Elio Cequea: Clarifying tit-for-tat rumors about the demise of Venezuela's Consulate General in Houston, USA!

VHeadline managing editor Elio Cequea writes: I understand the surprise expressed by President Hugo Chavez over the US State Department's orders to shut the Venezuelan Consulate General's office in Houston ... however, I find difficult to comprehend just why Foreign Minister (MRE), Nicolas Maduro should also -- allegedly -- have been taken so much by surprise.

The lease contract on the Consulate expired on Sunday, August 31, 2008. The owner of the building where the Consulate General had its offices, did NOT want to renew the contract ... he did NOT like the insignificant, but inconvenient, anti-Venezuelan/anti-Chavez protest actions at that location ... and, besides, he already had a fresh client who wanted to lease the entire floor.

Since October 2007, Venezuela's Consul General, Antonio Padrino, (pictured right) had been looking for a new location for the Consulate. The first time he found a suitable location, the deal felt apart because the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry did not respond in time.

Quite simply, the property owner got tired of being screwed around by Venezuela and withdrew the offer.

THEN, in April this year, Padrino found an alternative location ... he sent the proposal to the Foreign Ministry for review and authorization by both the legal and administration departments in Caracas ... the proposal was approved by the MRE in Caracas ... and, in proper order, the Consul (Padrino) asked the US State Department for diplomatic authorization. Usually this is a formality, a matter of protocol!

Yet -- contrary to what President Hugo Chavez Frias appears to have been briefed -- Padrino did indeed inform both the US and Venezuelan authorities about the planned move to the new location! Padrino was told by the US State Department's local office in Houston that the protocol request to move the consulate required a minimum of 30 days. "Off the record" he was also told that it was not a big deal ... but, indeed, the relocation of the Consulate to new offices five miles down the road became a big deal because of subsequent events that have since been dubbed "Black September" ... on September 10, the President of Bolivia expelled the US Ambassador from his country; the very next day, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez Frias did the very same thing to US Ambassador to Venezuela, Patrick Duddy.

Forget the fact that Duddy wasn't even in Venezuela at the time .. he was travelling in the United States!

Nevertheless, as part of the same action, Chavez "withdrew" the Venezuelan Ambassador to Washington, Bernardo Alvarez Herrera while, from Washington;s side, the US State Department expelled Alvarez Herrera and gave him 72 hours to leave the United States.

THE TRUE FACTS OF WHAT SUBSEQUENTLY HAPPENED IN VENEZUELA-USA RELATIONS ARE:

A week later, the US State Department informed the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, DC, that the Houston Consulate should stop operations until permission for the moving was finally approved. Strangely, the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, DC, failed to communicate the US State Department's admonishment to the Consul General and the Consulate continued operations at the new address as they believed was normal.

On October 3 a very upset US State Department called the Venezuelan Embassy with an immediate order to close the Venezuelan Consulate in Houston. It was at this juncture that those in charge of protocol at the (Venezuelan) Embassy in Washington, deigned to finally conveyed details of "the crisis" to luckless Houston Consul General, Antonio Padrino.

According to Venezuela's Washington Embassy, October (last month) was spent in "fruitful negotiations" with the US State Department ... but on Friday, October 31, the State Department blandly informed the Venezuelan government that it was revoking visas, immunity and other diplomatic privileges accorded to TWELVE Venezuelan consular staffers.

Strangely, on that very same day, the US State Department formally approved the moving of the already-moved Consulate to the new location.

On Saturday, November 1, two Venezuelan Embassy officials, specially flown in from Washington, and supposedly acting for and on behalf of Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro, met with the Venezuelan diplomatic staffers in Houston. Consul General Antonio Padrino was strangely excluded from that meeting!

Equally, if not more strangely, the Embassy "negotiators" failed to address the previous day's formal approval of the protocol permission to operate from the new office ... they concentrated their efforts on making sure that the twelve staffers were only then made aware of the US State Department's decision to revoke their diplomatic visas and kick them out of the United States by a November 10 deadline!

Quite frankly ... no matter how President Chavez Frias wants to portray it ... if this is NOT an expulsion, someone has better explain what else it should be called when diplomatic personnel are forced to leave the country, any country, in all haste, by orders of the host country and very much against their own individual wishes.

Very obviously there are a lot of loose ends that must be explained by the Venezuelan embassy in WAshington , DC, by the Foreign Ministry in Caracas and/or President Hugo Chavez Frias himself. Claiming that they were simply recalled home does NOT wash!

The qualified expulsion of the Venezuelan diplomats was kept under wraps from the media for about a week and even now, the Venezuelan public at large is unaware of what actually happened or who is to blame. President Chavez says that Consul General Antonio Padrino was to blame and that he has been dismissed ... but the dismissal of the long-serving General Consul in Houston in no way and in no manner clarifies the situation. Padrino wasn't the only one to get kicked out of the United States as a result of the brouhaha ... a bunch of twelve hassled travelers passed through Caracas (Simin Bolivar) international airport's arrivals gate in the very early hours of Saturday morning, just hours before the US State Department's mandated deadline.

President Hugo Chavez Frias has very obviously been misinformed ... but THAT is not what bothers this writer the most!

I, Elio Cequea, a Venezuelan citizen and long-term resident in Houston, know FOR A FACT that Antonio Padrino and Marisol Gutierrez are two unconditional defenders of the Venezuelan revolution ... but it apparently matters little to some public officials within the Venezuelan administration who would rather that Padrino and Gutierrez be sacrificed if it helps them to extract themselves from situations that they have brought upon themselves through their own indolence and/or incompetence.

May God bring them swiftly to justice!

Elio Cequea
Feico57@att.net

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Venezuela is facing the most difficult period of its history with honest reporters crippled by sectarianism on top of rampant corruption within the administration and beyond, aided and abetted by criminal forces in the US and Spanish governments which cannot accept the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people to decide over their own future.

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