Versión Español
EspañolPedro Ramírez Ceballos of Chile became the new ambassador to Venezuela on Wednesday, and his appointment has invoked memories of the Salvador Allende era (1970-1973). Ramírez was a minister during that term, under the first unabashed-Marxist to be president of a Latin-American country through open elections.
Chile has recently played an active role — with other member states of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) — in the negotiations between Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and leaders of Venezuelan opposition parties. Its stated objective with these talks is to tame the social upheaval that has escalated since early February.
Ramírez was the mining minister between 1970 and 1973, and housing minister just a month before the coup that ended Allende’s presidency. He then spent time in several forced-labor camps before moving to Venezuela, where he lived until the mid 1980’s while still promoting democracy in his homeland. When he came back to Chile, he joined social movements pursuing the end of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.
Chile’s foreign minister, Heraldo Muñoz, also announced Christian Democrat Mónica Jiménez as ambassador to the Vatican, and José Goñi, from the Party for Democracy (PPD), as ambassador to Sweden.
Source: Santiago Times.
