan dictatorship has opened its territory to guerrilla and terrorist groups and to all kinds of transnational organised crime. An alliance has been established between the illegitimate government, narco-guerrillas and crime, harmful to all the countries of our region. They transformed this great nation in a real park of crime."
M/S Meeting attendees
SOT, Ernesto Araujo, Brazilian Foreign Minister (Spanish): "At the same time it is very clear for us that the definitive solution for the humanitarian drama has to necessarily pass through the end of usurpation and the return of Venezuela to democracy, which in turn will open the doors for the economic reconstruction of the country."
M/S Photographer
SOT, Ernesto Araujo, Brazilian Foreign Minister (Spanish): "This treaty has a different seriousness than what we have done until now. It is a treaty of reciprocal assistance in its broadest sense. This treaty is not invoked in an unforeseen or trivial way, but only in front of existential situations, when the future of democracy and freedom is in danger in the whole continent. For this it was originally conceived and for this we are here. Our duty of friendship and our duty of responsibility in front of our people bring us to this meeting."
W/S Meeting
SCRIPT
Leaders from several Latin American countries agreed in New York City on Monday to investigate and detain associates and senior officials of the Venezuelan government who are suspected of corruption, human rights abuse and drug trafficking.
Members of the so-called Rio Treaty - including United States, Canada and several Latin American and Caribbean nations - voted 16-1 in favour of the measures. Uruguay voted against, Trinidad and Tobago abstained, and Cuba was absent.
"We are in front the only interamerican instrument that gives us the juridical strengh to use measures that are not allowed by other instruments," said Colombian Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo during a meeting on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly.
The Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, commonly known as the Rio Treaty, is a mutual defense pact that was signed in 1947 and has not been activated since the September 11, 2001 attacks.