What happened with Juan Guaidó, turned into an impromptu and uncomfortable opening act, as well as the gangster demands of Nicolás Maduro, augurs a long and tortuous road to the International Conference on Venezuela, organized by Gustavo Petro.
The Colombian president, who in his inaugural speech assured that there are no dictatorships in America anymore, ignoring those of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, wants the delegates from the twenty invited countries to bring the Chavista regime and the opposition closer to the celebration of free elections in Venezuela next year.
“The history of Latin America is in the hands of our peoples. What happens in Venezuela, in Colombia, in Peru, where indigenous people are falling in the streets, dead and murdered, can mark a path that leads to war or we can rebuild the path of peace and democracy and deepen it,” Petro said when opening the meeting, held at the Palacio San Carlos in Bogotá, headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In addition to once again requesting that Venezuela return to the inter-American Human Rights system, he pointed out that it is the economic sanctions, imposed on the Chavista dictatorship since 2015, that are responsible for the wave of migrants from the neighboring country, identical to the thesis maintained by Nicolás Maduro.
“Venezuelan society does not want to be sanctioned, a hungry people, fleeing from hunger, from misery. America cannot be a space for sanctions,” he argued. He reiterated that they must be lifted as the electoral guarantees are given.
He also defended that “Venezuelans should decide what they want,” without internal or external pressure.
Although Petro did not mention the sins of the Chavista regime, he extended his hand and held four previous meetings with Maduro in Venezuela, a prompt resumption of the dialogue in Mexico, which broke down in November 2021 after the arrest of Alex Saab, does not seem likely.
The eternal tenant of Miraflores and the president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, seemed determined to put up obstacles, insurmountable at first glance, but that the delegates of the United States, Norway, the United Kingdom, Spain or the European Union, among others, should study. assistants.
“Listen well, President Petro, Foreign Minister Leyva and representatives of the governments that are going to the International Conference. If someone of you wants the political negotiations between the opposition and Chavismo in Venezuela to return to Mexico, you just have to do something,” he cried. Maduro in a cocky tone. “In the official communiqué that you approve, put the demand that the United States Government deposit the 3,200 million sequestered dollars in the bank accounts for the social plan signed in Mexico in November. Simple.”
Rodríguez, for his part, added to the list the “lifting of all illegal, illegitimate sanctions against Venezuela. The money from Venezuela, which is stolen, kidnapped, the gold illegally withheld in England, the money in European banks, the Citgo profits, they have to be returned. Third, stop the policies of attacks through judicial adventures in the United States or the International Criminal Court, because it affects our most important leaders. Finally, give immediate freedom of our diplomat, Alex Saab”.
In reality, Saab is a corrupt Colombian businessman, partner and alleged figurehead of Nicolás Maduro and other members of his government, accused of becoming a billionaire with food contracts for the poor Venezuelans, who never reached their tables, and other shady businesses. They named him a diplomat when they arrested him, in the hope that he would enjoy impunity and not reveal his many financial secrets.
It should also be noted that in the recent purge of the sector headed by former minister Tarek El Aissami, several of his collaborators were arrested for having allegedly appropriated an amount similar to what Maduro is now demanding from the United States: three billion dollars of the sale of PVDSA oil. But the appropriate figure would be higher, according to various sources. It could go up to twenty billion.
“The Summit does not seem to come to fruition. Gustavo Petro is not an impartial actor, as Norway is. He is positioned on one side of the scale. And the Unitary Platform does not represent all the opposition and is not even complete in Mexico. Juan Guaidó’s Popular Will, for example, does not attend, nor does María Corina Machado’s party, nor other presidential candidates,” Venezuelan political analyst Walter Molina told EL MUNDO. “And the Chavista regime is not willing to dialogue, they kick the table once again so as not to sit down to negotiate. They make requests that are impossible and that mean whitewashing the regime. They think they have the strength not to sit down, that they have international allies such as Petro”.
Before his hasty departure from Colombia, Juan Guaidó pointed out about the Conference that his “expectation is simple: that the countries speak in the name of the human rights of Venezuelans, that they raise their voices, the one that Maduro wanted to take away from me.”
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
