CARACAS: The United States imposed new sanctions on crisis-hit Venezuela on Wednesday, targeting members of a controversial, all-powerful, loyalist assembly installed last week to bolster what Washington calls the “dictatorship” of President Nicolas Maduro.

The measures were aimed at six members of the so-called Constituent Assembly—among them the brother of late president Hugo Chavez—as well as a military officer in charge of security for the body, and a board member of the national electoral authority.

They added to previous US sanctions on Maduro himself—a rare step against a sitting head of state—imposed just before the assembly was elected on July 30 in a vote marred by violence, fraud allegations and an opposition boycott.

“President Maduro swore in this illegitimate Constituent Assembly to further entrench his dictatorship, and continues to tighten his grip on the country,” US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.

“This regime’s disregard for the will of the Venezuelan people is unacceptable, and the United States will stand with them in opposition to tyranny until Venezuela is restored to a peaceful and prosperous democracy.”

The Venezuelan government reacted by saying the US was “making a fool of itself in front of the world.”

It “doesn’t respect any criterion, any basic principle of international law,” Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza told state television. “Venezuela can’t be sanctioned for anything, nor by anybody.”

The US announcement came as the Constituent Assembly and Venezuela’s supreme court took actions to limit the opposition’s ability to challenge Maduro.

The assembly has established a “truth commission” which Maduro has said should examine alleged crimes by opposition leaders—especially those in charge of the country’s legislature, which his Socialist Party lost control of two years ago.

Sweeping powers

 The assembly has also fired the attorney general, Luisa Ortega, who broke ranks to become an outspoken critic of the president.

The supreme court ordered the jailing of an opposition mayor who allowed anti-government protests in his Caracas district, and was mulling similar cases against others.

Ostensibly brought in to rewrite the constitution, the Constituent Assembly has sweeping powers to override all other branches of government.

It has vowed to remain in operation for up to two years—beyond the scheduled end of Maduro’s term in 2019.

Those targeted in the US sanctions announced Wednesday included Adan Coromoto Chavez, the brother of the late president who was Maduro’s mentor before he died of cancer in 2013.

The National Electoral Council board member, Tania D’Amelio Cardiet, was designated for defending the assembly and for suspicion of being involved in fraud in its choosing.</s>FILE PHOTO: Nicolas Maduro stands next to then Defense Minister Diego Molero (L) as he speaks to thousands of supporters of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez as they wait to view his body in state at the Military Academy in Caracas March 7, 2013. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

LIMA (Reuters) - Peru said on Friday it was expelling Venezuela’s ambassador to Peru to protest the country’s recent formation of an all-powerful constituent assembly that has been widely condemned as a power grab by socialist President Nicolas Maduro.

Venezuela responded by ordering the charge d’affaires at the Peruvian embassy in Caracas to leave the country within five days. Peru withdrew its ambassador to Venezuela in March.

Peru’s announcement on Friday, shortly after President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski called Maduro a “dictator”, marked the first time that a country has moved to expel a Venezuelan ambassador since the country’s July 30 vote to form the constituent assembly amid allegations of fraud.

In Latin America, Peru has taken the toughest stance toward Maduro as he seeks to consolidate power and crack down on anti-government protests and unrest that have left 120 dead since April.

Earlier this week, Peru summoned top diplomats from the region to discuss Venezuela in Lima, Peru’s capital, where 12 nations condemned the “rupture of democratic order” in Venezuela and said they would not recognize any action taken by the constituent assembly.

Maduro has said the constituent assembly is the country’s only chance at securing peace and prosperity.

Venezuela called Kuczynski, a former Wall Street banker, “an enemy of the country, for continually interfering in the domestic affairs of Venezuela.”

“The Venezuelan government will continue to deepen relations with the heroic Peruvian people despite the actions of the elite that governs Peru,” Venezuela’s foreign ministry said in a statement. It added that its ambassador to Peru, Diego Molero, was in Venezuela.

The escalating rhetoric came as U.S. President Donald Trump threatened military intervention in Venezuela, which Venezuela called “an act of craziness.”</s>Mexico, Chile, and Peru are among 11 Latin American nations, plus Canada, that announced they will not recognize the new “Constituent Assembly” created by socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela.

The group of foreign ministers assembled in Peru said they would only recognize legal agreements approved by the real Venezuelan parliament, the National Assembly, in accordance with the Venezuelan constitution.

The Foreign Minister of Chile, Heraldo Muñóz, said he and his colleagues wanted to send a “firm statement” that they “will not tolerate military coups,” but also wished to maintain an “opening for dialogue” with the Maduro government. He also expressed a desire to work with the Venezuelan government to deliver humanitarian aid to its starving population.

Peruvian Foreign Minister Ricardo Luna said the Venezuelan Constituent Assembly is “incompatible with international law, human rights and democracy in this region.”

“The fading out of democratic institutions in recent times has reached its culmination and what we have in Venezuela is a dictatorship,” Luna declared.

Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said the declaration “validates our position in favor of democracy and democratically elected institutions in Venezuela.”

This week, Videgaray called Maduro a “coward” who “uses the power of the State to dismantle democracy and lash out against his people.” He was responding to a taunt from Maduro that Mexico’s president was acting like an “abused employee of Donald Trump” for not offering more vigorous resistance to the American president’s plan for a wall on the southern border of the United States.

Some observers speculate that Mexico has taken an especially strong stance against Maduro because it has its own left-wing populist leader to deal with, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. López Obrador is seen as a significant candidate for Mexico’s 2018 presidential race. The party currently in power has been ominously referring to him as “Mexico’s Maduro,” much as they compared him to Maduro’s mentor Hugo Chávez when he ran for president in 2005.

Other left-wing leaders in Latin American countries have sought to rally support by holding up Maduro as a hero and denouncing his critics as right-wing fascists. However, the more moderate left is worried that viral Maduroism is infecting parties in their countries and threatening to split militant factions away from decades-old political coalitions.

Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, and Paraguay joined Mexico, Chile, and Peru in signing the pronouncement refusing to recognize the Constituent Assembly and calling upon Maduro to shut it down. Canada also signed on.

The Maduro regime has accused several of these nations of working with the United States to topple the Venezuelan government. As for its domestic opponents, the regime has taken to describing them as “violent fascists” and “terrorists” who are waging war against the Venezuelan people.

Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Santa Lucia, and Uruguay sent ministers to the conference but did not sign the denunciation of the Constituent Assembly. Some of these reluctant nations have experienced severe schisms in their left-wing parties over Venezuela. For example, Uruguay’s President Tabaré Vázquez was attacked from the left for abandoning the “sister Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela” by suspending it from Mercosur, the Common Market of the South.</s>LIMA, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski on Friday urged Venezuela's president Nicolas Maduro to step down, calling him a "dictator", and rejected the socialist leader's call for the two to meet face-to-face along with other presidents in the region.

The centrist leader said in an interview for Reuters Latin American Investment Summit that Maduro had lost any remaining credibility since forming the constituent assembly, an all-powerful body made up of Maduro's Socialist Party loyalists.

"He's a dictator and has carried out a coup through a fraudulent election to eliminate Congress," Kuczynski said in the presidential palace in the historical center of Lima.

The comment marked the fiercest criticism yet that Kuczynski, an Oxford and Princeton trained economist and public administrator, has lobbed at Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader narrowly elected to replace Hugo Chavez in 2013.

On Kuczynski's watch, Peru has led Latin American efforts to pressure Venezuela to enact democratic reforms and signal to the world that much of the region is troubled by its deepening political and economic crises.

Maduro, who has previously called Kuczynski a "dog" and "coward" servile to the United States, on Thursday challenged the "American President of Peru" to agree to meet in person to discuss Venezuela with other leaders in the region.

"I'm not going to meet with Mr. Maduro. Sorry," Kuczynski said.

When asked what message he would send Maduro, Kuczynski said: "Leave!"

Shortly after Kuczynski spoke on Friday, Peru's foreign affairs minister announced that Peru was expelling Venezuela's ambassador to Peru to protest the constituent assembly.

Maduro has said the constituent assembly is the country's only chance at securing peace after four months of unrest and anti-government protests that have left more than 120 people dead.

Kuczynski said his primary concern with Venezuela was the regional fallout as thousands of Venezuelans flee the country's grinding poverty and hyperinflation every day and seek refuge in neighboring countries.

"We've opened the door to them," Kuczynski said. Peru recently extended a temporary work visa for Venezuelans.

"The only thing I can say is that there are a lot of people who are having a hard time in Venezuela ... and that will end one way or another," Kuczynski said. (Reporting By Mitra Taj and Marco Aquino; Editing by Toni Reinhold)</s>Peru expelled Venezuela’s ambassador on Friday as regional pressure built on President Nicolas Maduro’s government for allegedly trampling his country’s constitutional order.

Peru gave Ambassador Diego Molero, a former Venezuelan defence minister, five days to leave the country. As part of what it said was a firm commitment “to help restore Venezuela’s democracy,” Peru’s administration also refused to accept a diplomatic protest made by Maduro over Peru’s hosting this week of foreign ministers from 17 regional nations who refused to recognize the new, loyalist-packed special assembly that is to rewrite the constitution.

The diplomatic action by Peru, which was the strongest yet from a Latin American government, came as the Trump administration weighed putting economic sanctions on Venezuela to punish Maduro for what Washington calls an illegitimate power grab.

In an escalation of rhetoric, President Donald Trump said Friday that he hasn’t ruled out military action against Venezuela.

Speaking to reporters at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club, Trump bemoaned the country’s growing humanitarian crisis and declared that all options remain on the table — including a potential military intervention.

“We have many options for Venezuela and by the way, I’m not going to rule out a military option,” Trump volunteered, adding, “A military operation and military option is certainly something that we could pursue.”

On Thursday, Trump said he discussed Venezuela along with North Korea and Afghanistan in a security briefing with top national security aides and Vice-President Mike Pence. Pence is travelling to Colombia on Sunday to begin a regional trip that is expected to include discussions on how to deal with Maduro.

Maduro has tried to deflect the pressure from Washington, and on Thursday he said he wants to meet with Trump, perhaps next month at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

“Mr. Donald Trump, here is my hand,” the socialist president told delegates at the constitutional assembly, adding that he wants as strong a relationship with the U.S. as he has with Russia.

But the apparent olive branch was undermined in the same speech by an angry rant in which Maduro accused Trump of being behind a failed attack on a Venezuelan military base early Sunday.

The Trump administration in turn has called Maduro a “dictator” and imposed sanctions on him and more than two dozen other former and current Venezuelan officials.

Reaction in Latin America has been far more subdued, reflecting long-held reluctance by much of the region to encroach on a neighbour’s sovereignty and some lingering ideological affinity for the anti-imperialist revolution started by the late Hugo Chavez. Several attempts to punish Venezuela at the Organization of American States have failed due to a lack of consensus.

Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski has been until recently a lonely exception in openly condemning Maduro.

Meanwhile, Maduro’s government has sent mixed signals about how much more confrontation it is willing to accept.

This week, the government-packed Supreme Court ordered the arrest of two Caracas-area mayors for protecting protesters in their districts. And on Friday, Tarek William Saab, installed as chief prosecutor after the constitutional assembly ousted his outspoken predecessor, warned that he would reopen investigations against protesters for the use of violence and even destruction of trees used to build barricades at demonstrations.

At the same time, the constitutional assembly on Friday said it would debate a proposal to push up to October elections for governors in all of Venezuela’s states. It’s a possible sign that the government is looking to negotiate a deal with the opposition, although many question if the constitutional assembly, which has a free hand to upend institutions, will even allow elections that were originally slated to take place last year will be allowed to go forward.

Also on Friday, Venezuelan Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino said security forces have captured the mastermind of a failed assault on a military base a week ago.

Former national guard Capt. Juan Caguaripano was captured in Caracas along with an active-duty soldier who allegedly collaborated with a small group of civilians and former officers that last Saturday raided a major military base in Valencia and walked off with a cache of weapons.

Padrino called the arrests a “major blow to the fascist terrorism put in place by the Venezuelan right-wing in the past few months” of anti-government protests.

Last Saturday’s attack left two people dead and came after Caguaripano, who went into exile after denouncing Maduro in 2014, released in a video in which he stood before a group of heavily-armed men in fatigues and called on the armed forces to rebel.</s>LIMA, Peru — Peru is expelling Venezuela’s ambassador as it and other nations in Latin America begin to assert more pressure on President Nicolas Maduro’s government for allegedly trampling on the constitutional order.

Peru said in a statement Friday that it was giving Ambassador Diego Molero five days to leave the country. It also refused to receive a diplomatic protest made by Maduro after Peru this week hosted foreign ministers from more than a dozen like-minded regional governments to pressure Maduro to back down from his plans to rewrite the constitution.

The opposition sees the move to retool the charter as an illegitimate power grab.</s>LIMA (Reuters) - Peru fears Venezuela may be headed toward civil war as a political crisis deepens and its economy implodes under the rule of socialist Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Peru's foreign minister told Reuters on Wednesday.

Speaking a day after summoning his counterparts from across the region to Lima to condemn the "rupture of democratic order" in Venezuela, Ricardo Luna said Maduro's support at home and abroad had shrunk as he seeks to consolidate power through the constituent assembly, a powerful new body run by the ruling Socialist Party loyalists.

Peru has been one of Venezuela's harshest critics since centrist President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski took office a year ago, replacing a former ally of late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

Luna called Maduro's accusation that Kuczynski is conspiring with U.S. President Donald Trump "absurd."

Peru's concern, he said, is the humanitarian crisis that has already sent waves of Venezuelan refugees to neighboring nations, including some 40,000 to Peru in the past six months.

"Our fear is that you really have a low-intensity civil war, which would produce a humanitarian crisis of great proportions," Luna said in an interview in his offices in Lima.

"It's not necessarily going to happen, and it's not easy to compare it to major crisis such as the one we have in Syria. But it is a large country. It's a complex situation. It's something that's been building in time," Luna said.

More than 125 people have died in clashes in Venezuela since the opposition began sustained protests in April. On Sunday, Venezuelan authorities quelled an attack on a military base by soldiers and armed civilians, killing two of them in a dramatic escalation of unrest.

Luna said Maduro's "autocracy" does not appear to have sufficient support among Venezuelans to hold on to power for several decades as Cuba's government has, and it may not be long before the oil-producing country's economy collapses completely.

"The last leg can last weeks, months, or even half a year. Not more than that," Luna said.

Peru is evaluating new ways to pressure Venezuela to enact democratic reforms, including expelling Venezuela's ambassador from Peru or reducing Peru's diplomatic presence in Venezuela, Luna said.

While Maduro might shrug off the Lima Declaration signed by 12 nations on Tuesday, including Canada, Brazil and Mexico, the collective condemnation sends a signal to the world that most in the region no longer sees Venezuela as a democracy, Luna said.

The new bloc plans to meet to discuss Venezuela again at the United Nations General Assembly.</s>The headlines around the world said it all in describing the bogus July 30 election in Venezuela.

“Venezuela heading for dictatorship after ‘sham’ election,” wrote the Guardian, quoting Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

“Venezuela faces more isolation after controversial vote,” read an article published in the Latin American section of Aljazeera’s English online news service.

Boycotted by the opposition, the vote further distanced Venezuela from the free and democratic world.

The U.S. slapped immediate sanctions on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro — in addition to previously imposed sanctions on 13 other Venezuelan officials.

In the face of the new sanctions, Venezuela’s dictator reportedly asked a strange, almost childlike question, in response, wondering out loud: “Why are they sanctioning me?”

Given that the democratic rights of the Venezuelan people were ignored in the election, opposition leaders were arrested for voicing dissent and voting was held in an undemocratic manner, what other choice was there, besides slapping sanctions on Venezuela?

Maduro doesn’t get it and he is no exception.

Few dictators anywhere in the world have ever respected the democratic rights of the people they rule, held elections in a democratic manner, or handed over power in a timely fashion to democratically-elected representatives.

Maduro’s intentions became clear when he came up with his controversial proposal to create a 545-member Constituent Assembly, to replace his country’s duly elected 167-seat National Assembly.

He proposed a new election to create his new assembly, even though the vote for the National Assembly was held relatively recently in December, 2015.

Few observers in or outside Venezuela had much difficulty understanding why the Venezuelan president was interested in doing away with the country’s National Assembly.

This was due to the fact Maduro had little influence on it, as it was dominated by his political opponents.

They held a total of 112 seats, vastly outnumbering his United Socialist Party members in the 167-seat assembly.

Since winning elections in 2015, Venezuela’s opposition leaders have tried to gain legitimate political authority, but Maduro was always reluctant to grant them that power, for fear of his being impeached.

Instead, he hurriedly came up with the idea of setting up his own Constituent Assembly, with its members chosen by his administration, in place of the opposition-controlled National Assembly.

Maduro’s Constituent Assembly will have sweeping powers to do virtually anything it wants, including rewriting Venezuela’s constitution and holding a “truth commission”, as reported by media, to prosecute his political opponents.

Obviously replacing the democratically-elected National Assembly with Maduro’s so-called Constituent Assembly, following an opposition-boycotted “sham” election, will not promote the cause of democracy in Venezuela.

It will, instead, push the oil-rich nation further along the path to total dictatorship, awarding broad-based authority to the Venezuelan president and turning his administration into an anti-people, authoritarian regime.

In such a situation, the Trump administration will call for more sanctions against Venezuela, targeting its oil industry, the most important financial lifeline of the national economy.

Whatever happens next, it’s important that it not punish the ordinary people of Venezuela, because they are the real guardians of democracy in that troubled nation now.</s>Still, Venezuela is facing mounting pressure and threats of deepening sanctions from trade partners.

The remarks came shortly after Mr Maduro forcefully warned Mr Trump that Venezuela “will never give in”.

Moscow, which considers Caracas a “key strategic partner”, has criticized the Venezuelan opposition for “disrupting” recent elections for a constituent assembly – known in Spanish as the Constituyente – that will rewrite the constitution.

“Is this the peace that Maduro is talking about?” said Gerardo Blyde, the mayor of Baruta, a nearby municipality who also has had an investigation opened against him.

The decree was issued a day after the National Assembly said it will ignore the decisions of the constituent assembly, and two days after a small group of soldiers and civilians from Carabobo state declared themselves in rebellion against Maduro’s government, seeking “to restore constitutional order” in the country.

The United States on July 31 took the unusual step of imposing sanctions on a head of state by targeting Maduro with measures freezing any USA assets he might have and barring Americans from doing business with him.

Chavez’s brother Adan  among those targeted  has been appointed secretary of the new assembly.

“Venezuela can not be sanctioned by anything or anyone”.

Washington clamped sanctions on Maduro himself last week following measures against 13 Venezuelan figures last month.

The government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has for months been the target of mass popular protests, leading to the deaths of some 120 people. Met by rubber bullets, water cannon and tear gas fired by the National Guard, the protesters say the crisis demands an early presidential election that they are sure Maduro would lose.

It is in the midst of a severe economic downturn caused by low oil prices and poor government policies.

Maduro’s popularity has been pounded by triple-digit inflation and acute food and medicine shortages which he blames on right-wing conspirators in league with the USA “empire”.

“To all the presidents, I call on them to approve a meeting and through mutual dialogue, we can find a solution”, said Maduro.

In addition to urging her colleagues to remember the spirit of the 1999 constitution and of the former President and leader of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution Comandante Hugo Chávez, Rodríguez urged the country’s right wing to put an end to the fascistic street blockades which have led to over a hundred deaths while seeking to overthrow the democratically elected socialist government.

Peru’s president has been vocal in rejecting the new Venezuelan assembly, but the region has had trouble agreeing on collective actions.</s>Update 8.24am: Donald Trump has rejected a request from the Venezuelan president to speak with him on the phone.

Previously the U.S. president admitted he wouldn't rule out military action in response to the country's political chaos.

The White House says Mr Trump will take the request as soon as "democracy is restored" in Venezuela.

Earlier: US president Donald Trump has stepped up the rhetoric against Venezuela, saying he had not ruled out military action against the crisis-hit Latin American state.

Speaking to reporters at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club, Mr Trump bemoaned the country's growing humanitarian crisis and declared that all options remain on the table - including a potential military intervention.

"We have many options for Venezuela and by the way, I'm not going to rule out a military option," he volunteered, adding: "A military operation and military option is certainly something that we could pursue."

Venezuela's defence minister hit back, calling Mr Trump's talk of a military intervention an act of "craziness" and "supreme extremism".

General Vladimir Padrino said: "With this extremist elite that's in charge in the US, who knows what will happen to the world?"

On Thursday, Mr Trump said he discussed Venezuela along with North Korea and Afghanistan in a security briefing with top national security aides and his vice president Mike Pence.

Mr Pence is travelling to Colombia on Sunday to begin a regional trip that is expected to include discussions on how to deal with the Venezuela's socialist president Nicolas Maduro for allegedly trampling his country's constitutional order in a power grab.

Mr Maduro has tried to deflect the pressure from Washington and on Thursday he said he wanted to meet Mr Trump, perhaps next month at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

"Mr Donald Trump, here is my hand," the president told delegates at the constitutional assembly, adding that he wanted as strong a relationship with the US as he had with Russia.

But late on Friday the White House rejected the request to meet Mr Trump.

A statement by the White House press secretary said the president "will gladly speak with the leader of Venezuela as soon as democracy is restored in that country".

"Trump has asked that Maduro respect Venezuela's constitution, hold free and fair elections, release political prisoners, cease all human rights violations, and stop oppressing Venezuela's great people. ... Instead Maduro has chosen the path of dictatorship," the statement said.

The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on Mr Maduro and more than two dozen other former and current Venezuelan officials.

Reaction in Latin America has been far more subdued, reflecting long-held reluctance by much of the region to encroach on a neighbour's sovereignty and some lingering ideological affinity for the anti-imperialist revolution started by the late president Hugo Chavez.

Several attempts to punish Venezuela at the Organisation of American States have failed due to a lack of consensus.

Meanwhile Peru expelled Venezuela's ambassador as regional pressure built on Mr Maduro's government.

The Venezuelan government retaliated by ordering the head of Peru's embassy in Caracas to leave and called Peruvian president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski an "enemy" of Venezuela and of Latin American unity.

Peru gave ambassador Diego Molero, a former Venezuelan defence minister, five days to leave the country.

As part of what it said was a firm commitment "to help restore Venezuela's democracy", Peru's administration also refused to accept a diplomatic protest made by Mr Maduro over Peru's hosting this week of foreign ministers from 17 regional nations who refused to recognise the new, loyalist-packed special assembly that is to rewrite the constitution.

The action by Peru, the strongest yet from a Latin American government, came as the Trump administration considered putting economic sanctions on Venezuela to punish Mr Maduro for what Washington calls his illegitimate power grab.

A few hours later, Venezuela's foreign ministry announced that it was giving Peru's top envoy in Caracas, Carlos Rossi, five days to leave the country.

Peru's president has until recently been a lonely exception among Latin American leaders in openly condemning Mr Maduro.

Mr Kuczynski, a former Wall Street investment banker who spent decades living in the US, is frequently mocked on Venezuelan state TV and was once referred to as the "empire's lapdog" by an official.

Mr Maduro's government has sent mixed signals about how much more confrontation it is willing to accept.

This week, the government-packed Supreme Court ordered the arrest of two Caracas-area mayors for protecting protesters in their districts.

And on Friday, Tarek William Saab, installed as chief prosecutor after the constitutional assembly ousted his outspoken predecessor, warned that he would reopen investigations against protesters for the use of violence and even destruction of trees used to build barricades at demonstrations.

At the same time, the constitutional assembly said on Friday it would debate a proposal to push up to October elections for governors in all of Venezuela's states.

It is a possible sign that the government is looking to negotiate a deal with the opposition, although many question if the constitutional assembly, which has a free hand to upend institutions, will even allow elections that were originally slated to take place last year will be allowed to go forward.
Shortly after Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski called Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro a "dictator" in response to the Venezuelan constitutional crisis, Peru expels Venezuela's ambassador to Peru to protest Venezuela's recent formation of an all-powerful constituent assembly that has been widely condemned as a power grab by Maduro.