Dominican Republic and Venezuela entered this week in a field of direct confrontation at the highest level, with attacks and counterattacks between the Chavista leader Diosdado Cabello, president of the National Constituent Assembly of the South American nation, and Dominican Foreign Minister Miguel Vargas .
The new conflict broke out last Tuesday when Cabello said in a press conference that the government of President Danilo Medina caused the frustration of Sunday’s municipal elections in the Dominican Republic because they were going to lose them, and that little attention to the issue by The international press is because in the Caribbean country they are lackeys of the United States.
Immediately, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Miguel Vargas, described the statements of the influential Venezuelan official as extremist, disrespectful and unfortunate. The tension increased yesterday after another video circulated where the president of the National Constituent Assembly of Venezuela reiterates his position, and denies that his statements are an interference.
“The only culprits are those who are ruled Dominican Republic at this time. People are not protesting in the streets or for what Diosdado said or for Venezuela, they are protesting against the Government and the Electoral Board because there are no elections, that is the true truth, the rest, blame me if you want. I have no news, ”said Hair in a television show where dozens of Venezuelans who applauded him were present, as seen in the video.
“Here in Venezuela, if someone from those countries should remember how they were when Hugo Chavez held out his hand. Its presidents should remember, the people remember. You go to the Dominican Republic and ask for Hugo Chavez and applaud him, because the people are grateful, they are the governments that are lackeys of the United States! Long live Chavez! ”, he said.
Chancellor Vargas’s reaction was swift and he reproached Cabello through an official statement, where he considers that in electoral matters and in all democratic sections the Venezuelan official lacks quality to teach the Dominicans, where officials, the opposition and legislators move and act with total freedom and independence. “Nobody is persecuted for their ideas and the media perform with absolute freedom,” he said.
“The suspension of municipal elections, due to automated voting failures, was made by the Central Electoral Board, an autonomous and independent body, after consulting with the political parties and in which the Executive Power intervened for nothing,” said Vargas, who is also president of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), an ally of the official Dominican Liberation Party (PLD).
Vargas also reminded Cabello that the Dominican Republic hosted, between September 2017 and January 2018, the dialogue efforts to find a solution to the long political crisis in Venezuela. The dialogue failed when representatives of the government and the opposition failed to agree.
Relationship cracks
This conflict further aggravates the cracked diplomatic, political and economic relations between the two nations, which reached their lowest level when the Dominican Republic officially supported on February 4 of last year the Venezuelan president, Juan Guaidó, as head of power. Executive of that nation, when the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) held an extraordinary session and ignored the legitimacy of the second mandate of Nicolás Maduro with a favorable vote of the member states.
Since then, two Venezuelan ambassadors operate in the Dominican Republic: Ali de Jesús Uzcategui Duque, from the government of Nicolás Maduro, and Eusebio Carlino Linares, appointed by the government of Guidó.
During the government of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, the Dominican Republic was one of the privileged members of the Petrocaribe Agreement, signed on September 7, 2005 to supply oil at a preferential price.
On January 30, 2015 the Dominican government and the company of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (PDVSA) reached an agreement to settle the debt owed by the country generated by the Petrocaribe Agreement, which amounted to December 31, 2014 to US $ 4,123.8 million. Since March 6, 2010 PDVSA manages 49% of the shares of the Dominican Petroleum Refinery (Refidomsa), following an agreement between the presidents of then Hugo Chávez and Leonel Fernández.
On March 27 of last year Venezuela accused the Dominican Republic of trying to transfer these actions to Guaidó’s allies, but this version was denied by the president of the Félix Jiménez Refinery, who in turn expressed that he was not owed money for purchase of oil to Venezuela and that his country maintained the interest of buying these shares.
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