Since Nicolás Maduro came to power in 2013 and after the marches that Leopoldo López - then leader of the Voluntad Popular party - led and that led him into the darkness of Ramo Verde, Venezuela has seen its people leave in droves. Juan Guaidó is the latest in a long line of exiles. Among the 'children' expelled are recognizable faces from the opposition, many of whom have ended up in Spain starring in movie escapes.
Venezuelan journalist Miguel Henrique Otero, president of the newspaper El Nacional, persecuted by Chavismo, has been in exile in Spain for years. Legal charges weigh against him and the harassment at his head has continued even far from his homeland. Like Leopoldo López Gil, who arrived in our country at the end of 2014, forced to escape for being a member of the editorial board of the aforementioned opposition media. Both have been and are spokespersons for Venezuelans abroad. López Gil is currently a PP MEP.
The former metropolitan mayor of Caracas fled his homeland in November 2017. Months earlier, in August of that same year, Sebin (Bolivarian Intelligence Service) entered his house without any order and took him out in his pajamas with his family as a witness. "Today, when I arrive in Spain, I feel free," he declared upon landing at the Barajas airport. So, he narrated a movie escape: more than 24 hours and 29 checkpoints until he managed to reach Colombia after managing to escape the arrest to which he was subjected. And how did he get it? With the help of "the military dissatisfied with the Government", he responded to it already on Spanish soil.
Moving was the image of the reunion of Leopoldo López with his family, published by Voluntad Popular, in October 2020. The media waited for him with expectation at the Madrid airport after the news broke to capture his arrival in a country where he could finally feeling free. But it was impossible to capture that snapshot, since the most representative opponent of Chavismo decided on a discreet landing. The former political prisoner spent three and a half years in the Ramo Verde prison and under house arrest for almost two years. Along with Juan Guiadó, he led an attempted military rebellion, which was unsuccessful. On April 30 of that year he took refuge in the Spanish embassy in Caracas and from there, after a secret trip, he arrived in Madrid in October.
Less well known, but who also experienced a heart attack flight, were Lester Toledo and Franco Casella. Toledo (then a Popular Will deputy for Zulia) was also persecuted by Sebin and even spent three days in an air conditioning duct. Later, he boarded a boat for 16 hours, as he told this newspaper in December 2017, and took a plane, from there he managed to reach the United States. Deputy Casella spent four months at the Mexican embassy in Caracas and left through Colombia. The case of the young Lorent Saleh is particular, since he arrived in Madrid freed by Chavismo. "They released me at the moment I was most afraid, because the opponent Fernando Albán [who fell from the tenth floor of the building] was assassinated days before by the Venezuelan State," Saleh commented at a press conference in Madrid in October 2018.
Juan Guaidó himself has already left his country to embark on a European tour, in January 2020. Despite the dangers that the departure entailed, he decided to tour several countries, including Spain, to promote the democratic cause.
More than seven million Venezuelans have already left Venezuela, making it one of the most serious migration crises in the world. Most go to neighboring countries on foot due to lack of resources. Colombia, Peru, Chile or Brazil have received hundreds of them in recent years and have even had to implement emergency measures to manage their arrivals. Among those who can afford to take a plane, many of them choose Europe in search of a future in freedom and without violence.
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