Embassy of Venezuela, Washington, D.C. | |
---|---|
Location | Washington, D.C. |
Address | 1099 30th Street, N.W. |
Coordinates | 38°54′13″N77°3′31″W / 38.90361°N 77.05861°W |
Ambassador | None |
The Embassy of Venezuela in Washington, D.C. is the diplomatic mission of the Venezuela to the United States. The embassy is located at 1099 30th Street, Northwest, Washington, D.C. in the Georgetown neighborhood. [1]
The embassy also operates Consulates-General in Boston, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, Houston, Miami, and New Orleans. [2]
On January 23, 2019, the Nicolás Maduro-led government of Venezuela broke off diplomatic relations with the United States. From 2019 to January 2023, Venezuelan embassies and consulates in the US were administered by representatives of Juan Guaidó, who was recognized by the US as the acting president of Venezuela during the Venezuelan presidential crisis.
On January 24, 2019, Nicolás Maduro ordered the closure of both the embassy and all Venezuelan consulates in the United States. This move came as a response to US recognition of Juan Guaidó as interim president. [3]
On January 29, 2019, Juan Guaidó appointed Carlos Vecchio to serve as Venezuelan ambassador to the United States. [4] This move was recognized by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. [5]
On April 10, 2019, members of Code Pink and other left-wing organizations began occupying the embassy at the invitation of the Maduro government. As of May 1, fifty Americans supporting Maduro were living in the building, whose entrance was locked down by its occupants. [6] As a response, hundreds of supporters of Guaidó, mostly Venezuelan nationals, assembled outside the embassy in protest, mocking the mostly American occupants for not speaking Spanish and calling them thieves and trespassers. The standoff resulted in clashes between the groups. According to the embassy occupants, the protesters prevented people from bringing in food. [7] The occupants held signs outside the embassy saying, "Hands Off Venezuela!" and "No to U.S. coup plots", while protesters chanted "Guaidó" and "Hands off my embassy". [6] On May 8, the power company shut off electricity to the embassy, [8] and on May 11, running water was also cut off. [9] On May 13, after staying for over a month in the embassy, authorities served an eviction notice on its occupants, asking them to leave immediately. Gustavo Tarre, Venezuela's representative to the Organization of American States, declared to The Associated Press that at the time there were seven people in the building, three of whom left after the notice was served. [10] On May 16, the four protesters remaining, Kevin Zeese, Margaret Flowers, Adrienne Pine and David Paul, were forcibly removed from the embassy by police. [11] Journalist Max Blumenthal, who has good relations with Nicolás Maduro, was arrested in October 2019 and charged with assaulting a woman during the occupation of the embassy. The charges were later dropped. [12]
During the 2019 Foro de Sao Paulo, Maduro honored Code Pink for their actions. He posed for pictures with the group and rewarded them with gifts, including a book on Simón Bolívar and a replica of Bolivar's sword. [13]
United States Department of the Treasury in collaboration with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Italian Carabinieri opened an investigation into missing pieces of European and Latin American artwork that could not be found when Guaidó's representative moved into the embassy in May 2019, believing they were being discreetly plundered by Venezuelan authorities. The paintings, including a landscape of Caracas by Manuel Cabré, the portrait of "Juanita" by Armando Reverón, and a social realism piece by Héctor Poleo , were exhibited at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington in 2008. The estimated value of the paintings was $1 million. The last known sighting of the paintings was in a photo taken in the Venezuelan embassy in 2012. [14] [ needs update ]
Carlos Vecchio declared that Maduro's administration, and his predecessor Hugo Chávez, had denied consular services for Venezuelans in the United States for more than 10 years. [15] Director of Consultar Affairs, Brian Fincheltub, announced that the embassy would progressively reactivate said services. [16]
On May 28, Vecchio announced the creation of the Unique Consular Registry, which allows Venezuelan citizens in the United States to access to its services network. Gustavo Marcano, Counselor Minister of the embassy, explained that in the first phase of the Consular Registry an official census of Venezuelan residents would be carried out, to determined in which states and cites they are distributed in to inform about their current situation and the consular needs to the embassy. [17] Marcano would later state that 70% of the citizens in the Registry expressed that their main necessity was the passport extension. [16]
Juan Guaidó announced the extension of the validity of expired Venezuelan passports for five years since their expiration date. On June 7, 2019, the United States State Department announced the recognition of this extension for the emission of visas and other consular processes; the department also announced that the United States Border Patrol would also accept these passports. In a press conference, Vecchio explained that Venezuelans would be able to enter the United States with expired passports, request visas or use them as a valid identification document for procedures such as the driver's license. [16]
In 2020, the embassy of Venezuela announced that starting from February 19, Venezuelan residents would be able to request No Objection Letters for permanence requests for studies or work, a process would be carried out by Guaidó's diplomatic mission and the US State Department. The director of Consular Affairs, Brian Fincheltub, announced that the embassy would activate the process and emission of said documents, without costs. [16] The document allows foreigners in the United States to extend their stay period originally authorized in the visa. [15]
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Gustavo Tarre Briceño is a Venezuelan politician, lawyer, author, professor of constitutional law and politic science, and representative to the Organization of American States (OAS).
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During the Venezuelan presidential crisis concerning the legitimate President of Venezuela, reactions and responses to the crisis were greatly divided.
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Defections from the Bolivarian Revolution occurred under the administrations of Presidents Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. The 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis concerning who is the legitimate President of Venezuela has been underway since 10 January 2019, when the opposition-majority National Assembly declared that incumbent Nicolás Maduro's 2018 reelection was invalid and the body declared its president, Juan Guaidó, to be acting president of the nation. Guaidó encouraged military personnel and security officials to withdraw support from Maduro, and offered an amnesty law, approved by the National Assembly, for military personnel and authorities who help to restore constitutional order.
During the 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis, AP News reported that "familiar geopolitical sides" had formed, with allies Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, Syria, and Cuba supporting Maduro, and the US, Canada, and most of Western Europe supporting Juan Guaidó as interim president. Amid widespread condemnation, President Maduro was sworn in on 10 January 2019, and the President of the National Assembly, Guaidó, was declared the interim President by that body on 23 January 2019. Intervention by the United States in Venezuela has been alleged by allies of Nicolás Maduro and political figures from the left spectrum; Maduro's government states that the crisis is a "coup d'état led by the United States to topple him and control the country's oil reserves." Guaidó denies the coup allegations, saying peaceful volunteers back his movement. A memo obtained by Agence France-Presse indicated USAID would allocate $41.9 million of its Central American aid fund to support Guaidó administering Venezuela, including $19.4 million for salaries, travel, and "other costs necessary to ensure full deployment of a transparent financial management system and other activities necessary for a democratic transition," as well as $2 million to support the opposition in negotiations with the Maduro administration.
On 30 April, during the Venezuelan presidential crisis, a group of several dozen military personnel and civilians joined Juan Guaidó in his call for an uprising against Nicolás Maduro as part of what he labeled "Operation Freedom". Reuters reported an "uneasy peace" by the afternoon of 30 April. During the uprising attempt, opposition leader Leopoldo López was freed from house arrest after being imprisoned for five years. The head of the Bolivarian Intelligence Service, Manuel Cristopher Figuera denounced the Maduro government and was dismissed from his position before going into hiding. At least 25 military men who opposed Maduro sought asylum at the Brazilian embassy in Caracas.
The following lists events in the year 2020 in Venezuela.
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