Twenty-four Latin American presidents condemned the attack on Parliament and the torture of Venezuelan political and military prisoners.
The former heads of State and Government of the Democratic Initiative of Spain and the Americas (IDEA), aware of the kidnapping of the first vice president of the National Assembly of Venezuela, Edgar Zambrano, conducted by the political police of the dictator Nicolás Maduro, led by a repressive military officer denounced internationally as the author of crimes against humanity, declare the following: they condemn the actions of the Maduro dictatorship and the military structure that supports it, aimed at closing the only legitimate and democratic organ of Venezuela, internationally recognized, the National Assembly.
They ratify their support for the peaceful, democratic process of constitutional status provided for in the Statute for the Transition to Democracy adopted and conducted by said parliamentary body and its president, Juan Guaidó, as the executive branch’s mandate by constitutional provision, until the call for free and fair elections for the President of the Republic,”
said the group in a statement.
In addition, they express their serious concern over the military arbitration to which the exercise of public power in Venezuela is subjected, to the point that the dictatorship would not stand without that support.
They also strongly condemned the attack against the immunity of 10 other legislators to the National Assembly and the persecution to which the dictatorship subjected them in collusion with judges at their service; likewise, the widespread and systematic violations of human rights by the latter.
Finally, observing that Venezuelans suffer a terminal humanitarian crisis and are under kidnapping by a true narco-criminal State, they make a serious call to the international community so that its different groups and governments move quickly towards a unity of effective criteria, to help put an end to the tragedy of Venezuela and facilitate their re-entry into the concert of the democratic nations of the world,”
added the group in the document.
Óscar Arias (Costa Rica), José María Aznar (Spain), Nicolás Ardito Barletta (Panama), Enrique Bolaños (Nicaragua), Felipe Calderón H. (Mexico), Rafael Ángel Calderón (Costa Rica), Laura Chinchilla (Costa Rica), Alfredo Cristiani (El Salvador), Fernando de la Rua (Argentina), Vicente Fox Q. (Mexico), Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle (Chile), César Gaviria T. (Colombia), Felipe González (Spain), Osvaldo Hurtado (Ecuador), Luis Alberto Lacalle (Uruguay), Ricardo Lagos E. (Chile), Jamil Mahuad (Ecuador), Mireya Moscoso (Panama), Gustavo Noboa B. (Ecuador), Andres Pastrana (Colombia), Miguel Angel Rodriguez (Costa Rica), Jorge Tuto Quiroga (Bolivia), Álvaro Uribe V. (Colombia), Juan Carlos Wasmosy (Paraguay).