MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Blinken reiterates US support to Venezuelan opposition leaders

The United States “will continue to defend the return of democratic freedoms in Venezuela,” Blinken told González Urrutia and Machado

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken Tuesday held a telephone conversation with Venezuelan opposition leaders María Corina Machado -who stayed in the South American country- and former presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, who has sought asylum in Spain. The official from President Joseph Biden's administration insisted his country would “continue to defend the return to democratic freedoms” in Venezuela.

“Blinken praised their courage and commitment to democratic principles in the face of brutal repression and adversity,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement. The United States “will continue to defend the return of democratic freedoms in Venezuela, will fight to ensure that the will of Venezuelan voters is respected and that Nicolás Maduro and his representatives are held accountable for their actions,” he added.

The opposition Unitarian Democratic Platform (PUD) claimed González Urrutia won the July 28 presidential elections and published over 80% of the voting minutes that would prove so while the Bolivarian regime announced Maduro's reelection with no documentation to back it up other than a declaration of the pro-Government National Electoral Council (CNE) and a subsequent Supreme Court ruling endorsing the same uncorroborated claim. In this scenario, protests ensued with 27 deaths and over 2,400 arrested. Hence, González Urrutia sought asylum in Spain after his detention was ordered. Washington imposed sanctions on 16 Venezuelan officials for “electoral fraud”.

The Venezuelan government rejected Blinken's support. Foreign Minister Yván Gil said that Blinken ”clings to a (Juan) Guaidó part two who fled and abandoned his people, sinking them in a new failure“ and urged his US colleague to ”assume the reality,“ that in Venezuela, with ”President Nicolás Maduro Moros, peace triumphed.“

”The Bolivarian people victoriously build their destiny and will crush the brutality of the arrogant, liars and political swindlers, who [are] allied with criminals, [and] intend to divert us from the path of prosperity that we have consolidated,” he added.

Meanwhile, in Buenos Aires, Prosecutors Carlos Stornelli and José Agüero Iturbe requested a Federal Court to issue an arrest warrant against Maduro, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, and some thirty military and intelligence agents accused of torture, kidnappings, and executions. Endorsing the prosecutors' filing was the Argentine Forum for the Defense of Democracy (FADD).

The submission argues that Venezuela's Judiciary does not act independently and therefore the principle of universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity should apply.

“Maduro commits crimes against humanity. That is why we ask that an arrest warrant be issued for him immediately so that the persecution in Venezuela ceases,” former El Helicoide detainee Víctor Navarro told Argentine judges during his appearance as a witness.