Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has said that the Spanish government is carrying out ‘close and comprehensive monitoring’ of developments in Venezuela, following the United States’ air strikes on Caracas and the capture of President Nicolas Maduro, who was flown out of his country.
‘Our embassy and consulates are operational. We call for de-escalation and responsibility. International law and the principles of the United Nations Charter must be respected,’ Sánchez wrote on X.
Spain’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, is in constant contact with Spain’s ambassador in Caracas, as well as with the EU’s chief diplomat, Kaja Kallas, and with European counterparts and officials from other countries, the government said. Spain has also offered to mediate for a ‘peaceful and negotiated solution’ in Venezuela. ALSO READ: Spain offers to mediate for ‘peaceful and negotiated solution’ in Venezuela.
Spain had not recognised the results of the 28 July 2024 elections in Venezuela, officially won by Maduro but contested by the opposition, whose candidate Edmundo González Urrutia fled Venezuela for Madrid after the vote.
Several ministers from the Sumar left wing umbrella of the coalition government have spoken out following the US air strikes carried out between Friday night and Saturday morning at several locations in Venezuela. The Health Minister, Mónica García, condemned what she described as a ‘unilateral military attack’, which she said was ‘unjustifiable, whether in Palestine, Ukraine or Venezuela’.
‘We must urgently return to international law and to a world based on rules, dialogue and cooperation,’ García added. Along the same lines, the Culture Minister, Ernest Urtasun, described the bombings as an ‘illegal intervention’.
The first Spanish public figure to comment on the events, at around nine o’clock in the morning, was Podemos MEP Irene Montero, who wrote on X shortly after the explosions became known that ‘the US is a danger. Either we stop them or they will destroy everything’.
‘Spain is a country of peace and the government must break all alliances with the US, starting with NATO. All my support for Venezuela. Once again, no more wars for oil,’ she wrote.
She was followed by the secretary general of the same party and a member of the Spanish parliament, Ione Belarra, who said in the same vein that ‘the US thinks the world belongs to it and that it can do whatever it wants to other peoples. We cannot allow that’.
The Esquerra Republicana (ERC) MP Gabriel Rufián also called on X for Pedro Sánchez’s government not to ‘make a fool of itself like it did with Guaidó’ and to ‘condemn’ the United States for the overnight attack on Venezuela.
‘The greatest danger to the world is called Trump and his cronies,’ Rufián warned.
The leader of Spain’s right-wing opposition People’s Party (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, said that ‘our main concern is Spanish citizens living in the country and the Venezuelan people as a whole, who are the top priority at all times’.
He added that ‘Venezuela has endured a harsh dictatorship’, and called for ‘a future without repression and for a democratic transition under the leadership of the elected president, Edmundo González, and María Corina Machado.’
The PP leader said that ‘prudence is compatible with the hope that Venezuela will recover the future that Maduro stole from it, with the complicit silence of too many leaders in my country’.
‘Only freedom and democracy will bring the peaceful future that Venezuela deserves,’ he concluded.
Madrid’s PP mayor, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, said that ‘today marks a historic opportunity for the Venezuelan people to recover democracy and the rule of law’.
Less restrained was the president of the Madrid regional government, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who declared that ‘the fall of the regime and the return of democracy to Venezuela with Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado is one of the most important pieces of news in recent times’, despite the ongoing confusion surrounding events on Saturday.
Far-right Vox leader Santiago Abascal wrote on X that ‘Maduro’s narco-terrorist regime must surrender immediately and spare the Venezuelan people further suffering, after torturing them relentlessly and brutally’.
This was his first reaction to the US attacks on various parts of Venezuela, including Caracas.
‘Today the world is a little freer,’ said the Vox leader, adding that ‘we should welcome this and support the restoration of democracy in Venezuela. Together with our allies in the Madrid Forum, we will work towards that goal’.
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