‘Vampire’ slips away
BOGOTA Ousted Caracas mayor Antonio Ledezma says he plans to take his fight against Venezuela’s socialist government to Europe after he escaped house arrest and fled to Colombia yesterday.
His escape was an embarrassment for security forces who had been keeping close watch over one of Venezuela’s most prominent opposition leaders.
‘‘I’m more useful fighting for Venezuela’s democracy abroad than I am as a hostage at my home,’’ Ledezma said minutes before boarding a Madrid-bound plane in Colombia’s capital, Bogota.
He said the decision to flee Venezuela was his alone, kept secret even from his family, who have been living abroad.
He provided no details of how he sneaked past the Sebin intelligence police officers stationed 24 hours a day outside his residence, but said that during the long, night-time drive past several national guard checkpoints to Venezuela’s western border, he relied on the help of members of the security forces he described as increasingly fed up with President Nicolas Maduro.
‘‘This decision I took consulting only my conscience,’’ he said, adding that he had spoken by phone with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, who had offered his support.
Colombian immigration authorities said Ledezma entered the country legally after crossing the Simon Bolivar Bridge between the two countries.
‘‘I ask my wife and daughters to understand. They have suffered long hours of anguish without knowing where I was,’’ Ledezma told reporters in the Colombian border town of Cucuta after crossing the bridge from San Antonio in Venezuela. ‘‘It was my decision alone.’’
Speaking on a state television broadcast later, Maduro acknowledged that the man he tauntingly refers to as ‘‘the vampire’’ had escaped the country.
‘‘I hope they never send him back, they can keep the Vampire,’’ Maduro said. ‘‘The people of Madrid will have to be careful at night.’’
Ledezma, 62, was removed as mayor of Caracas and detained in 2015 on charges of plotting to oust Maduro. After a few months in jail, he was released and placed under house arrest due to health issues.
He was one of the leaders of REUTERS anti-government protests that rocked Venezuela in 2014, which also led to the jailing of other prominent opponents.
Ledezma said the decision to abandon his homeland was driven by unspecified threats intended to force the opposition to resume politically fraught negotiations with the government.
‘‘It’s time for [Maduro] to step aside and allow a transition government,’’ he said. ‘‘Maduro can- not keep torturing the Venezuelan people. He’s killing Venezuelans with hunger.’’
Ledezma was forcibly taken from his home in the middle of the night in August and thrown back in jail for a few days as the government cracked down on opponents following criticism of a vote granting the ruling party nearly unlimited powers.
He has adamantly criticised other members of the opposition alliance for being too accommodating with the government.
Lawmakers from his Alliance for the Brave People political party were among a small group of hardliners who this week formed their own parliamentary bloc after the main opposition alliance sent representatives to the Dominican Republic to discuss an agenda for future talks with senior officials. Those negotiations are slated to begin on December 1 under international mediation from six nations, including Maduro’s leftist allies Nicaragua and Bolivia.
‘‘I’ve never been an enemy of dialogue, but these talks are a joke,’’ Ledezma said.
Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have crossed into Colombia to flee their nation’s volatile economy and political hostility in recent years, many crossing over the same bridge that Ledezma took. In August, Venezuela’s ousted chief prosecutor, Luisa Ortega Diaz, came to Colombia after first fleeing to Aruba. Other opposition leaders and magistrates have also sought refuge there. AP