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Talk:Siege of the Argentine Embassy and Ambassador's Residence in Venezuela

Latest comment: 3 days ago by SandyGeorgia in topic The article is quite short
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The article is quite short

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Latest comment: 3 days ago12 comments3 people in discussion

I have noticed that the article and the two stand-offs that occurred are short, even though the tensions between Caracas and Buenos Aires, amongst other nations, are clearly notable. I have two possible options:

  1. Expand the article
  2. Merge the article to 2024 Venezuelan political crisis or Argentina–Venezuela relations

Opinions and suggestions for spelling corrections to my post, please. --Minoa (talk) 20:06, 12 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Minoa, regarding the "quite short", please see the Spanish Wikipedia article, which is as unhelpful as this one, albeit longer. User:Europeismo's good faith effort to translate an article falls short for several reasons:
  1. Policies and guidelines at es.wiki are considerably more lax at es.wikipedia than en.wikipedia, and bringing over a poor article like this typically creates problems that take longer to solve than the original translation did.
  2. The content, when/if properly written, fits at and is mostly already covered here at 2024 Venezuelan political crisis#Diplomatic and commercial relations. That section needs about a two-sentence update, which I haven't gotten to yet, to provide DUE WEIGHT to this topic. Once that content is updated, it could also find a home at Argentina-Venezuela relations.
  3. Both the es.wikipedia and the en.wikipedia are wrong; the seige and the asylum seekers are at the Argentine ambassador's residence, not the embassy itself. That is abundantly clear from the images, which are also mislabeled as the Embassy when it's the Residence. The Argentine embassy is an office in Torre Kepler in Centro San Ignacio in La Castellana. The ambassador's residence is where the asylum seekers are hosted, and where the Maduro administration forces have employed the tactics described. It doesn't matter how many uninformed news headlines describe it as the embassy, it's the ambassador's residence which is different from the embassy itself, and most of the sources (although not all) do point that out in the body of their articles, even if the clickbait headlines are wrong.
Europeismo please don't translate articles from es.wiki to en.wiki if you can't be sure of their integrity: here is one source that explains the difference between the embassy and the residence.
Considering the errors in the article, I suggest that a {{prod}} is the fastest way to get this whole matter corrected, and any salvageable update can be added to the content at 2024 Venezuelan political crisis and Argentina-Venezuela relations. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:22, 13 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
I removed the WP:PROD, because I intend to work on the article. I can't right at the moment. --David Tornheim (talk) 02:55, 15 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
Both the es.wikipedia and the en.wikipedia are wrong; the seige and the asylum seekers are at the Argentine ambassador's residence, not the embassy itself. That is abundantly clear from the images, which are also mislabeled as the Embassy when it's the Residence. The Argentine embassy is an office in Torre Kepler in Centro San Ignacio in La Castellana. The ambassador's residence is where the asylum seekers are hosted, and where the Maduro administration forces have employed the tactics described. It doesn't matter how many uninformed news headlines describe it as the embassy, it's the ambassador's residence which is different from the embassy itself, and most of the sources (although not all) do point that out in the body of their articles, even if the clickbait headlines are wrong.
I agree that the six were held at the Ambassador's residence and not the Embassy building, and it seems like the headlines conflate the two buildings--possibly to draw attention as you assert. I believe the problem is likely that the reporters mistakenly believe that all diplomatic missions in a host country comprise the “embassy” of that country per a definition such as Merriam Webster’s here. I am more familiar with the distinction between embassies and consulates found [https: // berardiimmigrationlaw.com / whats-the-difference-between-an-embassy-and-a-consulate/ here]. Note that the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (in this document) does not use the word embassy, but instead “diplomatic mission”, “consular post”, and “consular premises”.
I too would prefer that the article does not conflate the two buildings and misapply the term “embassy”. It’s not clear how we can avoid the problem, when the WP:RS does it in almost every article. As we know, Wikipedia does not report the WP:TRUTH, but instead reports what is in the WP:RS, and the RS definitely says the “embassy” was under siege. I’m open to suggestions. Perhaps, if we can find enough RS that doesn’t make the error, that might solve the problem.--David Tornheim (talk) 16:01, 15 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
I suspect two different things are happening: 1) some reporters may honestly not realize the mistake, and 2) both properties are considered protected by same treaties/laws/whatever covering embassy property, so headlines are obscuring which building is which. Clarin (an Argentine source) gets it right more often, but there are scores of sources that get it right ... even the English-language sources often use a headline saying embassy, but within the body of the article, distinguish the building. Some samples:
Here's an example where the BBC gets it wrong even while quoting a source that gets it right:
Here's one that's a mish-mash-mess:
Examples where the headline says embassy but body or image caption clarifies residence:
And so it goes. There are scores, but more accurate info is found via Infobae and other more knowledgeable Spanish-language sources.
I have seen NO source that claims that the recent two "sieges" were of the actual Argentine Embassy offices in Centro San Ignacio in La Castellana; every source, even when mistaken, either has images or otherwise makes it clear in context that the siege applies to the residence. I suspect in diplomatic terms, since they are both properties protected by treaties, the conflating headlines don't matter. The diplomatic relations part-- which are part of a bigger issue and fit in the Argentina-Venezuela relations article-- are another matter than the actual siege, which was a short duration matter (intended to drive Gonzalez to exile according to other sources), so I don't believe this specific article, focusing on two times the maduro administration surrounded the residence-- is worthy of existence, and don't want to spend a lot of my time on trying to fix all that is wrong in this article.
But if you are going to invest the effort, please take note that as indicated in the first edit when the article was created, and mentioned above, the original was translated from the es.wikipedia article's lead, and leads are not fully cited. The citations are in the body of the es.wiki article, and this was not text that should have been deleted. The diplomatic condemnations are everywhere to be found: of course few sources use the made up wording used in this article, but that content is not hard to cite. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:29, 15 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for the response and, especially, for all the sources. --David Tornheim (talk) 16:34, 15 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
PS, if you want to visualize the two on maps.google.com, you can simply search to locate
  1. Embajada de Argentina, Caracas Venezuela, which places you at Centro San Ignacio, in agreement with the listed addresses of the Embassy as in Torre Kepler, vs.
  2. Avenida de Las Lomas, Valle Arriba, Caracas Venezuela ... where you easily see the rectangular pool in the backyard of the Argentine Embassy residence, just past the Russian Embassy, on the road from Las Mercedes through Valle Arriba that leads to the U.S. Embassy, as indicated by numerous sources that list the Argentine Ambassador residence as Avenida de Las Lomas, Qta. Buenos Aires (not to be mixed up with the Las Lomas street in El Cafetal).
I wouldn't expect reporters not familiar with Caracas to know the difference; I moved from Venezuela to Argentina before Centro San Ignacio was built and the Argentine Embassy moved there, and even before the U.S. Embassy moved to that location, but Qta. Buenos Aires has not moved since the 50s and since I lived there, and I drove by the Residence almost daily to drop my son at pre-school, so I did easily recognize the problem in this article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:00, 15 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
Thanks. That there were two distinct buildings and the reporters had conflated them was clear enough when I came to this article and immediately read the talk page. I was already familiar with the distinction between diplomatic missions, because of my familiarity with a similar siege of the Venezuelan Embassy in the U.S. by the Secret Service, D.C. police and Venezuelan exiles, which also involved the cut-off of electricity to the Venezuelan Embassy in Georgetown/D.C. by the D.C. electric company by (PepCo) at the request of the Guaido's people, despite the bill having been paid in full by the Maduro government.[1] [2]. That situation also included take-overs of other buildings such as the New York City consulate by Guaido's supporters.[3]. Because of the drama with the U.S., particularly because of U.S. support for Guaido, Venezuelans were unable to get key consular services necessary, such as the man described in this article. So, it is indeed interesting that the situation is somewhat reversed. The Embassy has been shut down after the U.S. raided it.[4] --David Tornheim (talk) 17:46, 15 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
Reply to:
The citations are in the body of the es.wiki article, and
this was not text that should have been deleted.The diplomatic condemnations are everywhere to be found: of course few sources use the made up wording used in this article, but that content is not hard to cite.
You are correct. I didn't look at the es.Wiki version of the article--I mistakenly assumed that all of it was used to create the first draft of this en.Wiki article. I will try and incorporate all that additional material when I have more time and, of course, welcome anyone else to add it. My first priority is to try to get the timeline into a chronological narrative that makes more sense making it clearer the sequence and logic behind how one event followed another. So many of the sources and quotations go back and forth in time making it hard to follow the order of each of the key events. I regret not having followed the coverage of events as they transpired, or this would be a lot easier.--David Tornheim (talk) 16:59, 15 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
Agreed: I've followed every source every day ... I don't have time to bring those sources over (and I NEVER bring anything over from es.wiki without ultra-scrutiny since the standards there are so low), because I am iPad editing from a hotel at a family wedding. Just a reminder that content can be added back and sourced when someone gets to it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:01, 15 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
PS, the messed up BBC source I listed above can be used for some of the condemnation. But I'm finding throughout the post-election content that it's helpful to read the Venezuela sections at Spanish-language sources like Infobae, NTN24, ElDiario daily, as too many of the English-language sources may no longer have boots on the ground, and they are often missing or mixing up facts that Spanish-language sources are covering. AP seems to do better than others. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:57, 15 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Here's what could be a third confounding factor: since they were kicked out, Argentina closed its "official" (?) Embassy (presumably the one in Torre Kepler); that could explain why some sources are now calling the Residence the Embassy ?? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:26, 15 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Title

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Latest comment: 3 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I reverted the undiscussed change of title to this article by Borboteo from Embassy to Ambassador's Residence to include both items. I think it would be fine to shorten the title to just mention Embassy to keep it from being to long. --David Tornheim (talk) 03:27, 15 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

An idea (thinking aloud, not wedded to it):
  • Siege of the Argentine Embassy and Ambassador's Residence in Venezuela --> Siege of Argentine Embassy property in Venezuela
I have seen no evidence in sources the Maduro forces surrounded the Embassy office in Centro San Ignacio, Torre Kepler, La Castallana. The idea, according to other sources, was to intimidate the asylum seekers to let Gonzalez know he wouldn't be safe anywhere in the country. Naming the article as embassy property avoids the whole issue of sources mixing up the two Embassy properties, while not claiming the actual offices were under siege. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:41, 15 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
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