JORGE RUEDA
Associated Press
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela’s socialist government on Tuesday recalled for consultations its ambassador to Spain to protest Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s call to free a jailed opposition activist who led anti-government protests earlier this year.
Rajoy met with the wife of jailed hardliner Leopoldo Lopez last week in Madrid and posted on Twitter a short message urging his release.
Although that’s something the United States, the United Nations and other foreign governments have demanded previously, it was enough to trigger an angry rebuke from President Nicolas Maduro, who blasted the conservative leader for “interfering” in Venezuela’s affairs.
“He thinks he’s the king, the owner of the Americas,” Maduro said last week, accusing Rajoy of trying to distract attention from Spain’s economic problems. “Go talk about the disaster you’re creating for the Spanish people.”
Opposition leaders however say it’s Maduro that is looking for a scapegoat, as Venezuelans grow frustrated with long lines for food and other basic goods, the result of an economic crisis in the oil-rich nation marked by soaring 60 percent inflation and a drought of dollars.
Lopez has been jailed since February for leading protests that rocked Venezuela in February seeking to force Maduro’s resignation just a few months after his party prevailed in municipal elections. He is charged with inciting violence.
It’s not the first time Venezuela’s socialist government has picked a fight with the former colonial power.
Former Spanish King Juan Carlos famously told the late Hugo Chavez to “shut up” at a regional summit in Chile in 2007. Venezuela threatened to cut commercial and diplomatic ties at the time but the dispute was smoothed over by Spain’s then-socialist government.
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