Colombia deports opposition leader Juan Guaidó to Miami ahead of summit on Venezuela

The Colombian government deported Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó late on Monday, saying he had entered the country illegally, and put him on a commercial flight bound for Miami after being told by a high-ranking U.S. official of his whereabouts, Colombia’s foreign minister said.

The opposition leader, who arrived in Miami early Tuesday morning, had entered Colombia hoping to meet with some of the delegations sent to Bogotá to participate in a diplomatic summit organized by leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro to discuss the crisis in Venezuela.

But Guaidó entered Colombia without going through regular immigration channels, which prompted local officials to start searching for him, Colombian Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva told reporters.

“We knew he was here because of all the noise he was making, that he was going to stage a protest. ... Naturally, immigration set out to find out what had happened. Finally, it came to be known from a high-ranking U.S. official where he was, which allowed immigration to reach him,” Leyva said. Guaido was then taken to El Dorado International Airport.

The opposition leader was accompanied to the airport by U.S. officials and the air fare was paid by the United States, Leyva said, stressing that Colombia needed to place Guaidó in a plane out of Colombia because they had to enforce the law and that the United States helped because they did not want to see the Bogotá gathering disrupted.

Leyva’s comments were a different version of events from the account given by Petro, who hours earlier had denied that Guaidó had been forced to leave Colombia.

“Mr. Guaidó was not expelled,” Petro said on Twitter. “it is better that lies do not appear in politics. Mr. Guaidó had an agreement to travel to the US. We allow it for humanitarian reasons despite the illegal entry into the country.”

Until Petro’s election last year, Colombia was one of the strongest supporters of Guaidó, recognizing him along with the United States and dozens of other nations as the legitimate president of Venezuela, after the Venezuelan National Assembly declared that strongman Nicolás Maduro had usurped the presidency.

Guaidó said upon arriving at Miami International Airport that he was concerned about the safety of his wife, Fabiana, his family and followers.

“I am very worried about my family and my work team because they have already seen the consequences of a dictatorship. They have been tortured, persecuted and at this moment directly threatened, not only against Fabiana but also against my family directly,” Guaidó said after arriving in Miami.

“Today, unfortunately, I can say that the persecution has spread to Colombia,” he added. “My expectations now are that the countries participating in the summit speak about human rights, about the Venezuelans who are seeking refuge, that they raise their voices at a summit organized by President Petro, who in one way or another has already established a position on what is happening in Venezuela.”

Guaidó said it had taken him some 60 hours of travel, evading the persecution of the Maduro regime, to meet with visiting diplomats in Bogotá.

Guaidó’s prestige has been greatly diminished after leading the Venezuelan opposition for four years and after the National Assembly had named him interim president to replace Maduro in January 2019. Guaidó, however, never had control over Venezuelan institutions, and despite receiving widespread recognition among Western democracies, he was unable to affect the Venezuelan strongman’s hold on power.

That made him unpopular among Venezuelan exiles in Miami.

“He embodies the failure of the Venezuelan opposition,” said José Antonio Colina, president of Politically Persecuted Venezuelans in Exile. “He had an opportunity to do much, but in the end, did very little, and now he joins the vast numbers of Venezuelans forced to flee into exile.”

The gathering in Bogotá about Venezuela was called by Petro, who met President Joe Biden last week in Washington at the White House to convince him that it is possible to organize free elections in Venezuela if the United States lifts sanctions imposed on the Caracas socialist regime.

The administration said U.S. diplomats will participate in the summit and engage in discussions with diplomats from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Bolivia, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Norway, Canada, Honduras, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Turkey and South Africa.