By Luis Manuel Aguana
Intervention
in the Pío Tamayo Chair at the Central University of Venezuela, 26-02-2018
I am
grateful for this new opportunity to the Pio Tamayo Chair to convene me to
discuss the future of Venezuela. And on this occasion to debate the question
that the Chair has asked us: How can we organize a majority social force to
confront destruction?
It is not for
anyone a secret that the National Constituent Alliance has been and still is in
the work of convincing the imperative need to convene the Constituent to
discuss the country. But not to discuss any country, but a Country Project that
we have proposed to Venezuela, and whose cornerstone is based on the
decentralization of political power with all that this implies. And the
discussion of that country is clearly resolved in the meantime its governance
and governance situation.
With these ideas
at the forefront and having our objective clear, we established a strategy to
achieve it based on the participatory characteristic offered by the 1999
Constitution. This strategy led us to devise a form of organization to carry it
out. And that is the order: first a proposal, then a strategy to develop it and
then a structure to carry it out. This order was not invented by us but by the
best researchers in the field of strategy of the world. That is, a proposal first.
Our
proposal has existed for more than 15 years and is called Proyecto País Venezuela Reconciliada Vía Constituyente. The
strategy is contained in a political document that we have published and that
has been changing over time and due to political realities, entitled (in
Spanish) “Bases Constituyentes, Propuesta
de los Ciudadanos para la Reconciliación y el Cambio”. The organization and
detail of its structure is suggested there and developed in the multiple
documents written by the Alliance and discussed with different groups
throughout the country in the last 4 years.
Thus we
were going until May 1,2017, when everything changed for Venezuela: the regime
of Nicolás Maduro summoned the Constituent Assembly without being
constitutionally empowered to do so, electing and installing a National
Constituent Assembly to its measure, illegitimate, irritating and
unconstitutional. That, in our opinion, is the biggest problem facing
Venezuelans today.
What was
our initial reaction as a group that promoted a legitimate, original and
popularly-initiated Constituent? Reject the grievance made by the regime,
pronouncing ourselves on May 3 before this unconstitutional call of the
government (see ins Spanish Pronunciamiento de la ANC ante el llamado a una
Asamblea Nacional Constituyente del gobierno http://ancoficial.blogspot.com/2017/05/pronunciamiento-de-la-anc-ante-el.html),
under the following slogan "Let's
counteract the force of the Original Constituent Power to the claim of power of
a regime, who defiling a tool that only belongs to the Venezuelan people, tries
to use it to subdue it, destroying its freedom!”.
Subsequently, on
May 25, we delivered a communication to the Board of the National Assembly (see
the communication received at https://tinyurl.com/yd8w2dqy)
in the following terms: “Given that the
National Government has ignored its Constitutional obligation to consult To
Venezuelans, this matter of undoubted national importance, we ask that
honorable National Assembly, current depositaries of the popular will, proceed
to activate the constitutional device contemplated in Article 71 of the
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ... “. Immediately after, on May 26, 2017,
we publicly sent a clear message to the Nation. "The People must be
consulted now!" (See http://ancoficial.blogspot.com/2017/05/mensaje-de-la-alianza-nacional.html).
This formal
request was translated into multiple meetings of the National Constituent
Alliance held with the political factors that led to the National Assembly -
Julio Borges and the Board of Directors of the National Assembly - between the
dates of these communications and July 4,2017, until reaching the agreement of
the National Assembly on July 5,2017 for the consultation that became possible
on July 16,2017. In this sense, the Alliance again addressed the National
Assembly immediately after the July 5th Agreement for the public signing of the
document "Great National Agreement: Let the People decide! The Chacao
Theatre (see communication to the National Assembly received on 7 July 2017 at https://tinyurl.com/y76a3qy2). All
these steps have been documented and made known to Venezuelans as the events occurred,
so those of us who proposed this course of action are now proposing a new
alternative to the country.
However, it
was not possible with all this to stop the regime in spite of the fact that we
got in the middle of it with a proposal that was not in the plans of the MUD.
But the political factors took advantage of it and used the votes of that
Popular Consultation to go to negotiate with the government for a general
election against the clear mandate of the people on 16J. However, between 16J
and 30J the regime, clearly hit by the result of that consultation, sent its
hired emissary, former Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to
negotiate with the official opposition an indefinite suspension of the 30J
constituent elections. That opportunity was foolishly dismissed by the
opposition. And why is that? Because they were not prepared to negotiate a
Constituent process but neither did they call those who were in a position to
do so. They did not know anything about the Electoral Bases, nor were they
prepared for the structuring of a process of this complexity, closing
themselves to the possibility of giving way to a hegemony that the regime later
consolidated with an electoral fraud on 30J.
Where are
we now? In a false dilemma between going or not going to a presidential
electoral process with an unconstitutional Constituent in office above all the
powers of the State. And there are still those who wonder whether or not to go
to that announced fraud. The dilemma isn't whether or not to go to the
elections, it's whether or not to accept that fraud and what to do about it.
We are in a
University and a Chair for serious and in-depth discussion, therefore we must
respond academically and professionally. Faced with this Chair's question of
how to organize a majority social force to confront the destruction, our
response is a proposal and strategy to the country that opposes the electoral
solutions of political opposition, with a creative alternative that gives
practical, peaceful, constitutional and electoral responses to Venezuelans,
with an immediate implementation.
In this
sense, the proposal continues to be to CALL THE CONSTITUENT, but this time in a
legitimate manner, restoring to Venezuelans the right violated on May 1,2017 to
decide whether or not they wished to go to this process, offering the country a
broad and participatory Electoral Bases, dismantle through a sovereign
consultation the unconstitutional mamotreto of the regime and all its
decisions, and give that new Constituent Assembly the mandate of dismissal of
all public powers and appoint a Transitional National Unity government until
the approval and election of new powers in the framework of a new Constitution.
We have called this new proposal "An Alternative Agenda for
Venezuela" (see ANCO's Manifesto in Spanish at http://ancoficial.blogspot.com/2018/02/manifiesto-gran-alianza-por-la-consulta.html).
Last
February 22nd, the National Constituent Alliance and its consultative body, the
Superior Constituent Conference, called for a Great Alliance for this new
Popular Consultation with the intention that we all coincide in a single
declaration of principles: “¡Let the Venezuelan people decide!” The
fundamental difference between this consultation and the 16J consultation is
that it is incumbent on those who must make their results effective, which is
none other than the convenor, on this occasion very different from the previous
one: the people of Venezuela. If Venezuela and the friendly countries that have
supported us in this crusade to restore the rule of law agree on this new
alternative, the results would not be long in coming. All the national and
international pressure would be directed to that single declaration: That the
Venezuelan people decide their destiny in a Popular Consultation, leaving the
regime in the dilemma between killing us all, peacefully gathered in the
streets or accepting the decision of the sovereign people, negotiating their
exit. And there, not only would the government decide what to do, but also the
Armed Forces. This solution has no date and may be before or after April 22,
the day on which it is intended to call for electoral fraud.
On November
30,2017, the legitimate TSJ established at OAS headquarters in Washington DC
responded to an appeal introduced by the National Constituent Alliance in these
terms:
“Because the country is plunged into a profound
social and economic crisis that has affected the normal life of its citizens,
it is appropriate to activate the civil and peaceful resistance decreed by this
High Court in accordance with articles 333 and 350 of the Constitution, which
makes it urgent to produce the changes required by Venezuela to restore the
validity of the Constitution and therefore of democracy in Venezuela, Therefore, any way out of the crisis that
is sought in the political arena must be done within the mechanisms of popular
participation enshrined in article 70 of the Constitution, and never behind the
backs of the people, in order to provoke the immediate exit of everything that
has generated the crisis that the country is going through.” (Item No.
3 of the Order to Execute the Judgment of October 25,2017, http://ancoficial.blogspot.com/2017/12/auto-de-ejecucion-de-sentencia-tsj.html)
(Our Highlight). This sentence is
transcendental because it indicates, in other words, that any way out must
involve consulting the sovereign people. This proposal is therefore politically
and legally supported. It is up to us to make it effective for the recovery of
liberties in Venezuela.
Thank you very much....
Caracas,
26 February 2018
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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