Persecuted members of María Corina Machado's team have spent 50 days in asylum at the Argentine embassy in Caracas and their safe conduct is still on hold

This May 9 marked 50 days since Nicolás Maduro's regime stepped up the persecution against a structural part of opposition leader María Corina Machado's team, which caused several members to go to the Argentine embassy to request refuge.

Several weeks after the head of the campaign and co-founder of Machado's party, Magallí Meda, international coordinator Pedro Urruchurtu, communications coordinator Claudia Macero, former deputy and leader of the party, Omar González, and collaborator Humberto Villalobos took refuge, the possibility that Nicolás Maduro's regime would allow them a safe-conduct was put on the table. However, the promise has not been fulfilled.

Paradoxically, as highlighted on X by former Bolivian President Tuto Quiroga, the Maduro regime is currently leading a cause, together with its extreme left-wing counterparts in the region, to demand a safe-conduct for the former Vice President of Ecuador, Jorge Glas, who was taking refuge in the Mexican embassy in Quito until Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa forcibly detained him, violating the diplomatic headquarters.

Quiroga recalls that by denying safe conduct, the regime of Nicolás Maduro is violating, from Caracas, the Caracas Convention, which establishes the conditions for requesting and guaranteeing political asylum.

In Article IX, the Convention establishes that both the territorial government and the asylum seeker shall respect the "determination [of the asylee] to continue the asylum or to demand safe conduct."

"The Government of the territorial State may, at any time, demand that the asylee be removed from the country, for which purpose it shall grant safe conduct and guarantees," Article XI reads.

The Argentine government, presided over by Javier Milei, has insisted on negotiations to obtain safe conduct for its asylees. Likewise, it has expressed strong support to those who are refugees and to the rest of María Corina Machado's team.

When the Noboa government in Ecuador broke into the Mexican embassy to arrest former Vice President Glas, one of the first regional heads of state to condemn the decision was Nicolás Maduro. He stressed that, as an asylum seeker, Glas deserved respect.

However, in domestic terms, the Maduro regime has harassed and disrespected the asylum status of the politically persecuted.

At the end of March, with the Vente team already a refugee, the Milei government denounced that the Chavista regime was besieging the residence of its ambassador in Caracas after cutting off the power for several hours and surrounding it with Chavista agents.