Jorge Rodríguez, president of the Chavista National Assembly and today at the head of Nicolás Maduro’s electoral campaign command denounced this Thursday that the Venezuelan asylum seekers in the Argentine embassy in Caracas, They are planning “criminal” and “terrorist acts” from the diplomatic headquarters.
It was in the framework of a press conference in which Rodriguez harshly accused two of the six dissidents who last March first entered as guests of the Argentine embassy in the Venezuelan capital and then were asylum-seekers under the government of Javier Milei.
The six entered the headquarters when they were accused of conspiracy and treason by the Chavista-controlled Prosecutor’s Office. And the latter requested arrest warrants against this group that constitutes part of the core of collaborators of Maria Corina Machadowho was the favorite for the elections but was banned by Chavismo.
Now Rodriguez pointed the finger at Magalli Meda and Humberto Villalobos, electoral coordinator of the Vente Venezuela (VV) party, two of the six people who have sought asylum in the diplomatic headquarters, which is run by Argentina’s chargé d’affaires in Caracas, Andrés Mangiarotti, a career diplomat. “It’s a plan to station motorcyclists in the mega-voting centers, especially those where they have the greatest electoral turnout. They will generate disorder in their voting centers and will try to generate acts of vandalism and criminal acts against people in the voting centers of popular sectors (where Chavismo presumes it has the greatest support),” the Chavista leader denounced without showing evidence but promising to do so soon.
In this way he made reference to the presidential elections that Maduro finally agreed to hold on July 28, but in which he will try to be re-elected and about which he will try to raise objections of all kinds. Maduro denounced conspiracies against him and against members of his inner circle plus alleged plotting maneuvers to attack civil and military facilities in the country.
The six opponents granted asylum by Argentina are part of the campaign team of Venezuela’s main opposition alliance, the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD). In addition to Meda and Villalobos, there are Pedro Urruchurtu, Claudia Macero, Omar González and Fernando Martínez Mottola.
Rodriguez’s accusations are serious and dangerous if we take into account the assault by Daniel Noboa’s government on the Mexican embassy, from where they violently took former Ecuadorian president Jorge Glas, accused of corruption by his country and granted asylum by Andres Manuel López Obrador.
However, Rodriguez hinted that they would not act like the Ecuadorians, but promised that in the next few days he would present to the electoral observers of the elections what he called “the evidence of what they are doing from the Argentine Embassy in Venezuela.” Rodriguez did not show anything now, but bases his accusations on the fact that asylum seekers and refugees cannot participate in politics while they are protected by another country from the persecution they claim to suffer.
The request of the Venezuelans
This week, the Director of Human Rights of the Argentine Foreign Ministry, Christian Machuca, received a series of complaints from members of the Venezuelan diaspora about the abuses committed by the dictatorship.
“During the first half of this year the regime has arbitrarily detained fifty people, most of them activists linked to the campaign of Edmundo González and María Corina Machado, but there are also ordinary citizens, workers, who have been persecuted for simply providing a transportation service or selling food to the opposition leader,” denounced the vice president of Alianza por Venezuela, Charbel Najm.
He also highlighted that among the latest detainees are two journalists, Gabriel González and Luis López, and a young man of just 19 years old, the youth leader Jean-Carlos Rivas, who were arrested after accompanying a campaign activity of Edmundo González.
In the meeting with Machuca, the representatives of Alianza por Venezuela also presented their Concern over the lack of information on how the electoral process will be carried out at the Venezuelan Consulate in Buenos Aires.
“Both the Venezuelan embassy and the National Electoral Council have chosen silence and misinformation with the aim of discouraging the participation of Venezuelans, inside and outside Venezuela. In the case of Venezuelans abroad, in addition to the obstacles we suffer in being able to register in the Electoral Registry, we are now also victims of the lack of information about how the voting process will be developed in the consulates,” warned Liset Luque, general secretary of Alliance for Venezuela.
According to what he was able to find out ClarionMachuca promised to let the Chavista ambassador to Argentina, Stella Lugo, know all the complaints and claims of his fellow citizens.
They reported that Of the more than 220 thousand Venezuelans living in Argentina, only 2,639 will be able to vote in the presidential electionsdue to the obstacles imposed by the CNE for registration, by requiring additional documents to those provided for by law, and due to the delays in the registration process that was only open for 10 days.
