Caracas vows to arrest opposition's Gonzalez Urrutia if 'sets foot' in Venezuela / Photo: © AFP
Caracas vows to arrest opposition's Gonzalez Urrutia if 'sets foot' in Venezuela
Tension mounted in Venezuela Monday ahead of strongman Nicolas Maduro's swearing-in ceremony, with Caracas vowing to arrest exiled opposition figure Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia if he returns to the country.
The threat of detention came as Gonzalez Urrutia, on an international tour seeking to increase pressure on Maduro to relinquish power, was set to meet with US President Joe Biden on Monday in Washington.
The Venezuelan opposition has released a large set of polling station data it says proves their candidate overwhelmingly won presidential elections last July which the loyalist electoral council awarded to Maduro without releasing a detailed vote breakdown.
The United States, G7 countries, and several Latin American nations have rejected Maduro's victory claim and recognized Gonzalez Urrutia as Venezuela's legitimate president-elect.
The 75-year-old former diplomat, who found exile in Spain after the vote, has vowed to return home to take power on January 10, when Maduro is set to be sworn in for a third, six-year term at the helm of the Caribbean country.
But on Monday, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello vowed the opposition figure "will be arrested and tried if he sets foot in Venezuela."
During his tour, which has taken him to Argentina and Montevideo in recent days, Gonzalez Urrutia called Sunday for the Venezuelan military to recognize him as commander-in-chief as per "the sovereign will of the Venezuelan people."
But that call was "categorically" rejected Monday in a statement read on TV by Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, who reiterated the armed forces' "loyalty, obedience and subordination" to Maduro.
- Freedom 'must be won' -
On the weekend, opposition leader Maria Corina Machado called for mass protests on Thursday, the day before the inauguration.
The wildly popular politician had won an opposition primary by a wide margin, but was barred from running in the election by institutions loyal to the Maduro regime.
Gonzalez Urrutia stepped in to replace her at the last minute.
Machado has been in hiding since the vote, but has appeared at a handful of rallies in Caracas and said she would march side-by-side with Venezuelans again Thursday.
"This day will be recorded in history as the day Venezuela said: enough!" she said in a video on X.
"Freedom cannot be begged for... it must be conquered, it must be won."
Mass protests broke out following Maduro's victory claim, with crackdowns and clashes leaving at least 28 people dead, some 200 hurt and over 2,400 arrested.
The prosecutor's office said Monday that some 1,500 of those detained have since been freed.
Since the disputed election, Caracas has passed a law punishing support for sanctions against the Maduro regime with up to 30 years in prison.
That came after Washington imposed asset freezes on 21 top Venezuelan security and cabinet officials over the campaign of repression.
After Venezuela's last fraught election in 2018, also tainted by fraud claims, then-president Donald Trump applied a policy of maximum pressure on Maduro.
He imposed an embargo on oil from the country with the world's largest proven oil reserves.
It did nothing to loosen Maduro's grip on power.
The measures were later softened by Biden only to be partly reinstated last April.
Maduro is accused by critics of driving the economy into the ground.
More than seven million of once-wealthy Venezuela's 30 million citizens have emigrated since he came to power in 2013.
R.Evans--TNT
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