The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela denounced this Sunday the flagrant violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations by the Government of the Kingdom of Spain, by facilitating, with notable complicity, the escape of terrorist Leopoldo López. This was expressed by the Venezuelan Chancellor, Jorge Arreaza, in his account on the Twitter social network. @jaarreaza:
«The head of the Spanish Diplomatic Mission in Venezuela acted as the main organizer and accomplice confessed to the announced escape of the criminal Leopoldo López from Venezuelan territory, an unacceptable and incomprehensible action in the framework of a historic bilateral relationship between the two nations”, as reads one of the paragraphs of the communiqué issued by the Chancellory.
Jorge Arreaza M
@jaarreaza
“#Communiqué | Venezuela denounces the flagrant integral violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations by the Government of the Kingdom of Spain, by facilitating, with notable complicity, the escape of the terrorist Leopoldo López. Investigations are underway”.
The National Government considers that the anti-diplomatic and hostile practice by the Spanish State towards Venezuela in clear disregard of the most elemental principles of international public law leaves a deep and indelible stain on diplomacy and bilateral relations.
The communiqué reads as follows:
COMMUNIQUÉ
“The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela denounces the flagrant violation of the fundamental dispositions of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations by part of the Government of the Kingdom of Spain, expressed through incessant interventionist actions on its relation with the Venezuelan State and its institutions. The outrageous and continuos violation of the international contract that rules civilized relations among States, goes back at least since 2017 and has been starred within Venezuelan territory by the Spanish Ambassador accredited to Caracas.
After Ambassador Jesús Silva being expelled on January 25, 2018 as a consequence of reiterated intermissions in internal affairs, it was agreed with the Spanish authorities for his return on April of that same year, under a renewed commitment to respect the Venezuelan an International laws. Quite on the contrary, the biased diplomatic practices by the Spanish representative were mede even more evident, getting to the point of covering in the very Spansh residence, and under a non-existent and anti-juridical figure, to a fugitive condemned by the Venezuelan justice, responsible, among other crimes, of the death and lesions to hundreds of Venezuelans on 2014.
Despite the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation of Spain has committed on diverse opportunities not to allow the political acting of the coup-plotting fugitive Leopoldo López from their official residence, reality was quite different. Just to refer a single fact, from the interior of the Spanish Diplomatic Residence, under the knowledge of Ambassador Silva, at the start of 2020 Lopez planned the mercenary operation called Gideon, a terrorist action with the participation of mercenaries from the U.S., whose goal was to assasinate President Nicolás Maduro, as well as other Venezuelan leaders, with the aim of sowing violence and destabilization in the country.
As a corollary of such a grotesque, brazen and rude integral violation to the Vienna Convention, today is in all ways certifiable that the chief of the Spanish Diplomatic Mission in Venezuela served as the main organizator and confessed accomplice of the announced escape from Venezuelan territory of the criminal Leopoldo López. An innaceptable and incomprensible action within the famework of a bilateral historical relationship between the two nations.
Thus, the Kingdom of Spain actively participates in the illegal escape of a dangerous criminal, and decides to welcome him on its territory, without having in mind the international laws and even the Spanish migratory laws, as well as the bilateral agrements in matters of Justice.
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela considers the anti-diplomatic and hostile practices of the Spanish State against Venezuela, in a clear detachment from the most elementary principles of the International Public Law, will leave a deep and indelible stain which will be a subject of study in the institutions dvoted to Diplomatic Formation around the world, as a series of erratic and illegal actions, proper of a diplomacy impregnatic of anachronic colonial reminiscences.
Lastly, it is noteworthy to stress that the institutions of the Venezuelan State, with their constitutional obbligation to make the necessary investigations and thus stablish the corresponding sanctions and liabilities for the crimes committed, in strict attachment to the Venezuelan and International Laws and to the guarantee of due process”.
Caracas, October 26, 2020
