MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Maduro's regime leaves Argentine Embassy powerless

“We hold the regime responsible for the siege of this diplomatic headquarters, violating international law and the Caracas convention,” asylum seeker Pedro Urruchurtu Noselli wrote on X

Venezuelan authorities left Argentina's Embassy in Caracas with no electricity supply Tuesday as diplomatic ties between the two countries came to a technical rift while the fate of opposition leaders Pedro Urruchurtu Noselli, Magalí Meda, Claudia Macero, Humberto Villalobos, Facundo Martínez Mottola, and Omar González, who had been granted asylum and were housed there pending a safe passage to the airport that never came was still in doubt.

Buenos Aires would not be recognizing President Nicolás Maduro's announced win in Sunday's elections, after which the diplomatic mission headed by Chargé d'Affaires Andrés Mangiarotti was given 72 hours to leave the country. Argentina's Foreign Ministry condemned the power cut and warned against any deliberate action that endangered the safety of the diplomatic personnel. “Argentina calls upon the international community on the importance of ensuring compliance with the international regulations governing diplomatic relations between States,” the San Martín Palace said in a statement.

Presidential Spokesman Manuel Adorni recalled that “according to the Caracas Convention [of 1954], when diplomats are withdrawn, asylum seekers will also be withdrawn” as per Article XIX of said Convention. “There is no other decision but to continue protecting them. We are evaluating how the facts unfold and what the solution is,” he added.

Should the Argentine delegation be unable to leave with the asylum seekers, they should be handed “over to the representation of a third State Party to this Convention, with the guarantees established therein,” the legal provision specifies. However, the alternative of a different diplomatic mission was slim after Maduro broke up with a host of countries that did not recognize him as the winner, such as Chile, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru, the Dominican Republic, and Uruguay.

“We hold the regime responsible for the siege of this diplomatic headquarters, violating international law and the Caracas convention on diplomatic asylum and for anything that may happen to us here,” Urruchurtu posted on social media together with pictures of the Corpoelec electricity company workers interrupting supply. “Thanks to the citizens who saw the exact moment in which the regime was executing this operation,” he also wrote.

All six refugees are close collaborators of disenfranchised opposition leader María Corina Machado, who supported Edmundo González Urrutia's candidacy after she was banned from running. Maduro's regime claimed they were all linked to an alleged plot to generate violence.