Chilean Foreign Minister Alberto van Klaveren (left) and Attorney Ángel Valencia (right) with ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan (center) at the ICC headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands, March 28, 2025. Photo: La Tercera.
Venezuela strongly condemned in strong terms the Chilean government’s maneuver at the International Criminal Court (ICC) to falsely link the murder of a former Venezuelan military officer, Ronald Ojeda, with the ongoing ICC investigation on alleged crimes against humanity supposedly committed by the Venezuelan government as part of a case (Venezuela I) filed by the Venezuelan far-right opposition and some right-wing Latin American governments.
In a statement issued on Friday, March 28, the Venezuelan government stated that Chile is trying to “turn foreign policy into a poor-quality show” by backing up its claims with falsehoods and without any valid legal basis.
The statement claimed that the maneuver being promoted is “in the best style of [Chilean dictator] Pinochet,” by taking an isolated case to the ICC with deceit. The document highlighted that this is not only legally untenable but also demonstrates the Chilean government’s “manifest ignorance of the international system and the Statute of Rome.”
The official document added that this action is unacceptable and exhibits a marked hatred against Venezuela and a desperation to “please the US by carrying out its orders aimed at eroding the sovereignty of States.”
“The ICC is not a court that airs the fanciful fables of imbecile politicians, nor a stage for media montages,” the statement added. “It is evident that the Chilean authorities do not have the slightest idea of how these mechanisms operate, or worse, that they are simply willing to distort them to align themselves with interests alien to justice.”
The Venezuelan government further emphasized that “Chile, instead of lending itself to shameful maneuvers, should focus on its own serious internal problems, including the systematic violation of the human rights of the Mapuche people and the repression of protesters.”
“Venezuela is a country that can give lessons on respect for human rights and the dignity of peoples. We will not accept attacks from those who have made institutional violence a daily practice and now try to divert attention from their own miseries with crude political maneuvers,” the statement concluded.
This statement comes after Chilean Foreign Minister Alberto van Klaveren and Attorney Ángel Valencia met with ICC authorities in The Hague on Friday to hand over information on the murder of Ronald Ojeda in Chile and the Chilean authorities’ suspicions that it was allegedly politically motivated.
According to Valencia, these documents were “shared with the ICC authorities so that they can add them to the investigation that they are already carrying out about crimes against humanity committed in Venezuela.”
Ojeda, a military deserter and political asylum seeker in Chile, was abducted on February 21, 2024, from his home in the Chilean capital, Santiago, by a group of men dressed as Chilean police officers. His remains were found 10 days later in a suburb of the city, buried under a concrete block.
The Venezuelan far right and its media outlets have spread the rumor that the Venezuelan authorities were allegedly behind this crime without any evidence. However, many analysts question the veracity of such claims since Ojeda had no real weight in anti-Chavista politics apart from his connection with weapons trafficking gangs.
Analysts also question the Chilean hypothesis since the practice of targeted assassinations—very common in Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship—does not happen in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela despite the propaganda spread by Western media and their allies around the world.
(Últimas Noticias) with Orinoco Tribune content
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/SF
