Costa Rica offers political asylum to Maria Corina Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez

The Costa Rican government on Tuesday offered political asylum to Edmundo González and opposition leader María Corina Machado after learning that there were arrest warrants against them.

“We have been informed that there are arrest warrants against María Corina Machado and Edmundo González in Venezuela. Through me, the Government of the Republic announces that we are willing to grant political asylum and refuge in Costa Rica to both María Corina Machado and Edmundo González,” said Foreign Minister Arnoldo André in a video distributed to the media.

The foreign minister extended the offer to “any other politically persecuted in Venezuela, especially those people who are refugees in the Argentine Embassy in Caracas.”

Nicolás Maduro on Tuesday blamed the opposition presidential candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, for the deaths – estimated at 11 by NGOs – recorded in the protests in recent hours against the results of the electoral body on Sunday, which ratified the Chavista leader in his position.

Maduro also blamed María Corina Machado for the violence unleashed, largely carried out by the police and military forces who have repressed peaceful protesters with buckshot and tear gas, as EFE confirmed in Caracas.

After learning of the proclamation of Nicolás Maduro as re-elected president last Sunday, the Government of Costa Rica described the result of the electoral process as “fraudulent” and on Monday joined Argentina, Chile, Peru, Panama, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay in a statement demanding transparency.

The Maduro government described the statement as “interventionist” and ordered the expulsion of diplomats from those seven countries.

However, Costa Rica reported that since 2020 it has suspended its diplomatic relations with Venezuela with the closure of the embassy and that at this time bilateral relations are limited to the consular sphere, which are carried out from its consulates in Panama and Colombia.

“Costa Rica suspended diplomatic relations with the Nicolás Maduro regime since 2020, with the withdrawal of a Costa Rican diplomatic official and the closure of the Embassy and Consulate, which became effective as of October 1, 2020,” the Costa Rican Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The text adds that “in 2023, consular, not diplomatic, relations were resumed” and that currently “there is no diplomatic or consular staff in Venezuela.”