2013: President Maduro Expelled Three US Diplomats

On September 30, 2013 during a live TV appearance, President Nicolas Maduro expelled the top US diplomat in Venezuela (Kelly Keiderling, Charge D’affaires) and two other embassy employees shouting” Out of Venezuela” and “Yankees Go Home.” Maduro said that the group was “dedicated to meeting with the Venezuelan extreme right, to financing it, and feeding its actions to sabotage the Venezuelan economy.” [1] Footage aired on Venezuelan state television showed the US diplomats leaving the offices of Sumate, an NGO which was founded in 2002 by the opposition politician Maria Machado.[4] In 2004, Sumate conducted a recall referendum to remove President Hugo Chavez. In 2005 Machado met with President George Bush in the White House and repeatedly referred to the funding her group had received from the US. The US State Department rejected allegations the US was involved in “any type of conspiracy to destabilize Venezuela’s government.”[2]

In response, the US expelled three Venezuelan diplomats. [2] The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said that it was not a reciprocal decision since the Venezuelan diplomats had never met with groups who were against the US government.[4]

The expulsion of the US diplomats from Venezuela was criticized in the US press:

·       “The charges are ridiculous. The exclusion of the US diplomats …should be taken as one more symptom of the unraveling of the crackpot socialist regime. Mr Maduro has taken to ranting about supposed conspiracies. The Obama administration …[has been] courting Mr Maduro in the naïve belief that relations could be rebuilt. Secretary of State Kerry went out of his way to meet Mr Maduro’s foreign minister.”[3]

 

1.    Guardian, US Diplomats Expelled from Venezuela for Conspiring with ‘Extreme Right’, September 30, 2013

2.    VOANEWS, US Expels 3 Venezuelan Diplomats in Tit-for-Tat Move, October 2, 2013

3.    Washington Post, Venezuela, on the path to implosion, expels diplomats, Editorial, October 6, 2013

4.    Venezuelanalysis, Washington Expels Venezuelan Diplomats in Retaliation, October 3, 2013.

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