Aznar’s request to the international community for Venezuela

The former president of the Spanish government José María Aznar (1996-2004) pointed out this Thursday in Miami that after the “coup d’état” that occurred in the country, after the presidential elections of July 28, the international community still has “a reaction to “the height of the challenge and the crime that is being perpetrated” in the country.

What is happening in the country, Aznar stressed, has been very clear for a long time and “not wanting to see it is at this point more than suspicious.” “Any willful blindness about the coup d’état perpetrated by Maduro is complicit in his attack on that democracy,” he added.

When inaugurating today in Miami, in southeastern Florida, the IX Presidential Dialogue, an annual forum that brings together former heads of state from Spain and the Americas, he stressed that in Venezuela “persecution and violence have multiplied, as has also skyrocketed. “unbridled migration that threatens stability and security throughout the region.”

He recalled that the Carter Center, an organization authorized by the Venezuelan government to supervise the electoral process on July 28, concluded that the candidate of the opposition majority, Edmundo González Urrutia, was the “very clear winner”; However, the Venezuelan electoral authorities have declared Maduro the winner, which gave rise to numerous protests in the country.

“Today the deaths in the protests are in the dozens, the arbitrary arrests exceed the worst estimates,” lamented the former leader of the Spanish executive.

The crisis that broke out after the July 28 elections has motivated a significant exodus of Venezuelans, as confirmed by UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, which estimates that between July 29 and August 5, migration to Brazil increased seven times in a week, from 50 people a day to 353.

“Maduro’s violent entrapment in power can generate a process of regional destabilization with unpredictable consequences,” warned Aznar, who highlighted the exodus of almost 8 million Venezuelans that has unleashed a “migration crisis” throughout the American continent.

He regretted that Maduro “does not face relevant and effective international response,” despite, for example, the order for the immediate departure of all diplomatic personnel from Chile, Argentina, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay.

To address the huge migratory flows of Venezuelans “it is advisable to design integration projects that are both ambitious and generous,” he added.

The ninth Presidential Dialogue forum, organized by the IDEA group and Miami Dade College (MDC), has this year as its starting point the topic Democracy of citizens and migrations: Venezuela and July 28 and is held on the Wolfson campus of that study center university students.