Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela on Sunday, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the United States his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela.
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In a post on social media, directed at President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year.
“The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that includes the repatriation of 100 per cent of the 252 Venezuelans who were deported, in exchange for the release and surrender of an identical number (252) of the thousands of political prisoners you hold.”
Among those he listed were the son-in-law of former Venezuelan presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, a number of political leaders seeking asylum in the Argentine embassy in Venezuela, and what he said were 50 detained citizens from a number of different countries across the world. Bukele also listed the mother of opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, whose house the political leader has said was surrounded by Venezuelan police in January.
Bukele said he would ask El Salvador’s foreign ministry to be in contact with the Maduro government, which did not immediately respond to the post.
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The proposal comes as El Salvador has come under sharp international scrutiny for accepting Venezuelans and Salvadorans deported by the Trump administration, which accused them of being alleged gang members with little evidence. Deportees are locked up in a “mega-prison” know as the Terrorism Confinement Centre (CECOT), built by the Bukele government during his crackdown on the country’s gangs.