Delcy and Jorge Rodríguez used the Spanish embassy to set a trap for Edmundo González
The latest twist shows that the regime Nicolas Maduro used the Spanish embassy in Caracas to set a trap for the opposition candidate. When, in theory, the brothers Delcy and Jorge Rodriguez They could not even be there, because both are banned from entering EU territory and, therefore, from any embassy of the Twenty-Seven anywhere in the world. During his appearance, a journalist asked the president of the Venezuelan Parliament if Gonzalez Urrutia He was aware that he was being recorded. He remained silent in response.
And there is more. Because each detail that is revealed compromises the Spanish ambassador even more. Ramon Santos It was he who personally received the brothers at his residence Rodriguezignoring EU sanctions. Not only that, but he also drove the vice president of Venezuela and the president of the National Assembly to Edmundo Gonzalez, that was inside.
This was revealed by himself Jorge Rodriguez In an interview on Telesur, in which he used the Spanish ambassador as an alibi. With the argument that how were he and his sister going to coerce and blackmail the Venezuelan opposition if the document was signed in the presence of the Spanish diplomat. “How does it happen that the executive vice president of Venezuela and the president of the National Assembly go to the Spanish embassy, are received by the ambassador and the ambassador leads them to the meeting with the Spanish ambassador?” Gonzalez Urrutia“, he described Rodriguezspeaking about himself in the third person.
According to the version of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jose Manuel Albares He gave “direct instructions” to the ambassador “not to interfere in the negotiations that the opposition leader might carry out” with the regime Nicolas Maduro to leave Caracas. But, according to the statements of the president of the National Assembly of Venezuela, Saints He was not a mere observer.
Edmundo González with the Spanish ambassador in Venezuela, before boarding the plane that took him to Spain
The Spanish diplomat is no upstart. He was Spain’s ambassador to Bolivia between 2008 and 2013, with Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapaterowho holds him in high regard. Saints He arrived in Caracas in January 2023 to fill a position that had been vacant since 2020 due to various disagreements between the Chavista dictatorship and Spain.
The role of Shoemaker It is even murkier. The World published this Friday that the former Spanish president encouraged the opposition to leave for Spain and that he called Delcy Rodriguez before it was presented at the Spanish embassy. Shoemaker sent an interlocutor to the meeting. An emissary whose identity the regime did not want to reveal RipeIn fact, in the recordings released his voice appears distorted.
Questions surrounding what happened inside the Spanish embassy on September 8 shook Moncloa yesterday, precisely the day in which the socialists voted again against the recognition of Gonzalez Urrutia as the winner of the elections and president-elect. This time, in the European Parliament. On Wednesday, it had been in the Senate and, a week earlier, in Congress.
Alberto Nunez Feijoo He asked from Rome for the resignation of the minister Albares and the dismissal of the ambassador, who on the day in question – September 8 – was seen accompanying Edmundo Gonzalez up the steps of the Spanish Armed Forces plane that brought him to Madrid, with a friendly gesture. “The Government has lied. Spanish diplomacy, an essential pillar of European diplomacy in Latin America, cannot be at the service of a dictatorial regime,” said the leader of the Popular Party.
The Spanish Government has been clinging for two weeks to the version that its role was, solely and exclusively, to agree with the Caracas Executive on the paperwork regarding the car that was transported to Gonzalez to the airport and the plane that took him straight to exile. But the image of Edmundo Gonzalez Signing what is put in front of you at the Spanish embassy is worth more than a thousand words, according to the PP and Vox. “Spanish diplomacy cannot be at the service of crime,” said the PP deputy. Cayetana Alvarez de Toledo.
The controversy caught Albares in Brussels. The Foreign Minister did not clarify the many questions, but instead attacked the PP for its “false accusations of destabilization,” which he compared to those made by the regime itself. Ripe. He also asked Feijoo that would disavow Esteban Gonzalez Pons for saying “things that are absurd, but tremendously insulting to our country.” What the deputy secretary of Institutional Affairs of the PP had said was that the Government of Pedro Sanchez has been a “necessary collaborator” of the “coup d’état in Venezuela. With Shoemaker as the “great plotter.”
The Popular Party wants the Foreign Minister to appear in Congress as soon as possible, so that he can respond to some of the questions that have not been answered until now: how is it possible that the Government of Pedro Sanchez allowed the brothers Rodriguez access to the embassy when they are banned from entering the EU. What exactly was the role of the ambassador, who appears in the photographs? If Saints He knew that his guests were recording everything. Whether he acted on his own or Albares was informed of everything. And yes, at some point during the negotiations, the Spanish Executive agreed not to recognise the opposition leader as the winner of the elections.
«I think the PP should leave Edmundo Gonzalez rest in peace, quietly, that is what that gentleman wants. I imagine that he will swell the ranks Little Caracas “from the Salamanca district,” the Sumar spokesman in Congress said ironically, Inigo Errejonon TVE. A party that also sits on the Council of Ministers.