Venezuela’s opposition leader flees to Spain
Newshour
BBC
4.4 • 984 Ratings
🗓️ 8 September 2024
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Spanish foreign minister says his country is offering political asylum to the Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate, Edmundo González. What hope now for the opposition?
Also in the programme: A number of Israeli civilians have been shot dead at a border crossing between Jordan and the Occupied West Bank, after a night of cross-border missile exchanges between Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops; and, a warning to the West about the danger of Russian spies.
(Photo: Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez on the day he casts his vote in the country's presidential election, in Caracas, Venezuela. Credit: REUTERS/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to News Hour from the BBC World Service coming to you live |
| 0:07.6 | from London I'm Paul Henley. The leader of Venezuela's political opposition is on his way to Spain today having been offered asylum in Madrid. |
| 0:17.0 | Edmondo Gonzalez had been in hiding in his home country, ignoring various summons to appear before prosecutors, arguing that |
| 0:24.6 | turning up would have cost him his freedom. Madrid's foreign minister Jose Manuel |
| 0:29.2 | al-Birez-Bére's Bueno has confirmed that Mr. Gonzalez left Caracas on a Spanish military plane. |
| 0:35.0 | I was able to speak to him once he was on the plane and he expressed his gratitude |
| 0:42.2 | to the government and to Spain. |
| 0:44.8 | I told him how happy we are that he is well and on his way to Spain and I reiterated the government's |
| 0:49.9 | commitment to the political rights freedom of expression and demonstration of all |
| 0:54.2 | Venezuelans. Venezuela's been in political crisis since July when |
| 0:59.2 | Nicholas Maduro declared himself the victor of elections. The US, the European Union and numerous |
| 1:05.6 | Latin American countries have refused to accept the result, which still hasn't been backed up |
| 1:10.7 | by any convincing data. |
| 1:12.8 | Let's speak live to Dr. Vanessa Neumann. |
| 1:15.6 | She is the former London envoy of Juan Guaidou, |
| 1:19.2 | the former leader of the Venezuelan opposition |
| 1:21.5 | who was recognized by 50 countries as Venezuela's leader. |
| 1:25.4 | And Dr Neumann joins me now live from Madrid. |
| 1:28.1 | What is your reaction to this? |
| 1:30.1 | Hi, thank you very much for having me. |
| 1:32.1 | Well, it's dismay, dismay and a little bit of here we go again. I mean, in Madrid, you have a huge swaths of the opposition here in exile. You have a straight, it's a little bit like Buenos Aires after World War II |
| 1:46.2 | you have you have a combination of a lot of opposition in exile here and you also have a lot of the family members of the of the |
... |
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