Twenty-four hours after landing in Madrid on a Spanish Air Force plane and embarking on the path to exile, the opposition candidate for the Venezuelan elections on July 28, Edmundo González Urrutia, released a conciliatory message on Monday in which he claims to have made the decision to leave Venezuela motivated by the desire to avoid a future of “pain and suffering” for his country, declares himself “incompatible with resentment” and advocates for “a policy of dialogue” between Venezuelans to overcome the current crisis.
“I have decided to leave Venezuela and move to Spain, whose government I deeply thank for having welcomed me and given me protection at this time,” González said on the social network Instagram. “I also thank the Embassy of the Netherlands in Venezuela,” he added, referring to the diplomatic legation where he took refuge from July 29 until last Thursday, when he moved to the residence of the Spanish ambassador in Caracas.
The former opposition candidate — who, according to the partial data known, presumably won the presidential elections — explains that he made his decision “thinking about Venezuela” and that the future of his country “cannot be one of a conflict of pain and suffering.” And also, he adds, he did it thinking about his family and all Venezuelan families “in this moment of tension and anguish.” “I did it so that things change and we build a new era for Venezuela,” he continues. “My commitment is not based on personal ambition.” […]”It is a gesture that reaches out to everyone and I hope that it is reciprocated as such,” he added, in an implicit message to the Maduro regime.
González declares himself “incompatible with resentment” and stresses that “only the policy of dialogue” can make Venezuelans meet again “as compatriots.” “Only democracy and the realization of the popular will can be the path to our future as a country and I will remain committed to this,” he says. He remembers “all the people deprived of liberty” who have supported him and assures that their release is for him “the great priority, an unrenounceable demand.”
After expressing his “infinite gratitude” to those who have supported him in Venezuela and the rest of the world, and “especially” to his family, he dedicates some words of praise to the winner of the opposition primaries, who was prevented by the regime from running in the elections, and who continues to lead the protest movement from within the country. “I want to vindicate the work and effort of María Corina Machado who led this electoral process of the Unitary Platform for her work and commitment,” he concludes, before signing off with a laconic “Thank you very much!”
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Although this is the first formal message he has addressed to Venezuelans since he left his country, upon his arrival in Madrid on Sunday afternoon, González already released an audio in which he denounced that his departure from Caracas “was surrounded by episodes of pressure, coercion and threats” of not allowing him to leave the country. “I trust [en] that we will soon continue the fight for the recovery of democracy and freedom in Venezuela,” he added.
Albares: “He was offered to stay at the embassy”
On the other hand, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, revealed this Monday that he offered the opposition candidate to remain indefinitely in the residence of the Spanish ambassador in Caracas, Ramón Santos, and that it was González who decided to go into exile in Spain for security reasons. “I told him that if he wanted to continue in Venezuela he could stay in the residence of the Spanish ambassador as long as he wanted,” Albares told Onda Cero from China, where he is accompanying the President of the Government on his official visit.
“Edmundo González, to whom I offered it, could have remained in the residence of the Spanish ambassador for as long as he considered, indefinitely, if he had wanted. [El opositor venezolano] Leopoldo López was with this Government for a year and a half before arriving in Spain,” he added, referring to the leader of the Voluntad Popular party, who arrived in Madrid in October 2020, where his family was already, after spending almost 19 months as a refugee in the residence of the Spanish ambassador in Venezuela.
“We would have done it exactly the same [que con Leopoldo López]. I think he is better off in Spain than indefinitely in the ambassador’s residence, in a semi-clandestine regime or, let’s not even talk about it, in a prison. And that is what weighed. What we did was to attend to his request,” he insisted. Albares has thus responded to criticism from the PP and Vox, who accuse the Government of “removing a problem from the dictatorship” of Maduro by bringing the presumed winner of the presidential elections of July 28 to Spain.
The head of Spanish diplomacy has also contradicted the claims made by Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, who accused him on the social network Telegram of lying for saying that “there was no political negotiation” between the two governments to agree on the departure of the opposition candidate.
“The only contacts that have taken place have been of an operational nature. I repeat this very clearly: there has not been any kind of political negotiation between the Government of Spain and the Government of Venezuela. In other words, there has not been any compensation for Edmundo González to be able to leave” the country, he stressed. According to the Foreign Ministry, these operational contacts were limited to obtaining the relevant authorisations so that the Spanish Air Force plane that took the opposition leader to Madrid could fly over Venezuela and land in Caracas; and also to guarantee, through a safe-conduct pass, that the opposition leader could travel safely to the airport and leave the country.
González had been a refugee since July 29, the day after the elections, as a “guest” of the Dutch Embassy in Caracas, something that the Venezuelan authorities have complained about, since they were not informed by the diplomatic legation; and last Thursday he moved to the residence of the Spanish ambassador, in a nearby building. Albares says that the only conversations he has had about this case have been with González himself. The first time, to make sure that he wanted to go into exile in Spain, as the ambassador had told him. And the second time, during the stopover he made in the Dominican Republic on his way to Madrid.
According to the Law Regulating the Right to Asylum and Subsidiary Protection, the Venezuelan politician has a maximum of one month, from his entry into Spain last Sunday, to appear in person before the Ministry of the Interior and submit the corresponding request for asylum. But Albares has already announced that he will be granted asylum and that he will be able to enjoy all his rights, including freedom of expression and demonstration. The minister has insisted that this was an “extreme humanitarian situation”, with “a 76-year-old person who was accompanied by his wife and had an arrest warrant for very serious crimes” in his country.
Change of mind, according to his lawyer
José Vicente Haro, the lawyer for the opposition candidate, explained that initially his intention was to remain in Caracas, but that this decision was changed “due to emergency decisions” and he finally opted to go to Spain due to the increasing harassment he suffered. “He was served with summons from the public ministry, an arrest warrant was issued against him and during that time Edmundo González Urrutia remained steadfast.” [en su propósito] “I was not able to stay in Venezuela. However, there came a time when his life was in danger, his physical integrity, his freedom were in danger. And that began to happen on Thursday night. On Friday night, the situation was being evaluated and when it was already verified that the life, physical integrity, and freedom of Edmundo González Urrutia were in danger, it was necessary to preserve his life,” he told CNN in Spanish.
“It was a decision that Edmundo González Urrutia had to make for human reasons. Perhaps many do not understand what happened, but you have to be in his shoes, in the situation he was in, with a risk that loomed over his family, over his life. If he was captured and we had him in jail today, I am sure that the majority of Venezuelans would not be satisfied and would feel great fear for his fate,” he added.
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