By Luis Manuel Aguana
In an important event held on Friday, October
11 at the College of Engineers of Venezuela, with the assistance of a large
group of citizens concerned about the country, was the official launch of the
proposal for the Popular Plebiscite Consultation in the framework of a new
grouping of civil society: Integración Ciudadana (see in
Spanish in https://twitter.com/integracionciu1/status/1182845095734849536).
This new group was born accompanying the
proposal of one of its main founding organizations, the Alianza Nacional
Constituyente Originaria, ANCO, who together with the Grupo de Análisis
Político, GAP and other civil society organizations welcomed the fundamental
idea of calling for People's Sovereignty to decide the future of Venezuela
through an instrument that the Constitution provides to citizens above the
Constituted Powers of the State: a People's Consultation,
However, what summons us Venezuelans is not
only to get rid of a usurping and castrating regime of liberties, but also to REPAIR POPULAR SOBERANCE,
seriously damaged in 20 years of dismantling by an international criminal
organization. Venezuelan institutions are destroyed. It is not possible to call
for a new electoral process in Venezuela without having repaired the
institutionality as a whole. And who should do that? The Government in Charge
of Juan Guaidó? The Armed Forces, which are already destroyed? Or worse still,
any foreign country? No. To us, to each and every
Venezuelan.
The intervention of Dr. Pedro Urrieta
Figueredo, ANCO's Citizen Development Coordinator, describes it fully: "As citizens, we identify that the
greatest usurpation that has been committed in Venezuela has been against
popular sovereignty, manifested in: the non-observance of the electoral result
of last December 6, 2015; the suspension of the processing of the recall
referendum in 2016; the authorization by the Supreme Court of Justice of the
constituent process without popular call, and without the possibility of
calling the constitutional consultative referendum; the non-observance of the
binding results of the Popular Consultation held on July 16, 2017; the holding
of electoral processes, including the presidential one, without the guarantees
established in article 298 of the Constitution, during the years 2017 and 2018.
This injury must be repaired. It is up to democrats and democracies to do so.
Therefore, if we register the magnitude of the prevailing antagonism and
deinstitutionalization, we can understand our obligation to produce the
re-establishment of the rights of the Venezuelan people through the approval of
a civic-democratic process based on popular sovereignty, with clear and shared
rules, whose results are unquestionably accepted by the social base, the main
institutional actors of the country and the international community, using for
this purpose any of the means of participation and protagonism of the people
set forth in the Constitution, and addressing issues and cases that violate the
dignity of persons, justice and the validity of human rights" (see
intervention in Spanish by Dr. Pedro Urrieta Figueredo, in http://vitolopez.blogspot.com/2019/10/hay-que-estrablecer-la-constitucion-y.html).
And on what basis? As Urrieta Figueredo
pointed out in her speech, the current Constitution clearly establishes a
shared responsibility between the State and Civil Society in the
"Principles of National Security":
Article 326: "The security of the Nation is based on the co-responsibility of
the State and Civil Society to comply with the principles of independence,
democracy, equality, peace, freedom, justice, solidarity, promotion and
conservation of the environment and affirmation of human rights, as well as on
the progressive satisfaction of the individual and collective needs of
Venezuelans, on the basis of a sustainable and productive development with full
coverage for the national community. The principle of co-responsibility is
exercised over the economic, social, political, cultural, geographical,
environmental and military spheres”.
If the State failed to fulfil its
responsibility as a result of a criminal kidnapping, we cannot evade it. This
is like the co-responsibility of parents in the care of children in a marriage:
if one fails or dies, the other assumes it.
And this co-responsibility is not new. In my
father's work to opt for the Doctorate in Law at the University of Carabobo,
dated in the 60's (see in Spanish Raúl Aguana Figuera, Consideraciones sobre el Derecho
Militar Venezolano, in https://tinyurl.com/y4kw78s2), Dr. Aguana
established that the expanded conception of the National Defense included all
Venezuelans, not only the military: “…
The continuity of the State in the order of time and space rests in the defense
of its existence, protecting itself from decomposition agents that constantly
affect it, jeopardizing the community organized in the State in terms of
internal security and external security. National
defense corresponds to all members of that community, that is, all citizens are
responsible, as well as public bodies, the realization of the so-called
permanent large objectives of the defense, which cover the political, economic,
social, military, the promotion of citizen welfare and society in general, the
survival of our culture and strategic objectives ”. (highlighted our)
And according to this conceptualization we are all involved in the
problem of defending the Nation, not just the military. The 1999 Constitution
assigns very clear responsibilities to them in Article 328, and to Civil
Society in Article 326. We are facing a certain threat to our National Security
and the military, who should be called upon to defend it, have been
neutralized, and its leadership has allied itself to a criminal organization
with foreign ties, leaving the population unprotected.
It is then up to us Venezuelans a clear
responsibility in the re-establishment of the validity of the Constitution,
otherwise already established as a duty in Article 333. Integración Ciudadana is
something more than a group of organizations and citizens committed to comply
with what is a duty of all Venezuelans. It is the first step of a citizenry
that has been perfectly aware of this responsibility and is acting accordingly,
making a clear proposal to Venezuelans. Let us all add to that effort to rescue
Venezuela.
Caracas, October 14, 2019
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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