The diplomatic crisis between Buenos Aires and Caracas is advancing in an unknown and dangerous direction for the region. The Minister of the Interior and Justice of Maduro, Diosdado Hair, confirmed this Monday what was known: the arrest of a non-commissioned officer of the Argentine Gendarmerie, Nahuel Agustín Gallo, who, he maintained, entered Venezuela to fulfill a mission that he did not detail.
“Everyone puts up a facade, that he had his girlfriend. Everyone makes that excuse. It hurt them, because he came to fulfill a mission, and it is not that the mission has been aborted. We have dealt him a hard blow thanks to the State security agencies,” Cabello said. And he added: “here is a justice system that really works and that person is at the mercy of the courts. “They say he is in a secret military base in Táchira (west of the country), they have no idea.”
The far-right government of Javier Milei reacted harshly to Cabello’s statements, the man who not only manages security with greater repressive rigor than his predecessors, but is also the main interlocutor of the Government of Nicolás Maduro before the judiciary.
“This cannot be tolerated. That they take an Argentine visitor and try to falsify the information is a methodology of trying to perpetuate themselves,” the Foreign Minister reacted. Gerardo Werhtein. “What he says is totally false. His entire narrative does not correspond to reality. The gendarme has a two-year-old Argentine daughter and his wife went to help her mother in Venezuela. He went to visit them and they detained him arbitrarily.” The chancellor in turn assured that “Nahuel Gallo’s movements are established by the Immigration Directorate and will be published as soon as possible.”
The tension between Maduro and Milei escalated more than expected when the capitalist anarcho immediately came out to support the proclamation of the opponent Edmundo González Urrutia as winner of the elections. elections of last July 28. The Venezuelan authorities redoubled the siege around the Argentine embassy, where a group of opponents linked to Maria Corina Machado. The legation is administered by Brazil because the two countries broke their relations months ago.
The new chapter of bilateral friction takes place 25 days before the ceremony in which Maduro must be sworn in as president until 2030. González Urrutia assures that he will take office on January 10. Ten days later Donald Trump takes office and it is unknown what Washington’s policy will be. It is expected to resemble the real estate magnate’s first government, when the White House redoubled economic sanctions against Venezuela. What is also known in advance is that Milei presents itself to other Latin American countries as the main regional ally of the United States.
Request to the OAS and the UN
In the midst of this crisis, Argentina, Werthein reported, has requested the intervention of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the United Nations. “What can we expect from Venezuela, which is not a rule of law? We have a situation of violence and psychological terror that is besieging people who committed, as a crime, making political decisions. Because they are dissidents, they are terrified. How much more do we have to tolerate? “Isn’t it enough to falsify results?” he said in reference to the controversial elections whose victory was officially credited to Maduro despite opposition claims.
Eight days detained
The gendarme was arrested a week ago when he crossed the Táchira international bridge that connects Colombia with Venezuela. “Nahuel came as another citizen and the father of my son. He had all the papers in order. There is no reason for this to be happening, beyond the fact that he belongs to the Argentine Gendarmerie,” said his partner Alejandra Gómez. “We are living a nightmare.”
The Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, who manages the National Gendarmerie, sent Cabello a warning through the social network Kidnapping an Argentine gendarme does not make you strong, it shows you desperate. Argentina does not submit to tyrants.
“What did you come to do in Venezuela? What was your task here in Venezuela?” Cabello also said, drawing an analogy with the two Spanish tourists in the Amazon. “They put up a facade, which his girlfriend had. Do you want to get married? Come to Venezuela! Do you want to get a boyfriend or a girlfriend? Come to Venezuela!” Cabello ironized. In turn, he responded to Bullrich: “I declared war on the English, who took the Malvinas from them, but they don’t do it. Isn’t that a cause of war, that they steal their territory? It seems not.”
