The former presidential candidate took refuge in the Dutch embassy the day after the elections
▲ Venezuela’s Attorney General Tarek William Saab gave details about opposition leader Edmundo González’s departure from the country yesterday at a press conference held in Caracas.Photo Ap
Reuters, Sputnik, Ap, Europa Press and Afp
The newspaper La Jornada
Monday, September 9, 2024, p. 29
Caracas. Venezuela’s Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, said yesterday that the departure to Spanish territory of the opposition leader Edmundo González, rival of President Nicolás Maduro in the last elections, was agreed with the diplomacy of Spain and that his departure from the oil country represents the end of a comedy.
Saab confirmed on national television that The governments of Spain and Venezuela agreed to grant Edmundo González Urrutia safe passage to leave the country and seek asylumin contradiction with what was stated by the Spanish Foreign Minister, Manuel Albares, who denied having negotiated with Caracas.
This Public Ministry expresses its absolute respect for the decisions of the Venezuelan Executive so that in compliance with the right to asylum guaranteed by the Constitution in its article 69, it has granted the corresponding safe conduct.the prosecutor said.
In an ironic tone, he assured that with the departure of González “the brief season of a humorous work ends, of a genre that could be called comedy, of comic theater that began in 2024 and that was fatefully named Until the end”.
Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez rebuked the Spanish government for saying that no agreement was made and assured that this decision arose from extensive conversations between the two governments in an attempt to restore the political peace in Venezuela.
Falsehood is not a good advisor. Extensive conversations and contacts took place to arrange the departure of the opposition leader González Urrutia from the country with the full guarantees offered by a safe-conduct pass, the product of the agreement between both governments.posted on Telegram.
Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp said in a letter to parliament that Gonzalez had sought refuge in his embassy in Caracas the day after the election. At the beginning of September, the opposition leader stressed that he wanted to leave and continue his fight from Spain.he added.
Spanish officials, including former President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, were involved in negotiations with Venezuelan authorities to get Gonzalez to leave the country, a source with knowledge of the talks told Reuters.
Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello posted on social media after the opposition leader’s departure: I’ll be brief: we will win.
For her part, opposition member María Corina Machado said that the exit was necessary for preserve liberty and life from his colleague, in the middle of a brutal wave of repression. We have reached a point where we need to move forward, as I said, and this is a moment when Edmundo González must be recognized as the elected president of Venezuela.he added in a message.
The representative of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, expressed his displeasure with the forced exile of Gonzalez, undisputed winner of the elections.
The executive secretary of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, Jorge Arreaza, described decadent the position of Almagro, whom he called servile figure and devoted to the orders and designs of Washington.
González, a retired former diplomat, has an arrest warrant in Venezuela for his alleged responsibility in several crimes, including usurpation of functions, forgery of public documents, instigation to disobedience of laws, computer crimes, conspiracy and association to commit a crime; he is also accused of responsible the deaths of more than 20 people during street protests after the election.
At the request of President Maduro, the Supreme Court of Justice opened an electoral investigation and concluded that the bulletins issued by the National Electoral Council of Venezuela They are in full agreement with the records in the databases of the national totalisation centres.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on social media X that opposition leader remains the best hope for democracy in the South American country and that his departure It is the direct result of the anti-democratic measures that Nicolás Maduro has unleashed on the Venezuelan people..