(Bloomberg) -- A top Biden administration official said that the US is concerned by actions that Venezuela’s government has taken against the opposition and civil society a few months after an agreement aimed at fostering a competitive and fair vote in presidential elections later this year.

The administration of President Nicolás Maduro in the new year has escalated pressure against members of the opposition and government critics, citing alleged conspiracies and plots against the regime dating to May 2023. An October accord between the government and the opposition won the government some relief from the US’s “maximum pressure sanctions.”

On Monday, the government said it had arrested eight people and ordered the arrest of six more, including journalists, human rights activists and military officers, for allegedly plotting to assassinate a state governor and Maduro on Jan. 1. This comes on the heels of the arrest of a union leader last week.

“Deeply concerned by recent actions against the opposition & civil society in Venezuela based on unsupported allegations,” Assistant Secretary of State Brian Nichols said Tuesday in a tweet. 

Replying to Nichols on X, Jorge Rodríguez, the Venezuelan government’s head negotiator for talks with the US and opposition, late Tuesday said the government had evidence that the CIA and the DEA participated in the plots. “Did you know that this was happening while we were seeing each other face to face?” Rodriguez said, referring to last year’s direct US-Venezuela talks.

Venezuela’s government followed up on Rodriguez’s comments in a statement Wednesday, saying that “defending destabilizing actions encourages violence and threatens the normal development” of Venezuela’s presidential elections.

‘Bolivarian fury’

Overnight, dozens of houses nationwide linked to opposition parties and independent organizations were tagged with red and blue paint to spell out “Bolivarian fury.” The phrase refers to the government’s coordinated move on the opposition, anticipating protests Tuesday to commemorate the anniversary of the overthrown dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez in 1958.

Also Tuesday, three provincial aides to opposition candidate María Corina Machado were kidnapped in separate events in different states, her party Vente Venezuela said. Machado herself was forced to relocate an event she had scheduled in Caracas that day after the government called for a march passing right in front of her meeting. 

A group of Venezuelan political prisoners, including union leaders and other civilians related to Machado, had been released in December amid a blockbuster prisoner swap with the US, under a groundbreaking agreement reached last year.

The State Department, in a statement on Tuesday night, said the US was “deeply concerned” over the Maduro government moving to detain at least 33 people, including members of the opposition, journalists and former members of the armed forces. 

The Venezuelan government and the opposition sealed another deal focused on electoral conditions in October. Under such a deal, a date for the presidential election is yet to be set in the second quarter of the year and credible observers need to be invited.

But in its Tuesday night statement, the State Department said “arrests without due process run contrary to the spirit of the October 2023 electoral roadmap agreement.” 

--With assistance from Eric Martin.

(Updates with Venezuela’s reaction in fifth and sixth paragraphs, Machado’s team count in seventh paragraph.)

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