Thirty-two years after the abduction and forced transfer of Venezuelan freedom fighter Ilich Ramírez Sánchez from Sudan, and after more than three decades behind bars in France, we believe the time has come to break the silence and demand firm action by the Venezuelan state.
Thirty-two years are too many. A whole lifetime.
We are not asking for impunity.
We are not asking for his convictions to disappear.
We are not asking for privileges.
We are demanding that the Venezuelan state use every existing legal, diplomatic, consular, and humanitarian instrument to ensure that Ilich can serve his sentence in Venezuela.
A legal path exists: the Strasbourg Convention
This is not simply an appeal to humanitarian sentiment.
There is the Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons, signed in Strasbourg on March 21, 1983, to which both France and Venezuela are States Parties.
This Convention establishes a mechanism through which a person with a final sentence may express an interest in being transferred to the state of their nationality to continue serving their sentence there, subject to the conditions and agreements provided for by the Convention itself.
That is why we ask the following:
What is the Venezuelan government precisely doing to activate all available mechanisms and formally request Ilich’s transfer from France?
After 32 years, silence and bureaucratic responses are not enough.
Venezuela must act.
We cannot understand this indifference
It pains and angers us to confirm that while a Venezuelan citizen grows old in a French prison, the government headed by Delcy Rodríguez finds the political will to open new channels with “Israel.”
Venezuela and “Israel” have just agreed to restore consular services and continue bilateral technical cooperation after 17 years of rupture.
Let us remember why those relations were broken.
In 2009, the government of President Hugo Chávez broke diplomatic relations with “Israel” as an expression of rejection of the Israeli offensive on Gaza and of solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Today, when the Palestinian people have once again suffered immense devastation, we ask ourselves:
What changed?
How can progress be made toward a rapprochement with the Israeli government while Palestine continues to pay a terrible price in human lives, including thousands of children and women?
Our criticism is of the “Israeli” government and their policies, never of the Jewish people or of a religion. Solidarity with Palestine cannot become antisemitism, just as rejecting antisemitism cannot mean remaining silent in the face of the suffering of the Palestinian people.
Where are the revolutionary militants?
And we pose another question that we consider inevitable:
Where are the revolutionary militants of the PSUV?
Where are the voices of those who for years raised the banners of Palestine, of internationalism, and of solidarity among peoples?
Where are those who defended the anti-imperialist legacy of Hugo Chávez?
Will they remain silent in the face of government decisions with which they disagree?
Loyalty to a revolutionary process cannot mean silent obedience to everything a government does.
A revolution is also defended by pointing out its contradictions.
That is why we respectfully call on the PSUV base, Venezuelan popular movements, internationalists, and solidarity organizations to raise their voices and demand explanations and corrections when they consider that the historic principles of the Bolivarian Revolution are being abandoned.
We do not ask for words: we ask for actions
To the government of Delcy Rodríguez, we make a concrete demand:
Activate all the mechanisms provided for in the Strasbourg Convention and formally undertake before France the necessary steps to secure the transfer of Ilich Ramírez Sánchez to Venezuela.
Let every available legal resource be used.
Let Venezuelan diplomacy act.
Let its consular authorities intervene.
Let all possible avenues be studied and exhausted.
Because after 32 years, indifference is inexplicable.
If there is the political will to open channels with foreign governments, there must also be the political will to defend the rights and interests of a Venezuelan citizen who has been imprisoned outside his homeland for more than three decades.
32 years are too many!
Enough indifference!
Let Venezuela activate the Strasbourg Convention!
Let every step be taken for Ilich’s return to his homeland!
Solidarity with the Palestinian people!
Let the revolutionary base raise its voice!
RESOLVER – Solidarity Network with Revolutionary Venezuela, Sweden, August 16, 2026
(Resolver)
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SL
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