Foreign Minister of Chile Meets Spanish Counterpart, Requests 'Free Elections': Venezuela Responds

In Latin America there are different shades of left. One of the lightest is that of Chile, which this Friday, July 1, positioned itself more clearly on the biggest issue that makes political temperatures rise in the region: Venezuela.

On Friday, the foreign affairs minister of Chile, Antonia Urrejola, in a press conference with the Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister José Manuel Albares, made it clear that the administration of Gabriel Boric condemns “the violation of human rights in Venezuela.” However, she stressed that President Boric’s government is working on a rapprochement with Caracas. Urreola is on an official visit to Spain.

That nuance, for Urrejola, is the symptom of “a turn” from the foreign policy of former Chilean President Sebastián Piñera. “We understand that what was, for example, the Lima Group and the exclusion of Venezuela in multilateral forums has not been a solution,” said the Chilean minister.

Her comments are particularly troubling, in addition to being given while sitting next to a minister of Spain, which is hugely responsible for the recent massacre of migrants in Melilla, one of many incidents of human rights violation of Europe towards African migrants.

According to Chilean Foreign Minister Urrejola, Boric’s immediate interest is to “reestablish the International Contact Group” that was installed in Mexico to facilitate dialogue between the Venezuelan government and some sectors of the opposition, with the aim of holding “free and democratic elections” in 2024.

“This space for conversation, dialogue and negotiation should be resumed, with a view to Venezuela being able to have a process of democratic elections in accordance with the standards on the matter,” commented Urrejola. Reading between the lines, the statement is a tacit disregard of the legitimacy of the government of President Maduro, which came to the presidency through elections in 2018.

An unresolved “crisis”
Even before assuming the presidency of Chile, Boric had maintained a sour stance regarding Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, accusing him of implementing a “failed” model in Venezuela. From Caracas, the response—logically—has not been friendly either, but Venezuelan authorities have tried to be respectful of Chile’s internal affairs and have never pointed a finger directly at Boric.

As the president of Chile, Boric criticized the exclusion of Venezuela by the US from forums such as the Summit of the Americas, and insisted on the need to promote spaces for dialogue with Caracas. However, at the same time, he gave public statements in media events as well as at the Summit of the Americas itself, in the same vein of disrespectful criticism of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela in the name of human rights, while in Chile his administration had declared a state of exception in the Auracania region, territory of the Mapuche indigenous people, due to constant clashes of Mapuche land defenders with Chilean security forces defending the interest of oligarchs and big capital exploiting minerals and forest products in the region.

Chile’s interest in “democracy” in Venezuela is not without reason. On Friday, July 1, the Chilean foreign minister stressed that her country is the recipient of “almost half a million Venezuelan migrants,” a phenomenon caused in recent years by the economic, political and social situation in Venezuela, aggravated by the US blockade and the punitive actions adopted by the extinct Lima Group, as well as by the constant invitations from right-wing Latin American presidents inciting Venezuelans to migrate to their countries.

“The migratory crisis in Venezuela is not going to be solved if we don’t talk,” said Urrejola. The Boric administration has already stumbled on that issue, after the unfortunate statements of Minister of the Interior, Izkia Siches, who had to be on mandatory leave for a month after getting involved in a scandal with false information about Venezuelan migrants.

Meanwhile, the situation on the northern border of Chile continues to remain complicated by the presence of undocumented migrants and the xenophobic demonstrations by some people in Chile. In fact, since last year protests against undocumented people—many of them Venezuelan and Colombians—have been so violent that they have provoked international organizations to demand the Chilean government to provide protection to migrants.

For now, the goal of the Chilean president, who has not yet met with Maduro, is to regionally address the situation with Venezuela (especially with regard to migration), an approach that only differs from the strategy of Piñera in the fact that Boric would have the dialogue with the Maduro administration and not with the opposition grouping headed by the self-proclaimed “interim president”, former deputy Juan Guaidó, the face of the failed US attempt of “regime change” in Venezuela.

Venezuela’s response
On Friday night Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez criticized Urrejola’s attacks against Venezuela and questioned why the latter is not trying to solve the internal issues of her country, whose government is “in rapid decline” in popularity, as many polls have been showing.

Canciller de Chile @UrrejolaRREE como buena empleada de @Almagro_OEA2015 ataca a la Revolución Bolivariana en lugar de atender los urgentes asuntos de violencia en Chile, su economía y de un gobierno que va en caída veloz! El que se mete con Venezuela se seca: demostrado! https://t.co/uxJyKvYSjh
— Delcy Rodríguez (@delcyrodriguezv) July 1, 2022

“Foreign Affairs Minister of Chile, Antonia Urrejola, as a good employee of [Luis] Almagro, attacks the Bolivarian Revolution instead of addressing the urgent issues of violence in Chile, its economy and a government that is rapidly declining [in popular support],” wrote Rodríguez in a Twitter post. “Whoever messes with Venezuela suffers the consequences: it has been proven.”

Urrejola, as the head of the Interamerican Court of Human Rights (CIDH), together with Luis Almagro’s Organization of American States (OAS), had worked tirelessly in backing the failed color revolution launched against President Daniel Ortega and the Nicaraguan people in 2018. She had also been the head of the team of former OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza, during whose tenure (2005-2015) the Honduran government headed by Manuel Zelaya was overthrown by the US through a military coup in 2009; and the year before, there was a failed coup attempt against Evo Morales in Bolivia. In both cases the OAS did nothing to stop the coups, and Urrejola never uttered a word against them. Similarly, she has never taken a stand against the grave human rights violations committed by the government of Iván Duque in Colombia and that of Piñera in her own country. Yet she has constantly criticized the government of Nicolás Maduro, and expressed “concern” about human rights in Venezuela.

(RT) with Orinoco Tribune content

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/JRE/SC