González flees to Spain
Sept. 9, 2024
Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia, the winner of July’s presidential election according to several independent auditing efforts, fled the country on Saturday. González received asylum in Spain, days after the government sought an arrest warrant for him, (see last Tuesday’s post), though El País reports that the diplomatic operation to grant González asylum has been going on for two weeks. He was granted safe passage by the Maduro government to reach the airport. (Associated Press)
“My departure from Caracas was surrounded by episodes, pressures, coercion and threats,” González said in a recorded voice message after arriving in Madrid. “I trust that soon we will continue the fight to achieve freedom and recover democracy in Venezuela.” (Washington Post)
On Saturday, Venezuela’s government said Brazil could no longer represent Argentina’s diplomatic interests in the country. The move puts several anti-government opponents who have holed up for months in the Argentine ambassador’s residence seeking asylum at risk, reports the Washington Post. Venezuela’s government said its decision responds to information that the asylum-seekers were conspiring to carry out “terrorist” acts, including the assassination of President Nicolas Maduro and his vice president.
Brazil said that it had received the communication “with surprise” and Argentina said shortly afterwards that it rejected the “unilateral” decision by Venezuela. Both countries urged the government of Nicolas Maduro to respect the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations. (Guardian)
Armored vehicles from the SEBIN political police had been parked outside the Argentina ambassador’s residence since Friday and electricity to the diplomatic mission was also cut, this weekend. Analysts say the position was a clear message for González, who had been staying at the Spanish ambassador’s residence in Caracas.
The choice for González to leave was made because “his life was in danger”, opposition leader María Corina Machado said on social media, citing a “brutal wave of repression” in the aftermath of Venezuela’s July election. (Guardian)
But González’s exile has deflated hopes for the opposition’s capacity to effectively oust Maduro. “We’ve witnessed in the past how the remote-controlled or holographic opposition leadership quickly deflates and becomes a punchline that fuels the narratives of the government and the opposition’s opposition,” wrote the Caracas Chronicles.
Brazil
Tens of thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro took to the streets of São Paulo on Brazil’s Independence Day on Saturday, to rally against the Lula administration and protest the Supreme Court’s ban of social-media platform X, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Critics are concerned that Starlink’s almost complete dominance of the Amazon’s satellite internet market gave Elon Musk huge and potentially dangerous leverage over Brazil’s government, reports the Guardian.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva fired his human rights minister, Silvio Almeida, following claims that he sexually harassed several women. (AFP)
Almeida is accused of harassing cabinet colleague Anielle Franco, the racial equality minister. Almeida has denied the allegations, while Franco thanked Lula for his “decisive action.” The scandal “has been greeted with deep dismay by the Black rights movement,” as both ministers “are among the leading voices in the fight against racism in Brazil,” reports the Guardian.
El Salvador
Mauricio Arriaza Chicas, El Salvador’s national police chief, died in an Air Force helicopter crash. Arriaza had played a key role in the country’s controversial crackdown on organized crime. President Nayib Bukele alleged foul play. (New York Times)
Arriaza was escorting Manuel Coto, a suspect in a multi-million-dollar fraud scheme who was arrested in Honduras over the weekend. (BBC)
Coto, the former manager of the COSAVI savings and loan cooperative, had been the subject of an Interpol arrest warrant and one of 32 people implicated in the embezzlement of more than $35 million by the cooperative’s directors and employees, reports the Associated Press.
Regional Relations
The United Nations Security Council began considering on Friday a draft resolution to extend the mandate for an international security mission helping Haiti fight armed gangs, which expires on Oct. 1, for another 12 months. The 15-member council is due to vote on Sept. 30 on the mandate renewal. The United States and Ecuador circulated a draft text that would also ask to transition the mission into a U.N. peacekeeping operation, reports Reuters. (See last Thursday’s post.)
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader in Santo Domingo on Friday, following a visit to Haiti. (See Friday’s post.) Haiti dominated the private conversation, reports the Associated Press.
Honduras
Following a major scandal linking Honduran President Xiomara Castro’s brother-in-law with drug traffickers, “one big question is what impact the crisis will have on Honduran politics,” writes James Bosworth in World Politics Review. “With a presidential election scheduled for next year, all three mainstream political parties—Castro’s ruling Libre party and the Liberal and National parties—are jockeying to turn it into political advantage. Yet, all three have now faced credible or proven allegations of major narco-corruption at their highest levels.”
Mexico
Mexico’s opposition senators hope to block the outgoing López Obrador administration’s judicial reform bill. The ruling Morena party is one vote shy of a super majority in the upper chamber, though a number of technical issues over how to calculate the vote could make the exercise complex (to say the least), reports Bloomberg.
“Opposition lawmakers have also denounced attempts by the ruling bloc to intimidate or buy senators' support, allegations Morena has denied,” reports Reuters.
Juan Manuel Karg analyzes why Mexico’s Morena is a rare case of political continuity in a region of anti-incumbent tendencies. (Cenital)
Bolivia