Venezuelan police surrounded the Argentine Embassy in Caracas on Friday night (6), which has been under Brazilian custody since the expulsion of the Argentine diplomatic mission and is home to at least six members of the opposition to dictator Nicolás Maduro. Hooded men patrol the building and police vehicles remain on site on Saturday morning (7). The building’s electricity has also reportedly been cut off.
According to the EFE news agency, Pedro Urruchurtu, an opposition figure sheltered in the embassy, used the social network X, which is blocked in Brazil, to denounce the situation. Urruchurtu is the international coordinator of Vamos Venezuela (VV), the party of opposition leader María Corina Machado. He wrote that agents from the Directorate of Strategic and Tactical Actions (DAET) of the Bolivarian National Police (PNB) and the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (Sebin), along with “hooded and armed” men, are surrounding the official residence.
In a note to the G1 portal, the Itamaraty said that the priority is to guarantee the safety of those sheltered in the embassy and that the site remains under Brazil’s responsibility. “Brazil continues to represent Argentina’s interests. If Venezuela wants to revoke the authorization, it must wait for a replacement country to be defined. In the meantime, we continue to assume this responsibility,” the note says.
In addition to Urruchurtu, also inside the residence are Magalli Meda, who was the party’s presidential campaign chief; Claudia Macero, VV’s communications coordinator; Omar González, former deputy; Humberto Villalobos, electoral coordinator of the VV Campaign Command; and former minister Fernando Martínez Mottola, advisor to the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), the main opposition coalition to the government of President Nicolás Maduro.
The six opposition members took refuge in the Argentine embassy after the Venezuelan prosecutor’s office charged them with several crimes, including conspiracy and treason. In late July, the group of opposition members reported that “regime security officers” were outside the building and were trying to “take over this diplomatic headquarters,” which they described as a “serious violation of international law.”
Since August, Brazil has been in charge of the custody of the diplomatic headquarters of Peru and Argentina in Venezuela, as well as the representation of their interests and citizens in the country, after the expulsion of the members of both legations. In addition to Peru and Argentina, the government of Nicolás Maduro also demanded that Chile, Costa Rica, Panama, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay “immediately” withdraw their representatives, in retaliation for their objections to the result of the presidential elections of July 28 in Venezuela, in which Maduro was declared the winner. (With information from the EFE agency)
#Argentine #embassy #Brazilian #custody #surrounded #Venezuela
