WASHINGTON – U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis yesterday condemned Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolas Maduro as a despot leading his oil-rich nation to ruin, adding “ultimately this regime is going to have to go” for the situation to improve. However, Mattis did not suggest any U.S. role in such a process and told a security forum in California: “It’s up to the Venezuelan people, it’s up to the regional states in that area to help expedite that and bring that country back to a more prosperous and positive future.”

More than three million Venezuelans have fled the ailing oil-rich nation in recent years, driven out by brutal food and medicine shortages, hyperinflation, and violent crime. Washington has imposed sanctions on Venezuela, denouncing Maduro for quashing human rights and triggering an economic meltdown. “This is what happens when you have an irresponsible despot leading a country to ruin. And I think what we should do is work by, with and through our Latin American allies as we stabilise this situation,” Mattis told the Reagan National Defense Forum.(REUTERS)…[+]