The government of Chile presented a formal note of protest to Venezuela’s socialist regime this week in response to Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab accusing Chilean intelligence officials of involvement in the death of Venezuelan dissident Ronald Ojeda.
Saab suggested Ojeda’s death, believed to be a planned homicide, was a “false flag” operation.
Police and forensic investigators work in the area where the body of former Venezuelan military officer Roland Ojeda was found in Santiago, Chile, March 1, 2024. (Esteban Felix/AP)
Ojeda, 32 at the time of his death, was a former Venezuelan lieutenant and a dissident of the Maduro regime once imprisoned on charges of rebellion and treason. Ojeda escaped prison and fled to Chile in 2017, eventually receiving asylum status from the Chilean government in December 2023.
In February, three individuals impersonating Chilean police officers abducted Ojeda from his residence, dragging him out of his apartment barefoot and in his underwear. Ojeda’s body was found ten days later buried inside a suitcase under a concrete structure in Chile’s Santiago metropolitan region.
Following an extensive investigation, the Chilean Prosecutor’s Office announced in March that the Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan transnational criminal organization widely believed to have ties to the regime of dictator Nicolás Maduro, was involved in the killing of Ojeda.
President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, on December 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Shortly afterwards, Chilean authorities determined that the main suspect in the case was not just linked to Tren de Aragua, but had once worked for the Venezuelan government in 2015.
A report published in April by Colombia’s Caracol Televisión claimed that – based on testimonies and documentations obtained by the news channel, including documentation from U.S. authorities – the Maduro regime enlisted the aid of the Tren de Aragua to persecute Venezuelan dissidents currently located in other countries in the region.
The widow and sister of former Venezuelan military officer Ronald Ojeda bury him at Canaan Cemetery in Santiago, Chile, Friday, March 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
The Maduro regime’s Attorney General Tarek William Saab claimed this week that the murder of Ojeda was part of a “false flag” operation with the purported objective of “muddying the relations between Chile and Venezuela.” Saab denied that there was a “political motive” for killing the Venezuelan dissident and suggested that “Chilean and foreign intelligence bodies with spurious interests” could have been involved in the crime.
The Venezuelan attorney general’s statements prompted the condemnation of Chilean Foreign Minister Alberto van Klaveran on Thursday, who described Saab’s claims as “unacceptable” and “incomprehensible.”
On that same day, Chilean President Gabriel Boric announced that he would instruct van Klaveran to issue a formal note of protest to the Maduro regime over Saab’s statements.
“Chile is a serious country, where institutions work, where there is separation of powers and where the Prosecutor’s Office is carrying out a responsible investigation,” Boric said, asserting that if Venezuelan police authorities have “serious, real antecedents, they have to make them available to the Chilean Prosecutor’s Office.”
President of Chile Gabriel Boric delivers a speech during the State of the Union Report at the National Congress building on June 1, 2024, in Valparaiso, Chile. (Lucas Aguayo/Getty Images)
“The Venezuelan prosecutor’s comments show that there is no adequate will to be able to solve a case that is tremendously complex,” he added. “We are going to insist in all instances without naivety for this to change and we are going to adopt all the measures within our reach.”
Chilean Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Gloria de la Fuente announced at a Friday morning press conference that the note of protest had been delivered to Venezuelan Ambassador in Chile Arévalo Méndez. In the note, de la Fuente said, the Chilean government expressed its “dissatisfaction with the statements made by the Venezuelan Attorney General, Tarek William Saab.”
Boric ruled out on Thursday that Chile would rupture its relations with Venezuela over Ojeda’s death, asserting to reporters that “what has been proven to work is serious work, when there is bilateral cooperation.”
“And I have no doubt that when institutions of our country are insulted, denigrated or questioned we have to respond very clearly and firmly as our foreign minister has done and as I am doing,” Boric said.
“Of course, we demand respect from all countries with respect to Chilean institutions and in this respect no one in the government or the State can have any doubt that we have to be on the same line,” he continued.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
