Venezuelan Embassy in Lebanon Ridiculous Requirement to Prevent Nationalized Citizens from Renewing Their Passports

“I have been Venezuelan since 2004, with official gazette 5,801. I lived in Venezuela for 21 years from 1993 to 2014. I have three Venezuelan passports and when the current passport expires, I attend the meeting assigned to me by Chime at the Lebanese Embassy. The officer who helped me, I am the Venezuelan He told Infobae that he told Infobae that the first visa had to be submitted with a passport stamp. “That’s crazy, nobody has that because those visas were in the passport, so I had to provide Oni-Tex with the requirements for citizenship.” Eli Vadi Naban.

Not just his case. There are Hundreds of people affected by needs that cannot be met or are difficult to meet, even by nationalized citizens and those born in Venezuela. Besides, the treatment of the staff, as he points out, is appalling. There is a campaign from the embassy promoting passport distribution on social networks.

Embassy for the ridiculous claim of Venezuela in Lebanon, Eli Wadih Naban adds that he will have to pay $80 in cash for consular expenses, as required to take photos and fingerprints. “I paid USD 80 and the officer told me: ‘If we don’t answer you, if you can’t do anything, you can’t claim that 80 dollars.’ I replied no 80 dollars because I walked to the embassy.If my documents are falsified, do you think I will present myself like this?

“It’s true, their documents are legal, but they’re asking for a first visa and passport with an entry stamp,” he assures the official, who agreed. He did not want to specify from whom the order came. Naban requested to speak with the ambassador, retired General-in-Chief (Ex) Jesus Gregorio Gonzalez Gonzalez, but was told he could not.

Faced with repeated refusals by the officer to allow him to speak to another superior to clarify the situation, resigned to the fact that his passport would have no solution, he decided to leave without asking first. To copy the $80 cash I paid and put my signature and fingerprints on it and not go back later to say they were fake. And I am paying them because having three passports in hand and an official gazette with my citizenship, you cannot legally deny me a passport.

Eli Wadi Naban arrived in Venezuela at the age of 21 in 1993 with a visa obtained at the Venezuelan Embassy in Venezuela. Hasmeeh, Beirut; He lived in the country for 21 years till 2014. He explains how he is becoming a Venezuelan. “I took up the proposal in 2004, when I was president Hugo Chavez Venezuela opened up the possibility of submitting documents to those who wanted to. I came to Venezuela with a tourist visa that they gave me at the Lebanese Embassy.

He explains, “When someone is going to present their documents to obtain citizenship in Venezuela, they have to do a visa count, meaning tourists, temporary and residents. I had it on my newly acquired Lebanese passport at the Lebanese Embassy in Venezuela, I calculated the visa, paid the legal fees and presented all my documents to ONI-DEX (former Office of National Identity and Immigration). In February 2006, I appeared in the official gazette as a Venezuelan citizen.

“I got my first Andean passport at the end of December 2006, valid for five years. Then I came to Lebanon, where I obtained two passports at the embassy; Two years ago, in 2020, I had a biometric passport and got an extension for two years only. Next February, 2023, my passport expires, so I need to get a new one.

Appointed by Chime (Identification, Migration and Foreigners Administration Service), $200, gave an appointment for September 26; That day I handed in my three expired passports, the original official gazette and a copy of the identity card at the embassy in Lebanon.

He admitted that others had told him what was happening at the embassy with the passports, and that the natives of Lebanon with the Venezuelan passports had told him, but he considered this not credible. When he came before the officer who attended him, she told him: “We need your first visa with the passport stamp when you entered Venezuela.” He says he’s impressed. “Wow, are you serious?” He managed to say. A simple “yes” to which the officer replied convinced him that there was no doubt about their need.

“Look miss, I’m Venezuelan, all you have to do is have a gazette establishing that, so the visas are invalid in that case. On the other hand, you are requesting something that cannot be obtained, no one has a first visa, because I delivered, because ONI-DEX needed it, my Lebanese passport has visas in it”.

He also said he had a Venezuelan ID card and a foreigner’s ID card. If you check both cards on the computers, all the visas are visible,” he told the consular official. “Of course, you can access that information, but you refuse to do so, because I have already heard what is happening at the consulate, and you do not want to help. If you don’t respect President Chávez’s gazette, you don’t respect your country,” Eli Wadih Naban told the officer before leaving.

He is persistent in his goal and he claims it. “Since the 26th, I have sent five emails so far; They responded to my first email asking for my phone number. I don’t understand if they kept the folder with all my data and documents in the embassy for a long time.

“The second response I received several days later was, ‘You need to send us your visas and entry stamp to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Consular Division’. Imagine that.”

Eli Naban assures, “There are more than a thousand people in that embassy with problems, not only because of that document, but Venezuelans by birth, with their birth certificate, they are requesting a new birth certificate; They seem to be hindered because they don’t want to accept birth certificates that are three, four or five years old.

“I tried to send emails to SAIME, the address they sent me the appointment, but it’s getting error. Not sure if it’s a request from SAIME from Caracas or a requirement from the embassy in Lebanon. They don’t want to give my cousin’s passport here for five months; a week ago they They sent him an appointment to go to the embassy to pick up and when he showed up at the embassy they didn’t want to give it to him and instead handed him the first visa.

Finally Eli Wadih called Naban General Jesús Gregorio Gonzalez González, Ambassador of Venezuela to the Bolivarian Republic of the Republic of Lebanon, to respond to what was happening at that embassy, ​​because in addition “the attention of the authorities was appalling. A Lebanese policeman was looking outside and tried to get in, so I warned him that I was Venezuelan and that I was in Venezuelan territory because I was in the Venezuelan embassy. He says he can’t enter the embassy without an appointment, but promises that “I’m going to insist that I renew my passport.”

Continue reading: