The Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, decided to send two Gendarmes to Venezuela.
One is considering settling in the embassy and another in the Argentine residence, where
six collaborators of the opposition leader María Corina Machado are taking refuge.
It happens that the Argentine residence - located in the Las Mercedes neighborhood, east of Caracas - does not have Argentine police custody and security depends on two young men from the Bolivarian guard.
Both the Venezuelans and Argentina's charge d'affaires to Venezuela, the diplomat, Gabriel Volpi - the Government has not sent nor will it send an ambassador at the moment -
depend on the good will of the Chavista regime.
And as Pedro Urruchurtu, Machado's International Relations coordinator, and one of the refugees in the Argentine headquarters, told
Clarín
this Wednesday, the regime left them without electricity since Monday and the siege continues on the residence where Volpi houses them.
The entry of the Gendarmes was requested from Minister Bullrich
by Foreign Minister Diana Mondino's team, and
depends on the approval of the Nicolás Maduro regime.
They should have diplomatic immunity like those sent to headquarters abroad.
This was stated by a high-ranking source in Javier Milei's government, which is experiencing moments of extreme tension with the Chavista dictatorship.
They are also now putting pressure on Maduro, Lula da Silva of Brazil, and Gustavo Petro, of Colombia, due to the repressive wave that is being experienced in Venezuela in the run-up to the presidential elections on July 28.
A high source told this newspaper that the government of Alberto Fernández, as part of its approach to the Maduro regime, withdrew the Gendarmes that Bullrich herself had sent to the Argentine headquarters in Venezuela during the administrations of Mauricio Macri.
And with money from the AFI, a shielded room had even been built for emergency situations with the capacity to store water and generate electricity.
Clarín
at the time knew about the gendarmerie troops requested by the former chargé d'affaires, Eduardo Porretti, but could not confirm the existence of a “Panic room.”
As Clarín anticipated on Tuesday, the Government decided to host Magalí Meda, Pedro Urruchurtu, Claudia Macero, Omar González Moreno, Humberto Villalobos and Fernando Martínez Motolla.
The leadership that accompanies Mondino wants to avoid an escalation against Maduro
and protect the integrity of Volpi and the six Venezuelans.
For that matter, although embassies, residences and officials of a country have immunities in the destination country that must be protected under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, no one can guarantee, as has happened in other parts of the world, that A mob attacks an embassy.
Sometimes, as occurred in the attack on the Argentine embassy during the revolts against the government of the late Sebastián Piñera, it can happen “accidentally.”
Others don't.
For that matter, just look at some of the attacks that the embassies of Israel and the United States have suffered around the world.
To begin with, Maduro's siege of the Argentine headquarters is an attack and is the same method that he applied against the residence of Spain, which gave refuge to the opposition leader Leopoldo López, who previously endured harsh prison conditions.
Meanwhile, the regime also cut off the electricity and water to the French embassy when Romain Nadal, now Emmanuel Macron's ambassador in Argentina, ran his country's headquarters in Caracas.
Government pressure
The Milei government decided to take the lead in providing humanitarian assistance to the Venezuelan opposition, a fact that is added to the fact that it handed over the Venezuelan Emtrasur Cargo plane to the United States justice system, which has been held in the country since 2022 under investigation of uses for terrorist activities.
Maduro responded by prohibiting overflights of Aerolíneas Argentinas and airplanes with license plates from this country through space to that of Venezuela.
On the other hand, through the Argentine ambassador in Geneva, Carlos Foradori, the Government decided to raise its voice before international organizations.
In the statement that the president's office decided to issue this Tuesday, the Argentine Government expressed its concern on Tuesday about the power outage at the Argentine embassy in Caracas where the six opponents are sheltered.
And as in other previous statements, he urged Maduro to guarantee "the security and well-being of the Venezuelan people, as well as to call transparent elections."