Venezuelan opposition members in diplomatic compound urge swift actions to secure their safe passage

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Members of Venezuela’s political opposition who have been sheltering for months in the Argentine diplomatic compound in the capital, Caracas, on Saturday detailed their deteriorating living conditions as they sought to grow a sense of urgency among the governments working to secure their safe departure from their home country.

Their comments to reporters via an online news conference came three days after Argentina’s government urged the Organization of American States to pressure Venezuela to allow the safe passage of the six members of the opposition living at the ambassador’s residence.

The harassment, according to those who spoke to reporters, includes constant surveillance by heavily armed security agents, the interruption of water and electric services, and this week’s arrest of a longtime local employee of the Argentine embassy.

“We are seeing how the process of violating our basic human rights is accelerating, and it is urgent to be able to stop this situation of control and repression against us, whether psychological or real,” said Magalli Meda, campaign manager of opposition powerhouse María Corina Machado.

Venezuela’s Minister of Interior Diosdado Cabello last week called the group’s allegations a “farce.”

The government of President Javier Milei in August transferred custody of the diplomatic compound in Caracas to Brazil after Venezuela expelled Argentina’s diplomats. The move followed a July presidential election marred by serious fraud allegations and which both President Nicolás Maduro and the opposition claim to have won.

But Maduro revoked Brazil’s authorization to guard the facility in September, even though that nation’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, had attempted to help Venezuela break its political stalemate following the presidential vote.

“The Brazilian Foreign Ministry has made the contacts and the corresponding arrangements,” said Pedro Urruchurtu, who along three other men and two women has lived at the diplomatic facility since March. “We ask Brazil to have a much greater sense of urgency, in this sense it means redoubling efforts and coordination with the region and understanding that this situation can clearly get worse and therefore demands the attention of the entire region.”

Venezuela’s protracted political crisis deepened after the July 28 presidential election. The country’s National Electoral Council, which is stacked with Maduro loyalists, declared him the election winner hours after polls closed. But unlike previous presidential elections, electoral authorities did not provide detailed vote counts.

Meanwhile, the opposition, led by Machado, collected tally sheets from 80% of the nation’s electronic voting machines, posted them online and said the voting records showed that the faction’s candidate, Edmundo González, had won the election with twice as many votes as Maduro.

On Wednesday, Brazil’s ambassador to the Organization of American States, Benoni Belli, told country representatives gathered in Washington to address the situation at the diplomatic compound that the safe passage of the opposition members “has been the subject of high-level negotiations” involving Venezuelan and Brazilian officials, including the countries’ foreign affairs ministers.

Diplomatic premises are considered foreign soil and “inviolable” under the Vienna treaties and host country law enforcement agencies are not allowed to enter without permission from the ambassador.

Belli said that Venezuelan officials through “informal statements” have reiterated that “the inviolability of the property” in Caracas “will be preserved.”

Afterward, more than a dozen members of the regional organization joined Argentina’s call on Maduro’s government to allow the safe passage of those living at the ambassador’s residence and end the alleged harassment.

The Associated Press