Venezuela's Washington Embassy Cancels Independence Celebration, Citing Honduras Coup

Published December 24, 2015

Venezuela's embassy in Washington, D.C., canceled Tuesday's reception celebrating the country's independence, citing diplomatic efforts to restore Manuel Zelaya to Honduras' presidency.

The move -- announced Monday -- was noticeably similar to the Obama administration's decision to withdraw invitations to Iranian diplomats ahead of July 4 celebrations in response to the Iranian government's recent bloody crackdown on demonstrators protesting the disputed presidential election result.

Venezuelan ambassador to the U.S. Bernardo Alvarez Herrera said in a statement Monday that the country's Washington embassy will "suspend" its July 7 Independence Day celebration, citing the political crisis in Honduras. Venezuela's official day of independence is July 5.

"The Latin American region has been severely impacted in recent days by the coup d' etat against the constitutional and democratically elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya Rosales," Herrera said. "All the diplomatic power of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), and other regional integration organizations, are aimed at addressing this sensitive issue and to achieve the restoration of the constitutional and democratic government in Honduras."

The Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, known by the Spanish acronym ALBA, is a regional economic trade group comprised of the leftist countries of Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Honduras, Venezuela, Cuba and three other Caribbean island nations.

Herrera did not say in his statement whether canceled celebration of the Venezuelan holiday extended beyond the embassy in Washington -- and press aides with the Venezuelan embassy there said they did not know if celebrations had been called off in other countries.

Zelaya, a wealthy, conservative rancher who moved to the left after his 2005 election and allied himself with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, was ousted June 28 and sent into exile for trying to hold a referendum deemed illegal by the nation's Supreme Court. He made an unsuccessful attempt to return home over the weekend but was diverted to Nicaragua.

Zelaya said he hopes to win greater U.S. support for efforts to regain power. He was in Washington, D.C., Tuesday -- accompanied by the Venezuelan embassy's second in command -- to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to discuss intensified efforts to restore himself to power.

The White House has said it supports Zelaya's return to power out of respect for a democratically elected government.

"We do so not because we agree with him," Obama said of Zelaya during a speech Monday in Moscow. "We do so because we respect the universal principle that people should choose their own leaders, whether they are leaders we agree with or not."

URL

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/venezuelas-washington-embassy-cancels-independence-celebration-citing-honduras-coup