Versión Español
Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro will attend the inauguration of the recently elected president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), a situation that reveals that the struggle for democracy in Venezuela lost a strong ally.
Everything indicates that with the new government, Mexico will stop fighting against the dictatorship in the South American country, and on the contrary, it will decide, like Uruguay, to ignore the constant violations of human rights.
While countries around the world refuse to recognize the legitimacy of Nicolás Maduro’s regime and are demonstrating against the dictatorship, AMLO shows that he is inclined in favor of socialism, by extending an official invitation to Maduro; a fact that shows that the new government of Mexico does recognize him as president despite the electoral fraud with which Maduro sought to perpetuate himself in power.
AMLO said that people have a right to dissent, but “we are going to maintain a friendly policy with all the governments of the world.”
The reality is that the new president of Mexico has not assumed that Maduro is a dictator who remains de facto in power after an unprecedented electoral fraud, and in a context in which the vast majority of the Venezuelan population is against him.
AMLO seems to conveniently forget that Maduro doesn’t really head a “government,” but a dictatorship that violates human rights and that has provoked a humanitarian crisis that has affected all the countries of the region.
Journalists, academics, and former presidents harshly criticized AMLO’s decision to invite Nicolás Maduro.
Vicente Fox, the first president of Mexico belonging to a party different from the PRI, posted on Twitter a message chastising the new administration for the decision.
Que quemadota te has dado, @m_ebrard, invitando a criminales con manos llenas de sangre como @NicolasMaduro. A él NO se le invita a ningun lado, menos a México. Incluso @realDonaldTrump lo rechazó. @lopezobrador_ y equipo la están regando, Maduro NO puede pisar suelo mexicano. https://t.co/7aFAid6fMh
— Vicente Fox Quesada (@VicenteFoxQue) October 27, 2018
According to the Mexican writer and journalist, Héctor de Mauleón, “inviting Maduro was a serious mistake by the incoming government.”
“The incoming government preferred to close its eyes to a horror that has been documented by media around the world,” said Mauleón in his opinion column entitled “#MaduroNoEresBienvenido.”
The reality is that in the eyes of Venezuela and the world, Nicolás Maduro is no longer recognized as the president of the South American country and must be treated as such.
The legitimate Venezuelan Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) in exile sent a letter to the president-elect of Mexico, requesting him to rescind “the invitation made to former President Nicolás Maduro Moros to attend the ceremonial act of his inauguration.”
The letter, signed by the President of the TSJ, Magistrate Miguel Ángel Martín, explains that “Maduro was found guilty and sentenced to 18 years and three months in prison, for crimes of corruption. Thus, according to the Constitution and the laws of our country, Mr. Maduro Moros has been formally dismissed from his position as President of the Republic.”
The Venezuelan Supreme Court considers that the presence of Maduro in attending the inauguration of AMLO “would constitute a serious offense against the Venezuelan people, as well as an affront to the countries that have accused Nicolás Maduro before the International Criminal Court for the commission of crimes against humanity.”
Venezuela’s top justice body also warns AMLO: “It is our duty to inform you that we have requested INTERPOL to detain Nicolás Maduro upon entering any of the 192 countries where this organization operates, including Mexico. The damage that Maduro has caused to Venezuela is incalculable, while the funds stolen illegally from the public treasury only in the case of Odebrecht reach the amount of USD $35 billion; as a consequence, our compatriots suffer from hunger and disease today, many of them being forced to emigrate to Mexico.”
With AMLO “Maduro will have an ally”
Fernando Gerbasi, political analyst and retired ambassador of the Venezuelan Foreign Service, expressed to the PanAm Post his concern that the struggle for democracy in the South American country will lose an ally in the Mexican Government with the arrival of AMLO to power.
“I do not believe that Mexico will become Venezuela. However, I do worry that within the context of the rescue of Venezuelan democracy, the current Mexican government has been very active in favor of that process. He has been at the vanguard of the Lima Group, at the OAS, he has tried to apply the Inter-American Democratic Charter. My personal impression is that López Obrador completely changes that policy, and will return to what is known as the Estrada doctrine, that is: ‘I do not intervene in the internal affairs of another country so that they do not intervene in the internal affairs of my country’ “, Affirmed Gerbasi.
For her part, María Teresa Romero, journalist and PhD in political science, agrees with Gerbasi and adds that with AMLO, Mexico will not fight against the Maduro dictatorship: “Unfortunately I think that with AMLO, Maduro will have an ally.”
