Venezuelan diplomats in the U.S. face uncertainty: Do they go home or stay?
Venezuelan diplomats with assignments in the United States are facing conflicting orders: one issued by the internationally delegitimized President Nicolás Maduro calling them home; the other, by interim President Juan Guaidó telling them to remain at their posts.
Their decision on whether to stay or go will impact the thousands of Venezuelans who require consular services such as obtaining or renewing passports. News agencies reported that the Venezuelan consulate in Washington posted a sign Friday saying it was closed “until further notice.”
Nearly 100 staffers work at Venezuelan diplomatic missions across the United States, according to a former diplomat who represented his country before the United Nations, the Organization of American States and the Venezuelan consulate in Miami. He asked to remain anonymous.
During a public rally in Caracas on Friday, Guaidó urged Venezuelan diplomats overseas to disobey Maduro’s orders to leave the United States and close the embassy in Washington as well as the consulates in Miami, New York, Houston, New Orleans, San Francisco, Chicago and Puerto Rico.
“To those officials, I say: Reject the usurper [of the presidency] and continue carrying out your function. Stay to take care of your people,” he declared during a speech in the Chacao sector of Caracas.
Guaidó dismissed Maduro’s order to leave as an act of “arrogance” and said it would leave unprotected the more than 1 million Venezuelans who live in the United States.
“He doesn’t care about the immigration status of our Venezuelan brothers in that country,” Guaidó added.
Guaidó also said that a staffer at the consulate in Houston appointed under the Maduro regime had called him Friday to express her support.
“She told me, ‘At your orders, Mr. President. I am staying,’ ” Guaidó said, adding that he thanked the official, who then began the process of working for his government. He did not provide her name.
Guaidó also said that the U.S. diplomats at the embassy in Caracas also should remain at their posts.
“They are concerned about their security. It’s logical because we’re confronting a dictatorship. Their families will probably leave,” he said. “And I want to say is that the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela is staying, and with the doors open.”
Business impact
Diego Arria, a former Venezuelan ambassador to the United Nations, said Maduro’s orders to close the diplomatic missions prove he cares little for Venezuelans who live in the United States.
“He’s done this because he doesn’t care about Venezuelans. He considers Venezuelans living abroad to be his enemies,” Arria said, adding that the order to close the diplomatic missions will affect all Venezuelans as well as entrepreneurs who import and export between the two countries.
Venezuelan diplomatic properties in the United States do not run any risks because the U.S. government will protect them, he added.
Some of the properties are valuable. Arria estimated that the Venezuelan consulate near New York City’s Fifth Avenue alone is worth around $100 million.
The residence of the Venezuelan ambassador to the United Nations has been valued at about $30 million. And the country also owns a building in Washington, D.C., that houses its missions to the United States and the Organization of American States as well as a consulate.
The former Venezuelan diplomat who asked for anonymity said some of the properties house valuable works of art from well-known painters and sculptors, including busts of independence hero Simón Bolívar.
This story was originally published January 25, 2019 at 6:51 PM.