MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguay's ambassador to Venezuela resigns

Eber da Rosa cited personal reasons for his decision

Uruguay's Ambassador to Venezuela Eber da Rosa announced Monday that he was resigning for personal reasons. His decision left the Multicolor Government of President Luis Lacalle Pou with the task of deciding which sort of diplomatic representation it plans to have in Caracas amid growing fears that elections will not be transparent following the disenfranchisement of opposition leader María Corina Machado.

“We received the report from Ambassador Da Rosa on the political situation in Venezuela and unfortunately the concern of the Uruguayan government is ratified: the viability of the democratic normalization process is in question due to a series of actions by the government,” Foreign Minister Omar Paganini posted on X.

“The government believes it is convenient and necessary to maintain diplomatic ties with Venezuela. Consequently, the Uruguayan government will evaluate the representation to be maintained in Caracas, while it follows Venezuela's political evolution attentively,” he added.

The Uruguayan government said last month that it was following with “great concern” the situation in Venezuela and assured that Machado's banning rendered free and transparent elections unfeasible. In this scenario, Uruguay's government must decide whether to send a new ambassador or downgrade its representation to a chargé d'affaires.

“With persecution and proscription of candidates, with imprisonment of social leaders and expulsion of international representatives, the democratic normalization sought with the Barbados Agreement will not be achieved,” he went on.

On Feb. 8, Paganini summoned Da Rosa for consultations to report on “worrying events” that would make “unfeasible” the holding of free elections in that country.

Lacalle Pou has already described Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's regime as a “dictatorship.” Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez replied that the Uruguayan head of state was a “lackey,” to which Lacalle answered that “when you lack arguments, you resort to offense.”

“Ambassador Da Rosa expressed to us his indeclinable and immediate decision to resign from his post for personal reasons. However, we believe it is convenient and necessary to maintain diplomatic ties with Venezuela,” Paganini wrote in a thread on the social network X (formerly Twitter) after informing about the call for consultation made to the ambassador.