August 6, 2024 • 47 mins
En este episodio de "Con los Editores", Aiola Virella, editora en jefe de Metro Puerto Rico, analiza la situación actual en Venezuela con la periodista Elizabeth Ostos y el profesor Pedro Benítez.
El profesor Pedro Benítez ofrece un contexto histórico y perspectivas sobre la agitación política de Venezuela. Además, analiza la respuesta internacional y el potencial de negociaciones para resolver la crisis. Mientras Ostos ofrece una perspectiva desde Caracas, detallando el colapso económico, las controversias electorales y la represión generalizada. Destaca los esfuerzos de la oposición por presentar evidencia de fraude electoral y los desafíos que enfrenta.
Sintonice para comprender las complejidades del panorama político de Venezuela y las implicaciones para sus ciudadanos y la región en general.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hacer noticioso, cultural y o deportivo con periodistas de Metro Puerto Rico y sus invitados.
Una producción del periódico Metro Puerto Rico. Saludos amigos de Metro Puerto Rico.
Bienvenidos a un nuevo episodio del podcast con los editores.
Les acompaña Ayola Vireya, editora en jefe del periódico Metro Puerto Rico.
(00:23):
Como ustedes saben, Metro Puerto Rico forma parte de un conglomerado de periódicos
que tiene presencia en distintos países de Latinoamérica, del mundo entero.
Por eso siempre estamos muy atentos a lo que sucede en lo que es la noticia mundial.
Contamos con una red de periodistas que nos apoyan en ese sentido.
Y hoy en este episodio del podcast con los editores, lo vamos a dedicar a dialogar
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sobre lo que está sucediendo en Venezuela.
Nos va a acompañar, de hecho ya nos acompaña a la distancia desde Caracas,
la periodista Elizabeth Hostos, quien ha sido colaboradora para Metro World News.
Saludos, Elizabeth, ¿cómo te encuentras?
Gracias, Ayola, muy bien. Y bueno, la expectativa de conversar con tu audiencia
(01:09):
y un gran saludo a tu equipo.
Gracias, también nos acompaña para darnos contexto sobre todo el momento histórico que vive Venezuela,
el profesor Pedro Benítez, quien es historiador, profesor de historia económica
de la UCV y columnista de ALNABIO.
Saludos profesor y bienvenido.
(01:29):
Un gusto estar con ustedes. Gracias por la oportunidad.
Quería comenzar, verdad, por lo más básico para nuestra audiencia que ha estado
leyendo titulares, noticias, viendo en televisión lo que está sucediendo en Venezuela.
Es una noticia que levanta mucho interés porque contamos con una a community
of important Venezuelans in Puerto Rico, but not necessarily the whole audience is so soaked,
(01:56):
and I wanted, Professor, to start with a context of how we got to these elections
where the opposition thinks it has won,
there is a controversy for the official declaration of the winner of Nicolás
Maduro, but how did we get here to this point? Thank you.
Well, Venezuela, to give some data that can illustrate the public,
(02:20):
Venezuela is the only important oil exporter in history that has fallen into hyperinflation.
We had the hyperinflation, the hyperinflationary event, the third most intense
and extensive hyperinflationary event in the last 100 years.
Three monetary signs have been destroyed, the real salary of workers has been pulverized,
(02:45):
it is the lowest on the American continent, it is also one of the lowest in
the world, the gross domestic product of the country was reduced by 70% with respect to 2013.
That is, in Venezuela there was an authentic economic catastrophe.
As you know, the main export product of Venezuela has been oil for a long time,
many years ago. In 1998, when President Hugo Chávez came to power,
(03:09):
the Venezuelan oil production was in the 3.5 million barrels of oil.
Most of that was produced by the PDVSA State, Petroleum of Venezuela.
Well, at the beginning of the year, that production level dropped to 700,000 barrels.
It has recovered a little in the last two years of those 700,000 barrels,
(03:30):
probably a little of the half is provided by PDVSA and the rest is provided
by foreign companies, such as the case of Chinese companies or the case of Chevron,
which has had an important contribution in the last year.
So the Venezuelan economic situation is devastating.
From the year 2021, Maduro, the current president Nicolás Maduro,
(03:53):
made some economic flexibility, released product imports,
the inspections of trade were finished, there was an approach to the private sector,
a tremendous anti-inflationary policy with a great cut in public spending,
the collapse of salaries to make an adjustment of public spending and together
(04:17):
with other monetary measures to stop hyperinflation,
so that Venezuela has already left the hyperinflationary event,
but it is like a house that suffered a devastating fire and the fire ended but the house is destroyed.
This is more or less the situation in Venezuela.
Here the big question is why a government that has been so catastrophic for
a society has not come out of power
(04:38):
because that society does not have a mechanism to take it out of power.
Well, it is that Venezuela, Maduro, is the authoritarian drift that started
with President Hugo Chávez.
On democratic grounds, a lot of power began to accumulate, they took control
of public institutions and they supported that with a great apparatus of social
(04:58):
control and repression.
In that context, is that Maduro summons the elections of July 28,
elections that he thought he would win and with which to legitimize the international
democratic community and the party of the premise that the opposition would
be divided, a sector would call for extension.
(05:20):
The opposition had made some primaries last year, on October 22,
those primaries were won in a very broad way by María Corina Machado and what
the Supreme Court of Justice did, which Maduro has now.
Resorted to clarify what happened in the election last Sunday.
Of the previous Sunday, because she disabled María Corina Machado,
(05:42):
so she decided to apply to a university professor, Corina Lloris, in her replacement,
they did not let her sign up and finally, almost by mistake,
they accepted the postulation of the former ambassador in Mundo González Urrutia.
Well, we have a extremely complicated context,
María Corina Machado continued to campaign for this
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new candidato pero un contexto muy difícil de mucha
represión le puede dar un dato que puede ser ilustrativo en
el último mes de la campaña hubo más de 100 presos políticos por
el simple hecho de colaborar en la campaña por prestar un
camión para el sonido o por
venderle comida asistirle a la campaña en
(06:22):
los lugares de maripolía de machado se para se paraba a comer oa
dormir cerraron negocios cerraron hoteles tengo
que se fue en un ambiente de mucha represión la oposición decidió
accept that challenge and skip all the obstacles that were
presented to him and the election of 28
occurred at this point after a week
the Venezuelan national electoral council has not shown the acts the results
(06:47):
of the electoral process and without having through those acts the president
of the electoral council a week ago proclaimed Nicolás Maduro as re-elected
president for a third period with which to fulfill it would have 18 years in power and Maduro has.
In contrast to that, on that same Monday,
María Corina Machado presented the country and the whole world with a web page
(07:12):
where all the acts of the witnesses of the table,
that the electoral prosecutors of the opposition that participated in the process
managed to accumulate acts that are produced by the machine of the National
Electoral Council and signed by both the witnesses of Chavismo,
del PSUV, as for the members of the table designated for the effect by the National
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Council of Electoral Act totally valid,
they mounted them on a website and I think they are already 84% of the acts,
it is evident that Edmundo González won for a huge, overwhelming advantage in
all regions of the country,
in all social strata, rich,
middle class, poor,
(07:58):
very poor, traditional voters, votantes chavistas, votantes antichavistas,
gente de los andes venezolanos, de la costa, del interior del país, de la costa, en fin.
Y les dio una auténtica paliza electoral y bueno, la cuestión es que el Consejo
Nacional Electoral no da por válido ese resultado.
(08:19):
Precisamente... Se hizo toda esta vuelta grande para tratar de explicar la razón
por la cual existe un enorme I am upset, it seems to me that it is logical,
against the Maduro government and the opposition managed to transform that into
electoral mobilization.
Sí, le agradezco esa explicación, que aunque dice que es una vuelta grande,
mira, está bastante concisa.
(08:40):
Quería tomarlo en este punto donde lo deja, estas actas que ha presentado la
oposición en este portal.
Elizabeth, the last thing I have heard is that the government raises doubts
about the legitimacy of those acts.
It is spoken and I remember the press conference that night in which,
(09:02):
from the CNS, there was talk of an attack on the vote counting system, a hacking.
It was to be expected that they raised these doubts, how much can this speech
prosper, that these acts are not real or no son válidas.
Sí, Ayola, nuestra misión es cómo el Consejo Nacional Electoral puede demostrar
(09:27):
que las actas no son válidas.
Lo que pide el mundo es eso. Algo tan elemental es muestros resultados.
Como decimos acá popularmente, el que gana bingo muestra el cartón.
Y es lo que pasa. Por eso planteaba algo muy interesante en relación con el tema de las actas.
Las actas fueron impresas la misma noche de las votaciones,
(09:47):
tienen un código QR y unos elementos de seguridad alfanuméricos,
están encriptadas, están blindadas, firmadas por los actores políticos que participaron
esa noche en el cierre de las mesas, testigos del gobierno,
testigos de oposición, con mucha dificultad.
La oposición pudo colocar sus testigos en todo el país porque hubo estados en
(10:09):
donde era casi que imposible access to schools and voting centers for issues
of violence on the street, but well, that could be done.
Everything was certified, everything was scanned, printed, sent to the National
Electoral Council, both political actors, government, opposition,
and even minor actors who participated in the elections, seven candidates,
(10:32):
have copies of those acts.
They are already 90% collected by the opposition group, they have increased 6% after the last court.
That information is given by the government, it is given by the CNE,
it is given by the opposition.
On the other hand, the issue of the hacking, there was talk of a group in Macedonia,
in Eastern Europe, that had hacked the Venezuelan electoral system,
(10:56):
but the government of Macedonia responded that at no time had any group hacked
anything related to elections in Venezuela.
A country that did not even know where it was located in South America.
Also other international news agencies of information systems pointed out that
Venezuela was not the object of hacking in July 98 and at this time either.
(11:20):
That is to say, Ayola, when a series of situations of half-truths and non-truths
are being disseminated to prolong the delivery of the acts that evidence the
triumph of the new Bolsonaro-Gurrutia.
And the statistics point out that this opposition candidate,
supported by Maria Corina Machado, won in almost all In almost all the municipalities,
(11:45):
we have 333 municipalities in Venezuela, the chayismo only won in 10.
It won in the 23 states, Majacá, Distrito Capital, Caracas.
A very overwhelming advantage. The CNE, all its headquarters,
that Nicolás Maduro won, but only with one speech. He won and we were hacked.
(12:07):
But the ads show us how people ask for it, even ideologically to the Bolivarian
government, like Brazil, like Mexico.
The president of Argentina, Cristina Kirchner, a series of influencers of Latin
American politics, Latin American leftists ask for it.
The Cáceres Center is a recognized institution with excellent relations with Chávez and Maduro.
(12:33):
They have said that these evictions were not competitive, they were not transparent
and the results do not reflect the will of the Venezuelan people.
However, they also considered that the acts must be delivered as they were on the night of July 28.
So it is a It is a topic that we are in a vicious circle, that one sector says
it did not win, another sector says it won, and the Venezuelan people do not have the expectation.
(12:58):
And as Professor Benítez pointed out, repression at this moment in Venezuela
is accepting, for being a little soft in this sense.
Sí, sobre la represión, quiero entrar en un minuto, pero quiero mencionar algo,
Elizabeth, que es importante para nuestra audiencia en Puerto Rico, ¿no?
Porque como en muchos países del mundo vivimos la polarización y aquí se habla
(13:22):
como de izquierda y derecha, como blanco o negro,
uno u otro, y mencionaste que habían otros, otros candidatos,
no solamente, ¿verdad? Edmundo González.
¿Cuál es el perfil de esos otros candidatos pequeños?
Interesting. First, I would like to highlight that Venezuela already has the
issue of left-right polarization or Madurismo, that is, the opposition no longer exists.
(13:48):
If you look at the results of the polls prior to the election,
and if you look at the current results of the elections,
the country is already on one side, on the side of the world of Gonzalo Ejurrutia,
which we could not say is an extreme right side, y tampoco derecha del medio
y tampoco calificarlo como en un solo segmento,
(14:10):
sino el lado de los que quieren cambio está muy amplio frente al que no quiere
cambio y es un tema de respeto a la democracia.
Los actores menores que participaron en este proceso fueron gente vinculada con el gobierno,
no solamente con el gobierno, sino con el sector que manda en este instante,
(14:30):
For example, a former mayor of the city of San Cristóbal, a former comedian.
A pastor, a couple of deputies.
They were minor actors who gave a touch of plurality to the election.
Because if you look at the electoral card of Venezuela, there were 13 cards
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with Maduro's face and 5 or 6 with these minor candidates because they got less
than 1% of the electoral vote,
and only 3% for Mundo González Urrutia.
So it's an apparent democracy issue. Look, we have quite a few candidates, we are competing.
There was change, but the change is not recognized, which is the issue of Fondo Ayola.
(15:14):
Because a government that says it's a winner doesn't have people in the streets celebrating,
doesn't have full happiness in the streets, sino que hay un tema de represión
fuerte y la gente está muy afectada, muy afligida y a la expectativa de lo que
pase con negociaciones políticas,
que es el otro paso que viene en las próximas semanas.
(15:37):
Negociaciones entre actas, ¿qué hacemos? ¿Proclamamos? ¿Desproclamamos?
Transición o transición, ¿qué pasaría en Venezuela? En estos momentos eso es crucial.
Sí, en el tema de la represión, he estado leyendo que va en aumento.
¿Cómo se maneja este tema ahora mismo?
(15:57):
¿Cuál es el cuadro real? Y la oposición, por ejemplo, Edmundo González,
María Corina, Machado, ¿ellos están en riesgo también de ser detenidos?
Well, without a doubt, maricurism and the world are a principal object of judicial attack,
although yesterday, unfortunately, the Attorney General of the Republic said
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that there was no detention order against the political actors of opposition,
because another thing that happens in Venezuela is that there is a lot of opacity
in the information and a lot of rumor spread on social networks.
Then there were supposed arrest orders signed by a judge, signed by a magistrate.
So that was part of the psychoterrorism and the demobilizing element.
(16:41):
In this case, these political actors are guarded as they have pointed out.
The issue of repression, the human rights groups here have played a fundamental
role in the defense of the rights of the detained arbitrarily.
In the government, there are 2,000 people detained for being in the course of
(17:01):
acts of vandalism and terrorism, something that has not been able to be proven,
not even the official figure.
The Human Rights Group, until yesterday, had a figure of 988 detainees in the
entire country, of which 91 were adolescents or are adolescents.
They are being presented to courts.
Denounced by the Venezuelan Penal Forum, which is a defense entity of human
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rights, who have not had access to private lawyers, but lawyers of public office,
and it is not known what can happen with these people captured in the context of the protests,
who were not necessarily in the protest, Yola.
Someone who was passing by, they were in the wrong place and they were taken
away. ¿En los barrios populares? ¿Sí?
(17:44):
¿Y estos arrestados, se les observan sus derechos una vez están detenidos o
no se sabe qué pasa con ellos?
¿Hay algún tipo de represión una vez detenidos? ¿Y hay que poner en riesgo su integridad?
Mira, realmente no hay información. El problema grave aquí es que no hay información
sobre qué está pasando con los detenidos.
(18:05):
Suponemos, deseamos que respete sus derechos humanos, por supuesto,
and that is part of the struggle of the groups such as PROVEA or other human
rights groups that point out that they must be seen,
these people must be seen by their family members, by private lawyers,
or treated by the families or by groups that are supporting these people.
And well, it would be desirable that they were seen and that they were cared
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for, that they are in a situation of respect for human rights.
It is desirable at this moment, we do not know. Professor, I would like to dialogue with you.
On the night of the election, or at dawn, after that Sunday of the election,
Nicolás Maduro, when he came to the political tribunal, at one point he talked about reconciliation,
(18:49):
of dialogue, but we are seeing all the denunciations of how the process was and now the repression.
What do you think that he adjudicates, that he has made that nod,
although we are not really seeing it?
Well, it is the double speech that he has always had, you remember a headline
that caused a great scandal when he said a week before the election,
(19:14):
more or less, that if he did not win there would be a bloodbath in Venezuela.
And it was such a barbarity of the affirmation that even the president of Brazil,
a person who has been close to Chávez for a long time, censored him publicly, criticized him.
That gave rise to an incident. We see how it is no longer about the presidents,
let's say, on the right, in the case of Miguel, for example,
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who is criticizing Maduro, it is that the president Boris de Chile,
a person that we cannot suspect that he has political inclinations towards that
sector, quite the opposite, and comes from the student struggle against the
government of the President Piñera,
a critical opening of Maduro, we already see the position of the president of
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Colombia, who also comes from the left,
these are the hours, for example, that neither the presidents of Brazil or Mexico,
who are also close to the government, as I already said, the Venezuelan government,
because they have not certainly recognized the world of the Basals as the winner,
but they do not recognize that Maduro has won the elections,
they continue to leave that question open and well, the most recent was what
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lo que dijo ayer la presidenta Cristina Kirchner, ¿no?
Tal vez usted lo haya escuchado.
Y la razón de esto es que, bueno, Venezuela ha ido evolucionando rápidamente
a ser una dictadura abierta.
A military dictatorship. In 1928 there were these electoral results,
but in 1929, in the main cities of the country, but also, but mainly in Caracas,
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there was a real unexpected social explosion.
In the most important neighborhoods of the city, the popular sectors went down
to protest and since then there has been enormous repression.
In Caracas there is a race, there is a fear environment,
witnesses are being detained at the table, many people
suspect that those witnesses are detaining them
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to force them to sign the acts that perhaps here we
are interested in entering the field of the delusion this forging the government
not to try to fix the result of that presidential election and many people who
have come out on social networks to protest or have expressed themselves in an airy way against
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Maduro and against Chavismo, they detain them, they present them on public television.
Last night I saw it on a television program and these people ask for forgiveness,
they ask for forgiveness from Nicolás Maduro, they regret it.
That is, without arrest charges, without actions from the prosecution,
we have a large number of people who have been objects of forced disappearance.
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It is the case of an ex-deputy, Frei Superlano, who to this day neither his
family nor his party knows where he is. finds.
I think I do not exaggerate if I say that we are facing an environment of generalized terror.
We have returned to Venezuela, particularly this week, to the worst chapters
of state terrorism that took place in the dictates of the southern cone in the 70s of the last century.
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But Professor, he also said after this election of 28 that that was just the beginning.
That night was not that the end of what has been this government was,
but it is the beginning, it makes a change.
Now we are in this scenario that you describe to us and talks about the route of negotiation.
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How can you negotiate in that scenario?
How can you negotiate with a government that, as you describe us,
has become a military dictatorship?
Well, look, politics is the art of what is possible, right? Politics precisely serves for that.
There are many people in Latin America, particularly on the left,
and there is a proposal that the presidents have made.
(22:56):
In fact, I understand that today there will be a Zoom meeting between the Mexican
president Andrés López Obrador, the Brazilian president Lula da Silva,
and the Colombian president Gustavo Petro, with Maduro.
Where they are going to make a proposal about that.
There are versions that have run in the media, particularly about that.
There is one that has been covered.
(23:17):
The country of Spain has been very aware of this. No, the hope is that just
as Pinochet came to power for a negotiation, for a referendum,
then a negotiation came or it happened with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in
the year 90, for example,
or the Uruguayan dictatorship or in Brazil with the military dictatorship that ended in the year 85.
A scheme like this that seeks a political outlet for people who are in power
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and allows the change that the Venezuelan society is demanding to occur at the lowest possible cost.
So that is the reason why all the channels are kept open.
There is this proposal of these three governments that I have quoted,
that has been discussed,
but well, that has not stopped the repression in Venezuela, and Maduro has a
very hard line to continue on this path.
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What happens is that no government in the world ever, never,
nor the worst of dictatorships is sustained only and exclusively by repression on the bayonet.
It always needs an international support international, it always needs some
political scheme that complements the domination.
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The control of society, only by bayonets you do not get that and that is the
reason why the dictatorship at the end of the day ends up falling and Maduro is very aware of this,
it is not the first time that he is in a situation like this, already in 2019,
maybe you remember when Juan Guaidó appeared, there were enormous mobilizations
(24:50):
in Caracas, Juan Guaidó was the president of the National Assembly elected in
2015, an assembly that also won the opposition, and that Maduro,
like this election, also blocked.
But well, that assembly achieved great international support,
and at some point it was thought that Maduro was also fallen.
That's what I was going to ask you.
At that time there was an international consensus that pointed out that Maduro was leaving.
(25:17):
What is different from 2019 to now?
Interesting your approach. Well, at that time, a difference is that at that
time most of the governments of Latin America, let's say, were the sign of the
right wing, which was united in the Lima group.
In this case, those who are questioning Maduro are left-wing governments.
(25:38):
That is a paradox of history.
Then here is the role of the individual in history.
I give great importance to the role that Maria Corina Machado is playing.
Ella es una persona con unas características individuales diferentes
a los dirigentes políticos opositores del
pasado muy diferentes al caso de de Guaidó
(25:59):
eso es un aspecto ella tiene un compromiso
muy grande de permanecer aquí en Caracas con la gente
corriendo grandes riesgos porque su vida realmente está en riesgo lo que está
haciendo María Corina yo creo que objetivamente hablando solamente se puede
calificar como como de heroico y luego hay There is a topic here that can be
(26:20):
key, which are the electoral results.
Because, well, when Guaidó was proclaimed, well, there was always the doubt
of the constitutional legitimacy of what the Venezuelan National Assembly at
that time was doing, a confrontation between the legislative power and Maduro.
But in this case, Maduro has done the most shameless electoral fraud that remembers
(26:46):
the accidented history of Latin America.
Let me give you two quick examples.
In the election of the year 19 in Bolivia, November 19, it was never clear if Evo Morales lost or won.
But the electoral dispute that created that ended up taking Evo Morales to the
government. You will remember it.
(27:07):
And in the year 2000 in Peru something similar happened, but no,
it is that in this case the Venezuelan opposition has demonstrated,
the world is demonstrating that it won by an overwhelming advantage to Maduro,
that is, from more than 2 to 1.
The number we have in the world, González, is approaching almost 70% and Maduro
is around 30%, a little more. That is, the advantage is gigantic.
(27:29):
That is, the magnitude of the fraud is undeniable, it is very evident.
And in the history of Latin America, when social protest is combined with the
flag of the fight for the legitimacy of electoral results, it generally ends
up being fatal for governments.
Well, Maduro is precisely trying to survive in power to that challenge.
(27:50):
And I ask you, in the middle of this scenario, I have also heard analysis,
at least here in Puerto Rico, of why there is no intervention from the foreigner.
You as Venezuelans who are there, do you see it with bad eyes?
Is it something that Venezuelans should solve? How do you see when this element
(28:12):
is brought to the discussion, as perhaps happened in Panama,
of an intervention from the foreigner, specifically from the United States?
As a very easy question, I'm going to leave it to Elizabeth.
Wow, Professor, thank you very much. Well, I'm going to tell you my personal opinion.
These are historical, political moments that do not enter into the classic intervention
(28:36):
in the previous years of the evil empire in the United States, according to the left.
I think these moments are of political pressure, economic pressure.
I presume that the United States is going to increase sanctions to the
government of maduro because they are extremely noble
with maduro has released the
(28:58):
staff a recognized character detained in the united states for two issues not
so many has released the nephews of the first lady of the republic involved
in important issues of drug issues,
liberated from the United States, as well as the sobrinos, have flexibilized sanctions.
(29:23):
Venezuela is receiving a lot of money for the sale of drugs with the participation of Chevrolet.
This flexibilization has been reversed against Venezuelan democracy.
The Bolivian government has had the advantage to have those virtues,
(29:43):
those licenses of the government of the United States, and look what's happening.
The problem is politics, not military intervention, because it's not the time.
And really, what a shame for me, as a Venezuelan, that this happened.
Really, it's a very personal opinion. But I ask you, those concessions that
the US government has made also happen in a context of international geopolitics,
(30:07):
where there is a war in Ukraine, where there is perhaps less access.
The issue of oil also plays a factor there, or how do you see it that you are there?
Well, there is a... I'm going to play it, I mean, I think, sorry,
professor. That's why there is political negotiation, the West needs the oil
of Venezuela and Venezuelans need democracy, definitely, Ayola. Professor.
(30:32):
Well, Ayola, there is a bit of fantasy from the global left and the Maduro government,
according to which the world is desperately in need of Venezuelan oil.
Last year, the world oil production was around 86 million barrels a day.
(30:54):
Of those 86 million barrels a day, Venezuela produces 700 and exports 550.
More or less. Maybe a little more.
That is, it is a drop in the ocean.
From the point of view of the United States, the production of the United States
is in 13 million barrels.
If the United States, to meet its needs, has Canada and has Mexico,
(31:15):
I am not saying that in addition it is over in Guyana, which is next door,
which is also part of this,
maybe you remember it in Guyana, a oil boom is occurring and it may be that in two years Guyana,
well, I already think that the oil production in Guyana has surpassed that of
Venezuela, there is a new source of energy resources, several European,
(31:38):
North American companies are involved, the Chinese oil company is involved,
so what can end up The first thing that is happening is that Venezuela is totally
out of, or Venezuela is getting out of the world's oil game.
And paradoxically, an ally that Maduro has, which is Russia,
is not interested in the Venezuelan oil industry recovering,
(31:59):
because Venezuela with Russia is a competitor.
Who would be more interested in Venezuela entering the world market?
Because it is a great importer, it is China.
But it is that China has already thrown the towel with the government of Maduro for many years.
China still owes Venezuela to China 20 billion dollars in debt that was contracted
in the time of the former President Chávez and that they have not finished paying
(32:21):
for and the reason why China has no credit lines to the government of Maduro.
And this then puts us in a paradox.
The only way for Maduro to get new sources of income is by reaching an agreement
with the United States and that was precisely what was set up in the last two years.
The main concern of the United
(32:41):
States towards Venezuela is a migratory flow from the
year 21 you know the fifth part of the Venezuelan population no almost the fourth
part of the Venezuelan population has emigrated in the last 10 years the largest
part of that migration has been to the neighboring countries in South America
and there is a current a very important flow of Venezuelan immigrants who que
(33:01):
cruzan el tapón del Darién,
cruzan México y llegan a la frontera de Texas con Estados Unidos,
y eso ya se ha convertido en un problema para la campaña electoral de este año
entre republicanos y demócratas.
Entonces, lo que le interesa más a la administración Biden en este momento es
cómo parar el flujo de inmigrantes, porque el tema migratorio,
como ustedes saben muy bien, puede ser decisivo en esta elección presidencial
(33:25):
de noviembre en Estados Unidos.
Quisiera preguntarle So, let's talk about the negotiations, and not to take
away so much time, the international negotiations that the professor mentioned.
In the context of, for example, what happened with the Organization of American States,
don't you fear that it could also happen or be a preamble to what could happen
(33:46):
with the negotiations that are taking place with left-wing governments in the region?
Yes, well, at this moment, if there is something that is in relief,
it is the concern for Venezuela, the concern for the Venezuelan people.
It is the one who suffers the consequences of this situation so anti-democratic and negating freedom.
(34:09):
Because against a so evident electoral representative, as all political authors
know, erasing it with a single pen, saying that the acts were hacked,
that is something like imperishable.
And I think that there will be negotiations of all kinds, from all sides.
(34:29):
Even here in Venezuela, they are talking about the creation of a national front
for democracy, where all political factors are included.
From the right, from the left, from the center, from the undefined,
social movements, even people who used to support Hugo Chávez in his.
(34:50):
In their governments, even in their antipathetic actions against democracy,
they are already incorporated into this movement,
which I understand will be led by María Corina Machado and by El Mundo González
Urrutia, and it will be a universe of people who initially spoke before,
but now they are speaking for the rescue of democracy,
for the well-being of the Venezuelan people, and for the cessation of repression,
(35:13):
which I think this is what we have to put in relief.
No more fears, freedom for political prisoners, freedom of action for journalists.
To stop blocking the main information portals in our country.
It is extremely difficult to be informed because there is a systematic blockade
of web portals, the addresses of the main Venezuelan media and non-Venezuelan.
(35:36):
In fact, the professor writes to the Navy and I understand that it is blocked.
It is an important political information and analysis portal.
Fortunately, Metro is fine, we can read Metro. but other media such as the country
of Spain, for example, is blocked.
The DWL in Germany is blocked.
People find out through social media because there are mechanisms to avoid blockades.
(35:59):
But hey, a democracy has to be supported in the fundamental pillars,
freedom of expression, respect for human rights, respect for the will of the
people, and recognize that if we don't win today, we can win in the future if we regroup as forces.
But at this moment, I say yes, in the world of all the trends and in Venezuela,
(36:19):
there is a strong movement for the recovery of democracy, of course.
Elizabeth, the professor told us that they were seeing demonstrations on the streets.
Now I don't remember if it was the professor or you, of the popular sectors,
of the popular neighborhoods. Esto es algo que cambió con lo que pudo haber
sido, por ejemplo, el movimiento de 2019 o movimientos previos contra el gobierno.
(36:46):
Your question is interesting, Professor, because look, since 2006 in Venezuela,
there has been a process of disenchantment, of disenamoramiento of the Bolivarian
systematical revolution.
It has been reflected electorally in 2012, 2013, 2015, 2019.
(37:08):
Not so much in 2019, but in previous years.
So there is the secular sector incorporated. Así que el tema de que ser pobre
es igual a ser Chávez, ser pobre es igual a ser mandurista, eso es un paradigma que se cayó.
Porque en las elecciones de diputados en 2015, haciendo una traza y una mitigación
(37:29):
de las actas del Consejo Nacional Electoral, se demuestra que en sectores populares
ya la gente empezó a votar masivamente por la oposición.
In the regional elections of 2020, the opposition also started voting,
and at this moment, the neighborhood, as they call it, went down the street spontaneously.
Look, a week ago, at 9 in the morning, I went to the airport to take an international
(37:53):
correspondent who was covering, and he told me, no, because nothing happens here.
Ok, we took it at 9 in the morning, going up to the Caracas airport,
which is 40 minutes away, already at 11.30 in the morning, many popular neighborhoods
that are surrounding urban areas were on the street protesting spontaneously.
(38:13):
There was a huge riot, like more than two hours, it was tremendous.
And social networks, people started, look, in Caracas, Casa Lorena,
in Marquisimeto, in Maracay, in Valencia, in Bolívar, in Sucre,
in all the states, there was a disarticulated protest. Ladder.
But it was the popular sectors. What happened on Tuesday?
The riots of the State Security Organisms started in neighborhoods as emblematic as Petare.
(38:39):
That was widely reviewed by the press.
Petare is the largest neighborhood in Latin America, with 2.5 million people
living on that mountain.
All of them stuck next to each other, all very concentrated.
Well, there are people from Petare who had to leave their homes.
People from Petare who are imprisoned. and they force them to say,
look, I didn't go, you did go.
(38:59):
I mean, why repress if people are expressing themselves?
And this is a vibrant democracy, as the current government says.
So the popular sector is the one that is taking on the fight at this moment
and it is the one that gave the triumph to Mayra Corina Machado y Armando González.
Because, seeing in detail the copy of the acts that all the political actors
have, and with the minors, the elderly, the middle-aged, in neighborhoods,
(39:22):
in hunting grounds, in towns that were totally chavistas and that depend on
the state, on the government,
on the mayor's office, on the customs, on the local airports.
There they voted against the Bolivarian government.
In the foreign service, some embassies had more votes for the opposition than for the government.
(39:45):
So it's a matter of change, and in democracy, what less serious is it for a
government to go out for the votes?
And well, the negotiations, dear comrade.
Professor, to conclude these negotiations, and to add the data that I read this morning,
(40:06):
that there are at least seven countries that recognize as winners of the Venezuelan
presidential committees, venezuelanos a González.
Estas negociaciones, ¿cuánto tiempo, si miramos como un cronograma, deberían tomar?
¿Cuál podría ser el próximo paso importante político en Venezuela?
¿Y cuándo? Bueno, la información que nosotros manejamos, digamos,
(40:31):
la principal fuente ha sido, insisto, el país de España, es que los presidentes de México,
Brasil y Colombia le han dado una semana to Maduro to close an agreement with them in this sense.
I understand that there are two offers or two proposals,
one that there is a direct negotiation between Maduro and Mundo González Urrutia,
(40:54):
leaving a margin to María Corina Machado, because they say that María Corina
Machado is an obstacle to reach an agreement.
Well, that is very questionable, but hey, that is another issue,
that is the proposal, and has also shot the possibility of repeating the elections.
What happens is that in both cases, all negotiation leads to Maduro's departure from power.
(41:14):
That is, it would lead to recognizing these elections or to making new elections
that he will also lose with this other candidate, and then we return to the
same point, that Maduro is going to leave power.
And we already have a long experience in Venezuela.
Days of dialogue, negotiations that always end in the same way in which Maduro's
government simply what it does is gain time and mock its interlocutors.
(41:38):
And excuse me for interrupting you.
That possibility of a new election, how is negotiation guaranteed that it will
not repeat itself again?
The lack of transparency, that international observers do not have access to
the act, how to prevent the result with the same exercise from being what we are living today?
(42:01):
There is no way to guarantee it, this is an authoritarian regime,
it has control of all public powers, let me put it that way,
it does what it wants, there is nothing that limits it.
I quoted the example of the negotiation with the Biden administration government,
it was the United States and simply Maduro totally mocked the Biden administration
and his envoy Juan González, The US government made a series of very important concessions to Maduro,
(42:27):
he had two nephews who were detained in the United States, they were arrested.
Accused of drug trafficking by the DEA, condemned, serving sentence,
and the Biden government returned them, and another person who had business
with the Maduro government, who was also detained and sentenced, Mr.
Al-Assad, also the US government returned it to him, and the response to those
(42:51):
gestures from Washington, that is, the White House, has been,
well, more repression, more political persecution.
Sanctions were lifted, economic sanctions were made, and well,
the Maduro government simply despises that, it uses every concession of the
adversary to make fun of it, and there is nothing that makes us think that his
conduct is different, well, with respect to that.
(43:14):
Here the only inference is that he is being questioned by a political sector
in which he has moved so far,
which is this sector of the Latin American democratic left, to which he had
tried to homologate himself, but well, I think that here,
well, it is a very personal question, Maduro is convinced that the greatest
(43:37):
cost he has is to get out of power and he is willing to be lynched at the cost that
they have to pay the country and that puts the Venezuelan situation in very
dramatic circumstances, but also in the region, because this is going to reactivate
immigration on a large scale.
(43:59):
Elizabeth was talking about the issue of repression. These images that you have
seen of young people protesting in the streets of the most populous neighborhoods
of the cities of Caracas, Those young people are 15,
20 years old, 22 years old, those children, those boys, those boys don't know
another Venezuela than this one.
(44:20):
They grew up and were born under Chávez and Maduro.
They are the children of the Chavist voters.
They are the children of Chavism. They are the ones that Maduro is pursuing,
is qualifying as fascist and offered to enable two maximum security prisons
to massively recruit political prisoners.
(44:41):
In Caracas we have, not since now, but some time ago, the three largest centers
of torture and recruitment of political prisoners in the Western Hemisphere,
in Caracas, in view of everything,
and they do not make any effort to hide it, because precisely what they are
trying to do is to intimidate the population.
Well, this situation, what is going to end up, I think, is dragging a political
(45:05):
crisis to the neighborhood.
It is going to cause a large number of problems to President Petro in Colombia
and it will be that in Brazil, the public opinion of Brazil and the Congress
of Brazil, where Lula does not have a majority,
because there will be, and it is already happening, just look at the media of
communication in Brazil, the Sao Paulo Folio, for example, are strongly questioning
(45:29):
Lula for having contributed to the fact that things in Venezuela reached these extremes.
And Ayola, to finish this picture, just to tell you, and that Maduro still has
a letter under his sleeve, which is to reactivate the conflict with Guyana.
You know what we call the Gaitier tactic here in South America,
when a government has problems,
(45:51):
many internal control problems, an external conflict is sought,
as the military junta did in Argentina in 1982 when it invaded Malvinas,
a legitimate claim of the Argentine people, as Venezuelans consider our claim
of the Buyanes-Equiba legitimate, but that these governments are using not to
defend national sovereignty, but to continue in power.
(46:12):
Yes, to divert attention and mention that this time also the change of these
Latin American left-wing governments, I want to mention,
here it has been mentioned en Puerto Rico, la postura de Felipe González,
ex líder socialista español.
Que es una voz importante en ese sector político, que también ha hecho duras
(46:35):
críticas a Maduro y lo que está pasando en Venezuela.
Les agradezco a ambos que hayan sacado de su tiempo para explicar a la audiencia
puertorriqueña lo que está sucediendo en Venezuela y que seguimos de cerca el
desarrollo Thank you very much for this news.
It is better to have the voices of those who are living there.
We wish you to resolve this for the good, with transparency and in favor of
(46:57):
the democracy of the Venezuelan people. Thank you.
Thank you. See you later. Of course. Thank you.
You, friends of Puerto Rico Metro, we invite you to stay connected to all our digital platforms.
Hacer noticioso, cultural y o deportivo con periodistas de Metro Puerto Rico y sus invitados.
Una producción del periódico Metro Puerto Rico. Saludos amigos de Metro Puerto Rico.
Bienvenidos a un nuevo episodio del podcast con los editores.
Les acompaña Ayola Vireya, editora en jefe del periódico Metro Puerto Rico.
(00:23):
Como ustedes saben, Metro Puerto Rico forma parte de un conglomerado de periódicos
que tiene presencia en distintos países de Latinoamérica, del mundo entero.
Por eso siempre estamos muy atentos a lo que sucede en lo que es la noticia mundial.
Contamos con una red de periodistas que nos apoyan en ese sentido.
Y hoy en este episodio del podcast con los editores, lo vamos a dedicar a dialogar
(00:48):
sobre lo que está sucediendo en Venezuela.
Nos va a acompañar, de hecho ya nos acompaña a la distancia desde Caracas,
la periodista Elizabeth Hostos, quien ha sido colaboradora para Metro World News.
Saludos, Elizabeth, ¿cómo te encuentras?
Gracias, Ayola, muy bien. Y bueno, la expectativa de conversar con tu audiencia
(01:09):
y un gran saludo a tu equipo.
Gracias, también nos acompaña para darnos contexto sobre todo el momento histórico que vive Venezuela,
el profesor Pedro Benítez, quien es historiador, profesor de historia económica
de la UCV y columnista de ALNABIO.
Saludos profesor y bienvenido.
(01:29):
Un gusto estar con ustedes. Gracias por la oportunidad.
Quería comenzar, verdad, por lo más básico para nuestra audiencia que ha estado
leyendo titulares, noticias, viendo en televisión lo que está sucediendo en Venezuela.
Es una noticia que levanta mucho interés porque contamos con una a community
of important Venezuelans in Puerto Rico, but not necessarily the whole audience is so soaked,
(01:56):
and I wanted, Professor, to start with a context of how we got to these elections
where the opposition thinks it has won,
there is a controversy for the official declaration of the winner of Nicolás
Maduro, but how did we get here to this point? Thank you.
Well, Venezuela, to give some data that can illustrate the public,
(02:20):
Venezuela is the only important oil exporter in history that has fallen into hyperinflation.
We had the hyperinflation, the hyperinflationary event, the third most intense
and extensive hyperinflationary event in the last 100 years.
Three monetary signs have been destroyed, the real salary of workers has been pulverized,
(02:45):
it is the lowest on the American continent, it is also one of the lowest in
the world, the gross domestic product of the country was reduced by 70% with respect to 2013.
That is, in Venezuela there was an authentic economic catastrophe.
As you know, the main export product of Venezuela has been oil for a long time,
many years ago. In 1998, when President Hugo Chávez came to power,
(03:09):
the Venezuelan oil production was in the 3.5 million barrels of oil.
Most of that was produced by the PDVSA State, Petroleum of Venezuela.
Well, at the beginning of the year, that production level dropped to 700,000 barrels.
It has recovered a little in the last two years of those 700,000 barrels,
(03:30):
probably a little of the half is provided by PDVSA and the rest is provided
by foreign companies, such as the case of Chinese companies or the case of Chevron,
which has had an important contribution in the last year.
So the Venezuelan economic situation is devastating.
From the year 2021, Maduro, the current president Nicolás Maduro,
(03:53):
made some economic flexibility, released product imports,
the inspections of trade were finished, there was an approach to the private sector,
a tremendous anti-inflationary policy with a great cut in public spending,
the collapse of salaries to make an adjustment of public spending and together
(04:17):
with other monetary measures to stop hyperinflation,
so that Venezuela has already left the hyperinflationary event,
but it is like a house that suffered a devastating fire and the fire ended but the house is destroyed.
This is more or less the situation in Venezuela.
Here the big question is why a government that has been so catastrophic for
a society has not come out of power
(04:38):
because that society does not have a mechanism to take it out of power.
Well, it is that Venezuela, Maduro, is the authoritarian drift that started
with President Hugo Chávez.
On democratic grounds, a lot of power began to accumulate, they took control
of public institutions and they supported that with a great apparatus of social
(04:58):
control and repression.
In that context, is that Maduro summons the elections of July 28,
elections that he thought he would win and with which to legitimize the international
democratic community and the party of the premise that the opposition would
be divided, a sector would call for extension.
(05:20):
The opposition had made some primaries last year, on October 22,
those primaries were won in a very broad way by María Corina Machado and what
the Supreme Court of Justice did, which Maduro has now.
Resorted to clarify what happened in the election last Sunday.
Of the previous Sunday, because she disabled María Corina Machado,
(05:42):
so she decided to apply to a university professor, Corina Lloris, in her replacement,
they did not let her sign up and finally, almost by mistake,
they accepted the postulation of the former ambassador in Mundo González Urrutia.
Well, we have a extremely complicated context,
María Corina Machado continued to campaign for this
(06:02):
new candidato pero un contexto muy difícil de mucha
represión le puede dar un dato que puede ser ilustrativo en
el último mes de la campaña hubo más de 100 presos políticos por
el simple hecho de colaborar en la campaña por prestar un
camión para el sonido o por
venderle comida asistirle a la campaña en
(06:22):
los lugares de maripolía de machado se para se paraba a comer oa
dormir cerraron negocios cerraron hoteles tengo
que se fue en un ambiente de mucha represión la oposición decidió
accept that challenge and skip all the obstacles that were
presented to him and the election of 28
occurred at this point after a week
the Venezuelan national electoral council has not shown the acts the results
(06:47):
of the electoral process and without having through those acts the president
of the electoral council a week ago proclaimed Nicolás Maduro as re-elected
president for a third period with which to fulfill it would have 18 years in power and Maduro has.
In contrast to that, on that same Monday,
María Corina Machado presented the country and the whole world with a web page
(07:12):
where all the acts of the witnesses of the table,
that the electoral prosecutors of the opposition that participated in the process
managed to accumulate acts that are produced by the machine of the National
Electoral Council and signed by both the witnesses of Chavismo,
del PSUV, as for the members of the table designated for the effect by the National
(07:36):
Council of Electoral Act totally valid,
they mounted them on a website and I think they are already 84% of the acts,
it is evident that Edmundo González won for a huge, overwhelming advantage in
all regions of the country,
in all social strata, rich,
middle class, poor,
(07:58):
very poor, traditional voters, votantes chavistas, votantes antichavistas,
gente de los andes venezolanos, de la costa, del interior del país, de la costa, en fin.
Y les dio una auténtica paliza electoral y bueno, la cuestión es que el Consejo
Nacional Electoral no da por válido ese resultado.
(08:19):
Precisamente... Se hizo toda esta vuelta grande para tratar de explicar la razón
por la cual existe un enorme I am upset, it seems to me that it is logical,
against the Maduro government and the opposition managed to transform that into
electoral mobilization.
Sí, le agradezco esa explicación, que aunque dice que es una vuelta grande,
mira, está bastante concisa.
(08:40):
Quería tomarlo en este punto donde lo deja, estas actas que ha presentado la
oposición en este portal.
Elizabeth, the last thing I have heard is that the government raises doubts
about the legitimacy of those acts.
It is spoken and I remember the press conference that night in which,
(09:02):
from the CNS, there was talk of an attack on the vote counting system, a hacking.
It was to be expected that they raised these doubts, how much can this speech
prosper, that these acts are not real or no son válidas.
Sí, Ayola, nuestra misión es cómo el Consejo Nacional Electoral puede demostrar
(09:27):
que las actas no son válidas.
Lo que pide el mundo es eso. Algo tan elemental es muestros resultados.
Como decimos acá popularmente, el que gana bingo muestra el cartón.
Y es lo que pasa. Por eso planteaba algo muy interesante en relación con el tema de las actas.
Las actas fueron impresas la misma noche de las votaciones,
(09:47):
tienen un código QR y unos elementos de seguridad alfanuméricos,
están encriptadas, están blindadas, firmadas por los actores políticos que participaron
esa noche en el cierre de las mesas, testigos del gobierno,
testigos de oposición, con mucha dificultad.
La oposición pudo colocar sus testigos en todo el país porque hubo estados en
(10:09):
donde era casi que imposible access to schools and voting centers for issues
of violence on the street, but well, that could be done.
Everything was certified, everything was scanned, printed, sent to the National
Electoral Council, both political actors, government, opposition,
and even minor actors who participated in the elections, seven candidates,
(10:32):
have copies of those acts.
They are already 90% collected by the opposition group, they have increased 6% after the last court.
That information is given by the government, it is given by the CNE,
it is given by the opposition.
On the other hand, the issue of the hacking, there was talk of a group in Macedonia,
in Eastern Europe, that had hacked the Venezuelan electoral system,
(10:56):
but the government of Macedonia responded that at no time had any group hacked
anything related to elections in Venezuela.
A country that did not even know where it was located in South America.
Also other international news agencies of information systems pointed out that
Venezuela was not the object of hacking in July 98 and at this time either.
(11:20):
That is to say, Ayola, when a series of situations of half-truths and non-truths
are being disseminated to prolong the delivery of the acts that evidence the
triumph of the new Bolsonaro-Gurrutia.
And the statistics point out that this opposition candidate,
supported by Maria Corina Machado, won in almost all In almost all the municipalities,
(11:45):
we have 333 municipalities in Venezuela, the chayismo only won in 10.
It won in the 23 states, Majacá, Distrito Capital, Caracas.
A very overwhelming advantage. The CNE, all its headquarters,
that Nicolás Maduro won, but only with one speech. He won and we were hacked.
(12:07):
But the ads show us how people ask for it, even ideologically to the Bolivarian
government, like Brazil, like Mexico.
The president of Argentina, Cristina Kirchner, a series of influencers of Latin
American politics, Latin American leftists ask for it.
The Cáceres Center is a recognized institution with excellent relations with Chávez and Maduro.
(12:33):
They have said that these evictions were not competitive, they were not transparent
and the results do not reflect the will of the Venezuelan people.
However, they also considered that the acts must be delivered as they were on the night of July 28.
So it is a It is a topic that we are in a vicious circle, that one sector says
it did not win, another sector says it won, and the Venezuelan people do not have the expectation.
(12:58):
And as Professor Benítez pointed out, repression at this moment in Venezuela
is accepting, for being a little soft in this sense.
Sí, sobre la represión, quiero entrar en un minuto, pero quiero mencionar algo,
Elizabeth, que es importante para nuestra audiencia en Puerto Rico, ¿no?
Porque como en muchos países del mundo vivimos la polarización y aquí se habla
(13:22):
como de izquierda y derecha, como blanco o negro,
uno u otro, y mencionaste que habían otros, otros candidatos,
no solamente, ¿verdad? Edmundo González.
¿Cuál es el perfil de esos otros candidatos pequeños?
Interesting. First, I would like to highlight that Venezuela already has the
issue of left-right polarization or Madurismo, that is, the opposition no longer exists.
(13:48):
If you look at the results of the polls prior to the election,
and if you look at the current results of the elections,
the country is already on one side, on the side of the world of Gonzalo Ejurrutia,
which we could not say is an extreme right side, y tampoco derecha del medio
y tampoco calificarlo como en un solo segmento,
(14:10):
sino el lado de los que quieren cambio está muy amplio frente al que no quiere
cambio y es un tema de respeto a la democracia.
Los actores menores que participaron en este proceso fueron gente vinculada con el gobierno,
no solamente con el gobierno, sino con el sector que manda en este instante,
(14:30):
For example, a former mayor of the city of San Cristóbal, a former comedian.
A pastor, a couple of deputies.
They were minor actors who gave a touch of plurality to the election.
Because if you look at the electoral card of Venezuela, there were 13 cards
(14:51):
with Maduro's face and 5 or 6 with these minor candidates because they got less
than 1% of the electoral vote,
and only 3% for Mundo González Urrutia.
So it's an apparent democracy issue. Look, we have quite a few candidates, we are competing.
There was change, but the change is not recognized, which is the issue of Fondo Ayola.
(15:14):
Because a government that says it's a winner doesn't have people in the streets celebrating,
doesn't have full happiness in the streets, sino que hay un tema de represión
fuerte y la gente está muy afectada, muy afligida y a la expectativa de lo que
pase con negociaciones políticas,
que es el otro paso que viene en las próximas semanas.
(15:37):
Negociaciones entre actas, ¿qué hacemos? ¿Proclamamos? ¿Desproclamamos?
Transición o transición, ¿qué pasaría en Venezuela? En estos momentos eso es crucial.
Sí, en el tema de la represión, he estado leyendo que va en aumento.
¿Cómo se maneja este tema ahora mismo?
(15:57):
¿Cuál es el cuadro real? Y la oposición, por ejemplo, Edmundo González,
María Corina, Machado, ¿ellos están en riesgo también de ser detenidos?
Well, without a doubt, maricurism and the world are a principal object of judicial attack,
although yesterday, unfortunately, the Attorney General of the Republic said
(16:18):
that there was no detention order against the political actors of opposition,
because another thing that happens in Venezuela is that there is a lot of opacity
in the information and a lot of rumor spread on social networks.
Then there were supposed arrest orders signed by a judge, signed by a magistrate.
So that was part of the psychoterrorism and the demobilizing element.
(16:41):
In this case, these political actors are guarded as they have pointed out.
The issue of repression, the human rights groups here have played a fundamental
role in the defense of the rights of the detained arbitrarily.
In the government, there are 2,000 people detained for being in the course of
(17:01):
acts of vandalism and terrorism, something that has not been able to be proven,
not even the official figure.
The Human Rights Group, until yesterday, had a figure of 988 detainees in the
entire country, of which 91 were adolescents or are adolescents.
They are being presented to courts.
Denounced by the Venezuelan Penal Forum, which is a defense entity of human
(17:24):
rights, who have not had access to private lawyers, but lawyers of public office,
and it is not known what can happen with these people captured in the context of the protests,
who were not necessarily in the protest, Yola.
Someone who was passing by, they were in the wrong place and they were taken
away. ¿En los barrios populares? ¿Sí?
(17:44):
¿Y estos arrestados, se les observan sus derechos una vez están detenidos o
no se sabe qué pasa con ellos?
¿Hay algún tipo de represión una vez detenidos? ¿Y hay que poner en riesgo su integridad?
Mira, realmente no hay información. El problema grave aquí es que no hay información
sobre qué está pasando con los detenidos.
(18:05):
Suponemos, deseamos que respete sus derechos humanos, por supuesto,
and that is part of the struggle of the groups such as PROVEA or other human
rights groups that point out that they must be seen,
these people must be seen by their family members, by private lawyers,
or treated by the families or by groups that are supporting these people.
And well, it would be desirable that they were seen and that they were cared
(18:27):
for, that they are in a situation of respect for human rights.
It is desirable at this moment, we do not know. Professor, I would like to dialogue with you.
On the night of the election, or at dawn, after that Sunday of the election,
Nicolás Maduro, when he came to the political tribunal, at one point he talked about reconciliation,
(18:49):
of dialogue, but we are seeing all the denunciations of how the process was and now the repression.
What do you think that he adjudicates, that he has made that nod,
although we are not really seeing it?
Well, it is the double speech that he has always had, you remember a headline
that caused a great scandal when he said a week before the election,
(19:14):
more or less, that if he did not win there would be a bloodbath in Venezuela.
And it was such a barbarity of the affirmation that even the president of Brazil,
a person who has been close to Chávez for a long time, censored him publicly, criticized him.
That gave rise to an incident. We see how it is no longer about the presidents,
let's say, on the right, in the case of Miguel, for example,
(19:37):
who is criticizing Maduro, it is that the president Boris de Chile,
a person that we cannot suspect that he has political inclinations towards that
sector, quite the opposite, and comes from the student struggle against the
government of the President Piñera,
a critical opening of Maduro, we already see the position of the president of
(19:57):
Colombia, who also comes from the left,
these are the hours, for example, that neither the presidents of Brazil or Mexico,
who are also close to the government, as I already said, the Venezuelan government,
because they have not certainly recognized the world of the Basals as the winner,
but they do not recognize that Maduro has won the elections,
they continue to leave that question open and well, the most recent was what
(20:21):
lo que dijo ayer la presidenta Cristina Kirchner, ¿no?
Tal vez usted lo haya escuchado.
Y la razón de esto es que, bueno, Venezuela ha ido evolucionando rápidamente
a ser una dictadura abierta.
A military dictatorship. In 1928 there were these electoral results,
but in 1929, in the main cities of the country, but also, but mainly in Caracas,
(20:42):
there was a real unexpected social explosion.
In the most important neighborhoods of the city, the popular sectors went down
to protest and since then there has been enormous repression.
In Caracas there is a race, there is a fear environment,
witnesses are being detained at the table, many people
suspect that those witnesses are detaining them
(21:04):
to force them to sign the acts that perhaps here we
are interested in entering the field of the delusion this forging the government
not to try to fix the result of that presidential election and many people who
have come out on social networks to protest or have expressed themselves in an airy way against
(21:25):
Maduro and against Chavismo, they detain them, they present them on public television.
Last night I saw it on a television program and these people ask for forgiveness,
they ask for forgiveness from Nicolás Maduro, they regret it.
That is, without arrest charges, without actions from the prosecution,
we have a large number of people who have been objects of forced disappearance.
(21:46):
It is the case of an ex-deputy, Frei Superlano, who to this day neither his
family nor his party knows where he is. finds.
I think I do not exaggerate if I say that we are facing an environment of generalized terror.
We have returned to Venezuela, particularly this week, to the worst chapters
of state terrorism that took place in the dictates of the southern cone in the 70s of the last century.
(22:11):
But Professor, he also said after this election of 28 that that was just the beginning.
That night was not that the end of what has been this government was,
but it is the beginning, it makes a change.
Now we are in this scenario that you describe to us and talks about the route of negotiation.
(22:34):
How can you negotiate in that scenario?
How can you negotiate with a government that, as you describe us,
has become a military dictatorship?
Well, look, politics is the art of what is possible, right? Politics precisely serves for that.
There are many people in Latin America, particularly on the left,
and there is a proposal that the presidents have made.
(22:56):
In fact, I understand that today there will be a Zoom meeting between the Mexican
president Andrés López Obrador, the Brazilian president Lula da Silva,
and the Colombian president Gustavo Petro, with Maduro.
Where they are going to make a proposal about that.
There are versions that have run in the media, particularly about that.
There is one that has been covered.
(23:17):
The country of Spain has been very aware of this. No, the hope is that just
as Pinochet came to power for a negotiation, for a referendum,
then a negotiation came or it happened with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in
the year 90, for example,
or the Uruguayan dictatorship or in Brazil with the military dictatorship that ended in the year 85.
A scheme like this that seeks a political outlet for people who are in power
(23:40):
and allows the change that the Venezuelan society is demanding to occur at the lowest possible cost.
So that is the reason why all the channels are kept open.
There is this proposal of these three governments that I have quoted,
that has been discussed,
but well, that has not stopped the repression in Venezuela, and Maduro has a
very hard line to continue on this path.
(24:06):
What happens is that no government in the world ever, never,
nor the worst of dictatorships is sustained only and exclusively by repression on the bayonet.
It always needs an international support international, it always needs some
political scheme that complements the domination.
(24:29):
The control of society, only by bayonets you do not get that and that is the
reason why the dictatorship at the end of the day ends up falling and Maduro is very aware of this,
it is not the first time that he is in a situation like this, already in 2019,
maybe you remember when Juan Guaidó appeared, there were enormous mobilizations
(24:50):
in Caracas, Juan Guaidó was the president of the National Assembly elected in
2015, an assembly that also won the opposition, and that Maduro,
like this election, also blocked.
But well, that assembly achieved great international support,
and at some point it was thought that Maduro was also fallen.
That's what I was going to ask you.
At that time there was an international consensus that pointed out that Maduro was leaving.
(25:17):
What is different from 2019 to now?
Interesting your approach. Well, at that time, a difference is that at that
time most of the governments of Latin America, let's say, were the sign of the
right wing, which was united in the Lima group.
In this case, those who are questioning Maduro are left-wing governments.
(25:38):
That is a paradox of history.
Then here is the role of the individual in history.
I give great importance to the role that Maria Corina Machado is playing.
Ella es una persona con unas características individuales diferentes
a los dirigentes políticos opositores del
pasado muy diferentes al caso de de Guaidó
(25:59):
eso es un aspecto ella tiene un compromiso
muy grande de permanecer aquí en Caracas con la gente
corriendo grandes riesgos porque su vida realmente está en riesgo lo que está
haciendo María Corina yo creo que objetivamente hablando solamente se puede
calificar como como de heroico y luego hay There is a topic here that can be
(26:20):
key, which are the electoral results.
Because, well, when Guaidó was proclaimed, well, there was always the doubt
of the constitutional legitimacy of what the Venezuelan National Assembly at
that time was doing, a confrontation between the legislative power and Maduro.
But in this case, Maduro has done the most shameless electoral fraud that remembers
(26:46):
the accidented history of Latin America.
Let me give you two quick examples.
In the election of the year 19 in Bolivia, November 19, it was never clear if Evo Morales lost or won.
But the electoral dispute that created that ended up taking Evo Morales to the
government. You will remember it.
(27:07):
And in the year 2000 in Peru something similar happened, but no,
it is that in this case the Venezuelan opposition has demonstrated,
the world is demonstrating that it won by an overwhelming advantage to Maduro,
that is, from more than 2 to 1.
The number we have in the world, González, is approaching almost 70% and Maduro
is around 30%, a little more. That is, the advantage is gigantic.
(27:29):
That is, the magnitude of the fraud is undeniable, it is very evident.
And in the history of Latin America, when social protest is combined with the
flag of the fight for the legitimacy of electoral results, it generally ends
up being fatal for governments.
Well, Maduro is precisely trying to survive in power to that challenge.
(27:50):
And I ask you, in the middle of this scenario, I have also heard analysis,
at least here in Puerto Rico, of why there is no intervention from the foreigner.
You as Venezuelans who are there, do you see it with bad eyes?
Is it something that Venezuelans should solve? How do you see when this element
(28:12):
is brought to the discussion, as perhaps happened in Panama,
of an intervention from the foreigner, specifically from the United States?
As a very easy question, I'm going to leave it to Elizabeth.
Wow, Professor, thank you very much. Well, I'm going to tell you my personal opinion.
These are historical, political moments that do not enter into the classic intervention
(28:36):
in the previous years of the evil empire in the United States, according to the left.
I think these moments are of political pressure, economic pressure.
I presume that the United States is going to increase sanctions to the
government of maduro because they are extremely noble
with maduro has released the
(28:58):
staff a recognized character detained in the united states for two issues not
so many has released the nephews of the first lady of the republic involved
in important issues of drug issues,
liberated from the United States, as well as the sobrinos, have flexibilized sanctions.
(29:23):
Venezuela is receiving a lot of money for the sale of drugs with the participation of Chevrolet.
This flexibilization has been reversed against Venezuelan democracy.
The Bolivian government has had the advantage to have those virtues,
(29:43):
those licenses of the government of the United States, and look what's happening.
The problem is politics, not military intervention, because it's not the time.
And really, what a shame for me, as a Venezuelan, that this happened.
Really, it's a very personal opinion. But I ask you, those concessions that
the US government has made also happen in a context of international geopolitics,
(30:07):
where there is a war in Ukraine, where there is perhaps less access.
The issue of oil also plays a factor there, or how do you see it that you are there?
Well, there is a... I'm going to play it, I mean, I think, sorry,
professor. That's why there is political negotiation, the West needs the oil
of Venezuela and Venezuelans need democracy, definitely, Ayola. Professor.
(30:32):
Well, Ayola, there is a bit of fantasy from the global left and the Maduro government,
according to which the world is desperately in need of Venezuelan oil.
Last year, the world oil production was around 86 million barrels a day.
(30:54):
Of those 86 million barrels a day, Venezuela produces 700 and exports 550.
More or less. Maybe a little more.
That is, it is a drop in the ocean.
From the point of view of the United States, the production of the United States
is in 13 million barrels.
If the United States, to meet its needs, has Canada and has Mexico,
(31:15):
I am not saying that in addition it is over in Guyana, which is next door,
which is also part of this,
maybe you remember it in Guyana, a oil boom is occurring and it may be that in two years Guyana,
well, I already think that the oil production in Guyana has surpassed that of
Venezuela, there is a new source of energy resources, several European,
(31:38):
North American companies are involved, the Chinese oil company is involved,
so what can end up The first thing that is happening is that Venezuela is totally
out of, or Venezuela is getting out of the world's oil game.
And paradoxically, an ally that Maduro has, which is Russia,
is not interested in the Venezuelan oil industry recovering,
(31:59):
because Venezuela with Russia is a competitor.
Who would be more interested in Venezuela entering the world market?
Because it is a great importer, it is China.
But it is that China has already thrown the towel with the government of Maduro for many years.
China still owes Venezuela to China 20 billion dollars in debt that was contracted
in the time of the former President Chávez and that they have not finished paying
(32:21):
for and the reason why China has no credit lines to the government of Maduro.
And this then puts us in a paradox.
The only way for Maduro to get new sources of income is by reaching an agreement
with the United States and that was precisely what was set up in the last two years.
The main concern of the United
(32:41):
States towards Venezuela is a migratory flow from the
year 21 you know the fifth part of the Venezuelan population no almost the fourth
part of the Venezuelan population has emigrated in the last 10 years the largest
part of that migration has been to the neighboring countries in South America
and there is a current a very important flow of Venezuelan immigrants who que
(33:01):
cruzan el tapón del Darién,
cruzan México y llegan a la frontera de Texas con Estados Unidos,
y eso ya se ha convertido en un problema para la campaña electoral de este año
entre republicanos y demócratas.
Entonces, lo que le interesa más a la administración Biden en este momento es
cómo parar el flujo de inmigrantes, porque el tema migratorio,
como ustedes saben muy bien, puede ser decisivo en esta elección presidencial
(33:25):
de noviembre en Estados Unidos.
Quisiera preguntarle So, let's talk about the negotiations, and not to take
away so much time, the international negotiations that the professor mentioned.
In the context of, for example, what happened with the Organization of American States,
don't you fear that it could also happen or be a preamble to what could happen
(33:46):
with the negotiations that are taking place with left-wing governments in the region?
Yes, well, at this moment, if there is something that is in relief,
it is the concern for Venezuela, the concern for the Venezuelan people.
It is the one who suffers the consequences of this situation so anti-democratic and negating freedom.
(34:09):
Because against a so evident electoral representative, as all political authors
know, erasing it with a single pen, saying that the acts were hacked,
that is something like imperishable.
And I think that there will be negotiations of all kinds, from all sides.
(34:29):
Even here in Venezuela, they are talking about the creation of a national front
for democracy, where all political factors are included.
From the right, from the left, from the center, from the undefined,
social movements, even people who used to support Hugo Chávez in his.
(34:50):
In their governments, even in their antipathetic actions against democracy,
they are already incorporated into this movement,
which I understand will be led by María Corina Machado and by El Mundo González
Urrutia, and it will be a universe of people who initially spoke before,
but now they are speaking for the rescue of democracy,
for the well-being of the Venezuelan people, and for the cessation of repression,
(35:13):
which I think this is what we have to put in relief.
No more fears, freedom for political prisoners, freedom of action for journalists.
To stop blocking the main information portals in our country.
It is extremely difficult to be informed because there is a systematic blockade
of web portals, the addresses of the main Venezuelan media and non-Venezuelan.
(35:36):
In fact, the professor writes to the Navy and I understand that it is blocked.
It is an important political information and analysis portal.
Fortunately, Metro is fine, we can read Metro. but other media such as the country
of Spain, for example, is blocked.
The DWL in Germany is blocked.
People find out through social media because there are mechanisms to avoid blockades.
(35:59):
But hey, a democracy has to be supported in the fundamental pillars,
freedom of expression, respect for human rights, respect for the will of the
people, and recognize that if we don't win today, we can win in the future if we regroup as forces.
But at this moment, I say yes, in the world of all the trends and in Venezuela,
(36:19):
there is a strong movement for the recovery of democracy, of course.
Elizabeth, the professor told us that they were seeing demonstrations on the streets.
Now I don't remember if it was the professor or you, of the popular sectors,
of the popular neighborhoods. Esto es algo que cambió con lo que pudo haber
sido, por ejemplo, el movimiento de 2019 o movimientos previos contra el gobierno.
(36:46):
Your question is interesting, Professor, because look, since 2006 in Venezuela,
there has been a process of disenchantment, of disenamoramiento of the Bolivarian
systematical revolution.
It has been reflected electorally in 2012, 2013, 2015, 2019.
(37:08):
Not so much in 2019, but in previous years.
So there is the secular sector incorporated. Así que el tema de que ser pobre
es igual a ser Chávez, ser pobre es igual a ser mandurista, eso es un paradigma que se cayó.
Porque en las elecciones de diputados en 2015, haciendo una traza y una mitigación
(37:29):
de las actas del Consejo Nacional Electoral, se demuestra que en sectores populares
ya la gente empezó a votar masivamente por la oposición.
In the regional elections of 2020, the opposition also started voting,
and at this moment, the neighborhood, as they call it, went down the street spontaneously.
Look, a week ago, at 9 in the morning, I went to the airport to take an international
(37:53):
correspondent who was covering, and he told me, no, because nothing happens here.
Ok, we took it at 9 in the morning, going up to the Caracas airport,
which is 40 minutes away, already at 11.30 in the morning, many popular neighborhoods
that are surrounding urban areas were on the street protesting spontaneously.
(38:13):
There was a huge riot, like more than two hours, it was tremendous.
And social networks, people started, look, in Caracas, Casa Lorena,
in Marquisimeto, in Maracay, in Valencia, in Bolívar, in Sucre,
in all the states, there was a disarticulated protest. Ladder.
But it was the popular sectors. What happened on Tuesday?
The riots of the State Security Organisms started in neighborhoods as emblematic as Petare.
(38:39):
That was widely reviewed by the press.
Petare is the largest neighborhood in Latin America, with 2.5 million people
living on that mountain.
All of them stuck next to each other, all very concentrated.
Well, there are people from Petare who had to leave their homes.
People from Petare who are imprisoned. and they force them to say,
look, I didn't go, you did go.
(38:59):
I mean, why repress if people are expressing themselves?
And this is a vibrant democracy, as the current government says.
So the popular sector is the one that is taking on the fight at this moment
and it is the one that gave the triumph to Mayra Corina Machado y Armando González.
Because, seeing in detail the copy of the acts that all the political actors
have, and with the minors, the elderly, the middle-aged, in neighborhoods,
(39:22):
in hunting grounds, in towns that were totally chavistas and that depend on
the state, on the government,
on the mayor's office, on the customs, on the local airports.
There they voted against the Bolivarian government.
In the foreign service, some embassies had more votes for the opposition than for the government.
(39:45):
So it's a matter of change, and in democracy, what less serious is it for a
government to go out for the votes?
And well, the negotiations, dear comrade.
Professor, to conclude these negotiations, and to add the data that I read this morning,
(40:06):
that there are at least seven countries that recognize as winners of the Venezuelan
presidential committees, venezuelanos a González.
Estas negociaciones, ¿cuánto tiempo, si miramos como un cronograma, deberían tomar?
¿Cuál podría ser el próximo paso importante político en Venezuela?
¿Y cuándo? Bueno, la información que nosotros manejamos, digamos,
(40:31):
la principal fuente ha sido, insisto, el país de España, es que los presidentes de México,
Brasil y Colombia le han dado una semana to Maduro to close an agreement with them in this sense.
I understand that there are two offers or two proposals,
one that there is a direct negotiation between Maduro and Mundo González Urrutia,
(40:54):
leaving a margin to María Corina Machado, because they say that María Corina
Machado is an obstacle to reach an agreement.
Well, that is very questionable, but hey, that is another issue,
that is the proposal, and has also shot the possibility of repeating the elections.
What happens is that in both cases, all negotiation leads to Maduro's departure from power.
(41:14):
That is, it would lead to recognizing these elections or to making new elections
that he will also lose with this other candidate, and then we return to the
same point, that Maduro is going to leave power.
And we already have a long experience in Venezuela.
Days of dialogue, negotiations that always end in the same way in which Maduro's
government simply what it does is gain time and mock its interlocutors.
(41:38):
And excuse me for interrupting you.
That possibility of a new election, how is negotiation guaranteed that it will
not repeat itself again?
The lack of transparency, that international observers do not have access to
the act, how to prevent the result with the same exercise from being what we are living today?
(42:01):
There is no way to guarantee it, this is an authoritarian regime,
it has control of all public powers, let me put it that way,
it does what it wants, there is nothing that limits it.
I quoted the example of the negotiation with the Biden administration government,
it was the United States and simply Maduro totally mocked the Biden administration
and his envoy Juan González, The US government made a series of very important concessions to Maduro,
(42:27):
he had two nephews who were detained in the United States, they were arrested.
Accused of drug trafficking by the DEA, condemned, serving sentence,
and the Biden government returned them, and another person who had business
with the Maduro government, who was also detained and sentenced, Mr.
Al-Assad, also the US government returned it to him, and the response to those
(42:51):
gestures from Washington, that is, the White House, has been,
well, more repression, more political persecution.
Sanctions were lifted, economic sanctions were made, and well,
the Maduro government simply despises that, it uses every concession of the
adversary to make fun of it, and there is nothing that makes us think that his
conduct is different, well, with respect to that.
(43:14):
Here the only inference is that he is being questioned by a political sector
in which he has moved so far,
which is this sector of the Latin American democratic left, to which he had
tried to homologate himself, but well, I think that here,
well, it is a very personal question, Maduro is convinced that the greatest
(43:37):
cost he has is to get out of power and he is willing to be lynched at the cost that
they have to pay the country and that puts the Venezuelan situation in very
dramatic circumstances, but also in the region, because this is going to reactivate
immigration on a large scale.
(43:59):
Elizabeth was talking about the issue of repression. These images that you have
seen of young people protesting in the streets of the most populous neighborhoods
of the cities of Caracas, Those young people are 15,
20 years old, 22 years old, those children, those boys, those boys don't know
another Venezuela than this one.
(44:20):
They grew up and were born under Chávez and Maduro.
They are the children of the Chavist voters.
They are the children of Chavism. They are the ones that Maduro is pursuing,
is qualifying as fascist and offered to enable two maximum security prisons
to massively recruit political prisoners.
(44:41):
In Caracas we have, not since now, but some time ago, the three largest centers
of torture and recruitment of political prisoners in the Western Hemisphere,
in Caracas, in view of everything,
and they do not make any effort to hide it, because precisely what they are
trying to do is to intimidate the population.
Well, this situation, what is going to end up, I think, is dragging a political
(45:05):
crisis to the neighborhood.
It is going to cause a large number of problems to President Petro in Colombia
and it will be that in Brazil, the public opinion of Brazil and the Congress
of Brazil, where Lula does not have a majority,
because there will be, and it is already happening, just look at the media of
communication in Brazil, the Sao Paulo Folio, for example, are strongly questioning
(45:29):
Lula for having contributed to the fact that things in Venezuela reached these extremes.
And Ayola, to finish this picture, just to tell you, and that Maduro still has
a letter under his sleeve, which is to reactivate the conflict with Guyana.
You know what we call the Gaitier tactic here in South America,
when a government has problems,
(45:51):
many internal control problems, an external conflict is sought,
as the military junta did in Argentina in 1982 when it invaded Malvinas,
a legitimate claim of the Argentine people, as Venezuelans consider our claim
of the Buyanes-Equiba legitimate, but that these governments are using not to
defend national sovereignty, but to continue in power.
(46:12):
Yes, to divert attention and mention that this time also the change of these
Latin American left-wing governments, I want to mention,
here it has been mentioned en Puerto Rico, la postura de Felipe González,
ex líder socialista español.
Que es una voz importante en ese sector político, que también ha hecho duras
(46:35):
críticas a Maduro y lo que está pasando en Venezuela.
Les agradezco a ambos que hayan sacado de su tiempo para explicar a la audiencia
puertorriqueña lo que está sucediendo en Venezuela y que seguimos de cerca el
desarrollo Thank you very much for this news.
It is better to have the voices of those who are living there.
We wish you to resolve this for the good, with transparency and in favor of
(46:57):
the democracy of the Venezuelan people. Thank you.
Thank you. See you later. Of course. Thank you.
You, friends of Puerto Rico Metro, we invite you to stay connected to all our digital platforms.
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