Nicolás Maduro will not travel to Argentina for security reasons. President of Venezuela He refused at the last minute Invited by the Government of Argentina To participate in the summit this Tuesday Celiac (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) argue that “fanciful plans designed by right-wing extremists” are attacking him and endangering the regional phenomenon. He will be represented by Chancellor Yuan Gil in his place.
“In the last hours, we have been informed, unequivocally, that a plan has been hatched within the neo-fascist right whose objective is to carry out a series of attacks against our delegation,” the Venezuelan government said in a statement on Monday. An end to uncertain days.
Doubts about his existence persisted till the end. “I have no news yet that President Maduro is not coming, but I don’t know what he will do,” Argentine President Alberto Fernandez told a press conference with his Brazilian counterpart on Monday. Luis Inacio Lula da Silva. Until then, all that was known was that Maduro had canceled the bilateral meeting with Lula.
The Venezuelan president has limited his foreign trips to the maximum since the United States offered a $15 million reward for his capture on narco-terrorism charges in 2020. In September 2021, he made a surprise landing and arrived in Mexico at the last minute to participate in the Celac Summit. He participated in the climate summit held in Egypt last November. He never went abroad again after that.
Maduro’s presence at the summit was defended by the Argentine government, on the basis that Celac is a debating area, and no country in the region is excluded. Fernández stressed that the biggest concern about Venezuela is “promoting dialogue among the Venezuelan people, restoring democratic coexistence and respecting their rights.”
Fernandes’ approach contrasts with that of his predecessor, Mauricio Macri. The former president called both Maduro and Cuba a shame for the regional summit. Miguel Diaz-Canel. “Welcome to these dictators was not organized by Argentines, but by a government languishing in its complacency, which will soon take the unfortunate honor of being the worst government in our country’s democratic history,” he criticized. of social networks. His former interior minister, Patricia Bullrich, had called for Maduro’s arrest if he ever set foot in Buenos Aires. Bulrich took part in a small demonstration by Venezuelans against Maduro’s visit on Sunday.
The biggest support for the Venezuelan president has come from Lula, who has pushed for dialogue to resolve the Venezuelan crisis. “Venezuela’s problem will be solved through dialogue, not through sanctions or personal crimes,” the Brazilian president insisted in Buenos Aires, the destination of his first official trip abroad since coming to power three weeks ago.
“As much as I am against Russian territorial aggression in Ukraine, I am against meddling in Venezuela,” said the Brazilian leftist leader, who now heads a government made up of parties of his right and left. Before criticizing interference, he defended and strongly condemned the people’s right to self-determination. Opposition Juan Guaidó Recognized as interim president by dozens of countries. “This citizen, Guaidó, acted as president for months without being one, and they guaranteed Venezuelan gold reserves deposited in an English bank!”, he complained as he appeared at the Casa Rosada alongside his Argentinian counterpart.
After a phase of diplomatic isolation of the Maduro regime in Venezuela, broken by the US approach to negotiations over Venezuelan oil, Lula wants to start a new phase. “If we can help create agreements within each country, we will,” he declared when asked by the press. “We have to treat Venezuela and Cuba with great affection,” he recalls, favoring “advising” rather than criticizing. During his speech, Lula made no explicit reference to the lack of freedom in Cuba or Venezuela, or to those imprisoned for political reasons. “Cuba does not want to copy the model of Brazil or the model of the United States, it wants its own model,” he declared.
Brazil’s president wants to reclaim the role of Latin American president he used in his first two terms (2003-2010). He used the opportunity to highlight that CELAC is the only Latin American multilateral organization of which Cuba is a member.
The new Brazilian government is in the process of re-establishing diplomatic ties with Maduro’s Venezuela. This was one of the President’s first directives to Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira. Brazil’s embassies have been in Caracas since last week, and Lula hopes both countries’ embassies will reopen soon.
