ADVERTISEMENTGoldman Sachs is continuing to be the focus of Venezuelan anger – at least for critics of the country’s president. Around two dozen picketed the bank’s offices in New York, accusing it of propping up Nicolas Maduro through its alleged purchase of government bonds.
Goldman Sachs Defends Venezuela Bond Deal Vilified by Opposition as NYC Protest Planned https://t.co/ukMVGptd1T via
business</a> <a href="https://t.co/6myKQh4ls7">pic.twitter.com/6myKQh4ls7</a></p>— Nathan Crooks (nmcrooks) May 30, 2017
The rally’s leader made his point saying, “The immorality and greed of the agreement between Goldman Sachs which was done through intermediaries with the Central Bank of Venezuela controlled by Nicolas Maduro will only help Maduro increase his repression against the Venezuelan people.”
For its part the bank has stressed it never transacted directly with the Maduro government when it bought $2.8 billion of bonds for pennies on the dollar.
Meanwhile in Venezuela itself , opposition protesters completed 60 days on the streets as a student march maintained the momentum of a movement calling for the leftist Maduro to hold elections and allow humanitarian aid into a nation struck by widespread hunger and shortages.
But Maduro can still count on substantial support , among them the president of his so-called people’s” constituent “assembly Elias Jaua:
“For all of those who always doubt him, for those who are shocked by political audacity, today we can say Nicolas was right to call the Constituent Assembly, which is to say, to call on the power of the people.”
The new assembly has galvanised Maduro’s core support in rural Venezuela and among the poor. However critics call it an attempt to confuse voters expectant of regional elections, and to override the opposition-led National Assembly.