Venezuela suspends UN rights office, expels staff
Foreign minister sees agency’s action as support for ‘coup plotters and terrorists.’
Venezuela on Thursday suspended activities of the United Nations rights office in the country and ordered its staff to leave within 72 hours after it expressed deep concern over the detention of a prominent activist.
Rocio San Miguel, 57, was arrested last Friday in the immigration area of an airport in Caracas, sparking an international outcry.
Prosecutors have accused her of “treason” and “terrorism” for her purported role in the latest alleged plot to assassinate President Nicolas Maduro, which the government has said was backed by the United States.
Foreign Minister Yvan Gil said the UN rights office had taken on an “inappropriat role” and had become “the private law firm of the coup plotters and terrorists who permanently conspire against the country.”
He said the decision would remain in place until the agency “publicly rectifies, before the international community, its colonialist, abusive and violating attitude of the United Nations Charter.”
Meanwhile, Maduro lashed out at his Argentine counterpart Thursday, three days after the United States completed the seizure of a Venezuelan plane held in Buenos Aires since June 2022.
“They stole our plane... Milei the bandit stole the plane from Venezuela. Javier Milei, the hero of the extreme right,” Maduro said in a televised statement about the Argentine president.
“He acts crazy or he is crazy or both at the same time,” he added.
The Boeing 747 cargo plane owned by Venezuelan company Emtrasur has been held in Argentina since landing there in 2022 from Mexico with a shipment of auto parts.
The 19-member crew was comprised of Venezuelans and Iranians — one of whom the US suspected had links to the Al Quds Force, a group of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards classified as a terrorist organization by the US.
All the crew were initially detained but later freed.
The plane was sold to Emtrasur, a subsidiary of state airline Conviasa, by Iran’s Mahan Air in October 2021 which the US said contravened its sanctions against both countries.
Caracas and Tehran protested American attempts to seize the plane, but an Argentinian judge last month ordered it surrendered to the US.