Venezuelan Tamara Taraciuk Broner, acting director of the NGO Human Rights Watch and head of the Peter Bell Center for the Rule of Law at the Inter-American Dialogue, a US think tank, said that the presidents of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Colombia, Gustavo Petro, and Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, must stop using “euphemisms” about Venezuela and say clearly that dictator Nicolás Maduro “stole” the presidential election of July 28.
“It is important that they do not recognize the ruling party’s result by demanding a review of the records. They have to speak clearly and say, in black and white, that the elections were stolen in Venezuela. And it is important that they push for negotiations, but not to negotiate a pact of political coexistence, but rather for a democratic transition in which the opposition rises and Maduro leaves,” said Taraciuk, in an interview with the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo.
“There were elections here. One group won and another lost. And that is the starting point for any negotiation,” said the director.
Venezuela’s Chavismo-dominated National Electoral Council (CNE) claims that Maduro won the presidential election, but has not presented the voting records that would prove it.
The opposition has made available on a website copies of more than 80% of the minutes, which attest that their candidate, Edmundo González, won the election. Lula, Petro and Obrador are demanding that the CNE release its minutes.
“In Latin America, we have governments, especially left-wing ones, that are not coherent because their decisions on foreign policy and human rights are influenced by an ideological vision. The notable exception is that of [Gabriel] Boric in Chile. But today the governments of Lula, Petro and Obrador have the enormous responsibility to call things by their names and stop talking about Venezuela with euphemisms,” said Taraciuk, also citing the hesitation of the three presidents in the face of the repression of protests contesting the official election result in Venezuela.
“The role of Petro, Lula and Obrador is critical and their responsibility is enormous, for better or for worse. It would be indefensible, and would have internal and external consequences, if after everything that has happened they ended up being the ones to legitimize Maduro’s fraud,” he said.
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