The presidents Jorge Quiroga (Bolivia), Andrés Pastrana (Colombia), Laura Chinchilla (Costa Rica), Ricardo Lagos (Chile), Felipe Calderon (Mexico), Alejandro Toledo (Peru) and Luis Alberto Lacalle (Uruguay), involved in a Madrid Club meeting in the capital of Spain, today issued a joint statement on the situation in Venezuela.
The presidents called for the "rigged process" and "persecution" the Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez and all opponents of the regime and an "international observation" of the legislative elections scheduled for December 6 in Venezuela are canceled.
Furthermore, in its statement, read by the Bolivian President Jorge Quiroga, they said they "would be a contradiction" that the Human Rights Council of the UN accept the Venezuelan regime, which "persecutes the opposition, criminalize dissent and does not respect the free expression.
This statement comes after last Friday the prosecutor in the trial of Lopez tax, Nevis Franklin, admitted the "fraudulent nature of the evidence" against the opposition, which confirmed yesterday in a television interview from the United States, where He fled from Venezuela.
Ricardo Lagos said that "where human rights violations is an obligation of the Democrats raising his voice," in line with Alejandro Toledo, who insisted that "human rights are universal" and "have no nationality."
Request that these rights are respected in Venezuela is not to intervene in its affairs, said Toledo.
The presidents also lamented the official silence of the current Latin American leaders about the situation of Lopez, convicted of public incitement, conspiracy, damage to property and arson after the violence that occurred during demonstrations against the government in February of the year past, which caused 43 deaths.
Calderon called democratic governments "break the deafening silence" before this "undeniable abuse" referring to statements by the prosecutor Nieves.
"What are they thinking today the presidents of Latin America when the prosecutor has said that this is a false judgment?" Asked Andrés Pastrana.
Regarding the legislative elections of December 6 in Venezuela, the exmandatarios called for an international observation and demanded the presence of the Brazilian jurist and former minister, Nelson Jobim, who was supposed to chair the UNASUR group of observers but was rejected by v
Venezuela.
The event was attended by the father Leopoldo Lopez, who thanked the support he is receiving, he insisted that human rights have no nationality and described as "mockery of the world" that Venezuela is sitting on the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations.
The father of the Venezuelan opposition also claimed political persecution in Venezuela, where he said that besides the 80 political prisoners, there are 3,000 people who have their freedom alibi and can not participate in politics.
Also he is speaking Venezuelan journalist Miguel Henrique Otero, editor of the newspaper El Nacional, who declared that Venezuela is "a pure and hard dictatorship" and denounced the persecution of the media in his country.