This is CBS. I on the world. I'm John Batchelah. I welcome Mary Anastasia O'Grady, the America's

columnist and editor for the Wall Street Journal editorial page, writing of the Embassy Five,

the Embassy Five in the Argentinian Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela.

All these things go together because it points to decisions that are pending about Cuba.

Mary, a very good evening to you.

The Embassy 5, you list their names.

You say they are besieged by the Maduro regime, in particular armed men, pounding, starving, embargoing.

They're living on reduced rations in the Argentinian embassy, if I understand correctly.

Why? Why are they there and why is Maduro harassing them?

They're on Argentine ground.

That's agreed upon at embassies. Good evening to you. Well, good evening, John. Yes.

There's five very courageous Venezuelans have been in the Argentine embassy in Caracas since March of last year.

They fled there because they were working as volunteers to try to organize the opposition for the July 28th election.

So they were part of the Democratic opposition.

And Maduro decided that they should be in jail, so they fled there to avoid arrest.

And of course, Argentina, being a country that's sympathetic to freedom and the rights of

democratic actors was a good place for them to go for protection.

And, of course, when they got there, they wanted to be given safe conduct out of the country,

which is part of the international convention called the Caracas Convention,

just sort of ironically that it was actually signed in Caracas.

But Maduro will not let them go.

And so they've been there for nine months.

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