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Re Spain's Ambassador to Venezuela

By Senator Anasagasti Olabeaga

17.12.04 | The following question, written by Senator Ińaki Mirena Anasagasti Olabeaga, has been presented to Spain's Senate.

I, IŃAKI MIRENA ANASAGASTI OLABEAGA, Senator for Bizkaia and member of the Parliamentary Group of Basque Nationalist Senators, under the rights established in the current Regulation of the Senate, present the following QUESTION for its written answer by the Government.

In the Venezuelan press the following information has aired these days with respect to the ambassador of Spain to Venezuela, D. Raul Morodo:

"Just arrived in Caracas as Ambassador of the Kingdom of Spain, Raul Morodo Leoncio, gathered the personnel of the embassy to advice them that "from now on the flirting with the opposition to the government of Chávez in that diplomatic delegation is terminated for the support from the previous Ambassador to the April 2002 coup participants has come to be questioned". To many, it is surprising the impetus demonstrated by this university professor turned to diplomat. Not a career diplomat, although he had already occupied the Spanish representation before UNESCO and Portugal, his appointment according to information on the Spanish press of May 2004, is due to "his excellent relations with ex- Venezuelan president Carlos Andrés Perez; his founding of PSP (Partido Socialista Popular) with Tender Galván and his close friendship with Alfonso Guerra, leader of the Partido Socialista Obrero Espańol (PSOE) and the Duke of Suarez." Morodo, who sometimes was critical of the Cuban regime, today feels a great admiration for Fidel Castro, that has been demonstrated in different public and private occasions. That enormous interest in the Cuban revolution has turned him immediately into a fervent follower and admirer, simultaneously, of the revolution spearheaded by Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. In addition, counting with the approval of his superior , the Minister of Foreign Affairs Miguel Angel Moratinos , Morodo has been courting the most notorious personages of the chavista regime. Under the pretext of improving relations, the proximity of the ambassador with the government of Chávez has produced some alarm in Spain. A confidential report arrived at the Congress of the Deputies gives account of the setting up, by Morodo, "of an office in the Country's Club residence of the Ambassador totally independent from the Chancellery office of the embassy in La Castellana, to maintain private meetings with civil servants of the Venezuelan government thus bypassing Spanish Consular officials who will not know with whom he meets or talks, nor will they be able to maintain a record of said encounters. At the present time Ambassador Morodo prefers, quite often, to work from the residence". Graver still, according to the report, is "the connection of a direct telephone line of the Venezuelan intergovernmental network (inter-ministerial telephones of the Military House) for Morodo's communications with the high chavista government. Only another ambassador, the one from Cuba, German Sanchez Otero (a.k.a. "the Komissar") had such revolutionary privilege until now".

This senator would wish to know the veracity of this information and why the ambassador has allowed that these news circulate profusely in the Venezuelan press.

Senate's Palace, December 17 2004

Letter in Spanish



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