Five dissidents of Chavismo would remain as "refugees" in the Argentine embassy in Caracas.
The Argentine Foreign Ministry, consulted by
Clarín
, avoided any comment on the confusing situation.
According to the Venezuelan journalist Miguel Salazar, there are five people with an arrest warrant by the Nicolás Maduro regime.
And they would be: Magallí Meda, Claudia Macero, Humberto Villalobos, Pedro Urruchurtu and Omar González.
Relations between the government of Javier Milei and the Chavista dictatorship are at their worst.
The Casa Rosada, by the way, will not send an ambassador to Caracas.
Tension
increased with Argentina's decision to hand over, on February 11, the Venezuelan Emtrasur Cargo plane to United States justice.
This requested its confiscation because it was subject to sanctions since it was sold by the Iranian Mahan Air.
Maduro took revenge with a ban on overflight through Venezuelan airspace for planes with registration from this country, which mainly affects the Aerolíneas Argentinas route.
The Government has been demanding an end to this punishment without success.
Magallí Meda, Claudia Macero, Humberto Villalobos, Pedro Urruchurtu and Omar González (all with deprivation of liberty) are refugees in the Argentine Embassy in Caracas.
— Miguel A Salazar R (@ms Verdades) March 25, 2024
Who are the "refugees"
The five mentioned are close collaborators of María Corina Machado, the favorite for Venezuela's presidential elections and who remains banned by Maduro's repressive apparatus.
Milei's Foreign Ministry has been giving close support to Machado.
Last week, Vice Chancellor Leopoldo Sahores and the president of the Foreign Relations Commission, Fernando Iglesias, held a live conversation with Machado, whose collaborators have requested prison.
Magalli Meda is MCM's national campaign manager.
She was one of the possible replacements for her to assume the candidacy.
Claudia Macero is the communications coordinator.
Humberto Villalobos, electoral coordinator.
Pedro Urruchurtu is coordinator of international relations.
And Omar González is a deputy and campaign manager in the state of Anzoátegui.
These five Venezuelans have been under arrest warrant along with two other Machado collaborators since prosecutor Tarek William Saab announced it on March 20.
Venezuelans in Argentina
The bilateral tension and the oppression of Maduro over everything that could overshadow him in the July 28 elections led Venezuelans in Argentina to denounce this Monday that the regime "violates their right to register to vote in the presidential elections."
Several dozen Venezuelan migrants gathered in front of the Venezuelan embassy in Argentina to demand that the Maduro regime comply with the electoral schedule and open registration abroad to be able to vote in the presidential elections on July 28.
They reported that the National Electoral Council (CNE) had announced that as of March 18 and until April 16, a special operation to register and update the Electoral Registry would be carried out in all Venezuelan consulates abroad. but that was not fulfilled.
The Venezuelan Embassy in Buenos Aires, run by Stella Lugo, very close to Maduro, had its doors closed.
The migrants reported that they did not want to serve them and began to shout: “We want to vote!”
and “Mature, coward, dare to tell yourself!”
Activist Elisa Trotta, general secretary of the Argentine Forum for the Defense of Democracy (FADD), denounced: “Maduro is blocking any possibility of free elections in Venezuela.
He prevents Venezuelans abroad from registering to vote and prevents the opposition from presenting a presidential candidacy, with the banning of leader María Corina Machado and her designated replacement, Professor Corina Yoris.
“Maduro knows he is defeated and that is why he is afraid to tell himself.”
In the case of Argentina, of the 220,000 Venezuelans who reside in the country, 2,000 are registered in the Electoral Registry abroad, because the process has not been enabled since 2018.
According to Trotta, there would be 5 million Venezuelans abroad who are of the required age to vote, and have not been able to register on the registry.
That drives any election.
“The international community cannot remain silent in the face of what is happening in Venezuela.
"We Venezuelans want to vote to recover democracy peacefully, through free elections, but Maduro is closing this door," warned Trotta, who highlighted that Maduro failed to fulfill all commitments on electoral and political guarantees established in the Barbados Agreement. signed in October 2023.