The Government came out to categorically deny the publication of the Venezuelan newspaper “La Razón” – a dissident of Nicolás Maduro – which claimed that the kidnapping of Venezuelan lieutenant Ronald Ojeda took place in the framework of a “police agreement” signed between the Chilean and Venezuelan administrations.
In the aforementioned publication, the agreement signed by the Undersecretary of the Interior, Manuel Monsalveduring his trip to Caracas last January 18, which “promotes and improves the relationship in terms of police collaboration between Chile and Venezuela”, between the heads of the Bolivarian National Police (PNB), the Bolivian National Guard ( GNB), the Scientific, Criminal and Criminalistic Investigation Corps (CICPC), the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin) and the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM).
“The signing of the collaboration agreement on police matters (…) opened the doors of that country to the Venezuelan police and military organizationsquestioned internationally by both the UN Human Rights Commission and the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court,” the publication adds.
The same undersecretary Monsalve responded this day, ensuring that the publication is a “total lie.” “I want to make a very clear, very clear and very blunt statement: it is a total lie. If you ask me how I rate that publication, I rate it as a total lie,” he expressed from La Moneda.
“My task as Undersecretary of the Interior is to contribute to the Government’s fight against criminal organizations, and secondly, our task is also to carry out expulsion processes, precisely to remove people who constitute a risk from Chile. for national security,” he explained.
“In this context we have carried out relations with other countries, such as Bolivia, such as Peru, and also the police collaboration agreement that we signed with Venezuela,” he added.
“Agreement that is public, the trip was public. I held two meetings in Caracas, in both of which the ambassador, the secretary general of the Foreign Ministry, and the national deputy director of the PDI were present, meetings that were also public. So, let me tell you the absurdity of the theory,” he added.
“Irresponsible” publication
In that sense, Undersecretary Monsalve asked for responsibility when facing this issue and considered statements of this type foolish and “irresponsible.”
“The publication of that newspaper suggests that we agreed to commit a crime of kidnapping and to violate the sovereignty of the country. Does a statement of this nature make sense to you?,” he said.
“The signed agreement has only one purpose, which is the fight against criminal organizations. It is known to all that there are criminal organizations of Venezuelan origin in Chile. All of Chile is interested in us being able to identify and arrest the leaders of criminal organizations and the agreement has a single purpose because it is a police collaboration agreement, not a political collaboration agreement,” he concluded.