By Luis Manuel Aguana
Presentation
at the Pío Tamayo Cathedra of the Central University of Venezuela, 28-05-2018
Once again,
my greetings and thanks to the Pío Tamayo Cathedra and to Prof. Agustín Blanco
Muñoz for this new opportunity to debate Venezuela. And I like to use the term
"debate Venezuela" because that is the least we do in our country,
especially when the situation is becoming more and more difficult and complex,
and permanent analyses such as those carried out in this Cathedra are required.
Most people act reactively to what the regime does to us, and not proactively.
And to act proactively you have to think first, establish what needs to be
done, and effectively do it later.
The
questions from the forum on today's Cathedra "What now? will we continue to wait for the invasion, the
insurrection, the coup, the resignation or the next call for elections?"
would have been adequately answered if someone in the official opposition - not
just the one who went to the elections, but the one who did not - had taken the
trouble to think about this scenario after May 20, which in my modest opinion,
not said but written in black and white for several years, was perfectly
predictable: the regime stole the elections again.
On October 8, 2012, the day after the election of Capriles-Chavez, I
titled a note on my blog with the same question from this Chair: "What
now?" (see What now?, in Spanish at http://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/2012/10/y-ahora-que.html). At the time, I was saying
something that was perfectly applicable to this moment:
Anyone with some
decency would give way to someone else to make the decisions from now on. The
entire leadership is now on the bench. Especially the one who told us that with
this system it was impossible to lose the elections. I'd like to see the
technicians of the La Colina Group, especially Juan Mijares, tell us how Chavez
went up the hill to the point of going over Henrique by more than a million
votes. But most importantly, the electoral conditions. Are we still gonna ride
in the ring with our hands tied? Will we continue to go through the successive
electoral processes with an RE which cannot stand a minimum audit? Will we
continue to accept that 100% of the ballot boxes are not opened? We must start
to seriously consider not going into a new electoral process without
conditions. And that's what happens when we take the head off all those who say
that we won the elections with those terrible conditions. We have to start fighting for Authentic Elections.
The
opposition leaders did not hear it, but it was the people themselves who were
convinced, and they ended up not going to an unconditional electoral process.
But this is not fully understood by those who believed that they were going to
take the regime out in the face of a voting machine and justify it by saying
that by "winning" the Maduro abstention remained, as Eduardo
Fernández stated in his lamentable article entitled "They won!"that
circulates on social networks.
Nowhere did
Eduardo Fernandez refer to a perverted electoral system that says 9.3 million
Venezuelans participated when the centers were deserted across the country, and
that Maduro drew 6.2 million votes from those ghosts. A system that last year
put 8.1 million votes to the participation in that equally ghostly illegitimate
Constituent Assembly and later said that Andrés Velásquez had lost the
elections, even though he showed the world with the documents in hand that he
had won the Governorship of Bolívar. All a robbery in the government's
wasteland to protect the destruction of the environment and larceny in the
Mining Arc.
These are
the leaders who intend to lead the opposition struggle. No wonder we haven't
come out of this tragedy. However, something different happened on May 20th.
The Venezuelan stopped believing - finally! The regime's electoral system, and
the path of its followers of the official opposition who have led the
opposition struggle so far. From now on, a new possibility of political
leadership has opened up for a people eager for creative solutions to put an
end to this nightmare. Finally, these followers suffered a fundamental blow
when, on the first day of the 20M robbery to demand new elections, the regime
silenced them by swearing in Nicolás Maduro before the illegitimate National
Constituent Assembly. What will these people's speech be now? Try to keep
trying to fool us? Now more than 80% of the Registrar of Voters turned their
backs on them on May 20.
What will
we Venezuelans have after this steamroller of the fraud of Maduro and his
illegitimate Constituent after the 20M? Repeal the current constitution,
dissolving the National Assembly and establishing a Cuban court constitutional
regime. You don't have to be psychic to assume that's the next step. What can
we do in the face of this obvious panorama that comes upon us at any moment
after the illegitimate swearing in? Our response to the Venezuelans is to act
on the constitutional elements necessary to prevent that change, and only the
people have the floor on that.
On November
24, 2017, a group of Venezuelans belonging to the National Constituent
Alliance, among whom I have the honor to participate, introduced an APPEAL FOR
THE EXECUTION OF THE SENTENCE before the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ-L, with
headquarters in Washington, DC.), in our capacity as non-authorized citizens
(for a further explanation, see my note of December 3, 2017, Recource and
Sentence, at http://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/p/recourse-and-sentence.html),
regarding the activation of Articles 333 and 350 of the Constitution, which are
indicated in the third paragraph of the provisions of Ruling No. 333 and 350.
001/2017 of the TSJ-L, which issued this High Court on October 25, 2017,
declaring the National Constituent Assembly of the regime null and void.
To this
Chair's question of what to do from now on, the answer is Nonviolent Civil
Resistance, translated into channelling all the activities of constitutional
restoration, to generate a procedure to put it in front of the illegitimate
processing of a constituent process to change the constitution and in which the
citizens, invested with authority or not, have the obligation to collaborate in
the restoration of the current constitution. In other words, the only way to
enforce the ruling of the LSJT is through a procedure that allows for the
enforcement of Article 333 and 350, and that is what we requested in that Recource.
Last February 26th I came to this
Cathedra and said that a Popular Consultation was an alternative to face the
destruction (http://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/p/a-popular-consultation-as-alternative.html).
Now I believe that it is no longer an alternative, but the only thing we can do
in Venezuela to get out of the regime. It is now necessary to recall the ruling
of the TSJ-L: "Given that the country
is plunged into a profound social and economic crisis that has affected the
normal life of its citizens, the activation of the civil and peaceful
resistance decreed by this High Court in accordance with articles 333 and 350
of the Constitution is appropriate, which makes it urgent to produce the
changes required by Venezuela for the restoration of the validity of the
Constitution and, therefore, of democracy in Venezuela, Therefore, any solution to the crisis that is sought in the
political arena must be found within the mechanisms of popular participation
enshrined in article 70 of the Constitution, and never behind the backs of the
people, with the primary aim of provoking an immediate solution to everything
that has generated the crisis that the country is going through".
Hence, the questions of this
Cathedra today have only one answer: to achieve the demonstration of the
popular strength of the depositary of sovereignty, translated in
the people's participation in a Popular Consultation WITHOUT THE PARTICIPATION
OF THE CNE, as required in our communication to the National Assembly on April
16, 2017 (see Carla to the NA at, http://ancoficial.blogspot.com/2018/04/carta-la-asamblea-nacional-16-04-2018.html),
but this time with a very important difference in the first question:
1.- Do you approve of to disregard
the results of the May 20, 2018 presidential election?
2.- Do you approve of allow for the
immediate opening of humanitarian aid channels, in order to provide food and
medical assistance to the Venezuelan people, under the supervision of the
country's churches and human rights organisations, and for an immediate order
to be issued for the full release and dismissal of the trials and measures
against those prosecuted and politically persecuted?
3.- Do you approve of disregard and
consequently consider the illegitimate National Constituent Assembly installed
by the government to be dissolved and to be null and void of all its actions?
4.- Do you approve of convene a
legitimate National Constituent Assembly by means of a Popular Initiative, with
electoral bases that proportionally incorporate the broadest citizen
representation with dignified and just guiding principles?
5.- Do you approve of authorize the
National Constituent Assembly to appoint, from among its elected members, a
Transitional Government Board of National Unity until the adoption of a new
Constitution?
6.- Do you approve of to support the
international community (OAS, UN, European Union, Vatican State, Lima Group,
European Parliament, Former Presidents of IDEA) and other countries and
organizations in their determination to help the Venezuelan people in their
heroic struggle for the rescue of freedom and to approve their corresponding
support for the actions derived from this Popular Consultation?
7.- Do you approve of demand that
the members of the National Armed Force, in accordance with the Constitution
and the law, give their support to the process and result of this Popular
Consultation?
This consultation must be approved
and pushed by all Venezuelans as it happened on July 16, 2017, because
otherwise it could not be held, and it is the way it could be constituted as a
formidable tool of Nonviolent, democratic, peaceful, electoral and
constitutional Civil Resistance against the regime. Its result would have the
telluric force of an April 11, 2002, when the people expressed themselves in a
forceful way, achieving Chávez's exit; and of April 16, 2017, when the
International Community gave the National Assembly the backing to change the
government and did not do so.
This solution of getting the
Venezuelan people to decide has been supported by the Bishops of the Catholic
Church in their Pastoral Exhortation of their Ordinary Plenary Assembly on
January 12, 2018, "God will comfort his people". In this message, the
Bishops clearly stated that in the face of "the
increasingly serious difficulties of understanding between the government and
the political opposition, in the absence of a point of common support that is
respected in reality, as the current Constitution should be, they demand that
the people assume their vocation to be social subjects with their capacity to
carry out initiatives such as, for example, that civil society carry out a
consultation to indicate the direction it wishes to give to the nation as
provided for in our Magna Carta (Cfr. Art. 71)". This support is
reiterated in the courageous public position expressed by Bishop Ovidio Pérez
Morales, and I quote, "It is
therefore urgent that the sovereign regain the exercise of his power and order,
in accordance with Article 71 of the Constitution, what to do in concrete terms
to ensure that the country is no longer destroyed, but that it is interrupted
in its path towards democratic, pluralist, united and productive coexistence. I
support the proposal that an immediate and genuine consultation (referendum)
with the sovereign be organised in this regard, ensuring its authenticity and
respect for its results”. We have publicly expressed our support for the
position of Mons. Pérez Morales (ANCO expresses its solidarity and support for
Mons. Ovidio Pérez Morales..., in Spanish at http://ancoficial.blogspot.com/2018/05/anco-manifiesta-su-solidaridad-con-mons.html).
Finally, the regime could try to
prevent the Consultation but it would have to be seen if the Armed Forces would
be willing to attack a people who want to express themselves freely and
peacefully, and even more so with the support of the Catholic Church, which has
publicly supported this proposal. If we carry out this Consultation we would
not have to wait for an invasion, or a violent insurrection or a coup, or a resignation,
or even less the elections of a corrupt CNE, because we would be acting
proactively as a united Popular Force, but not united by the political parties
but by a common purpose. The sovereign people would once again decide the
course of Venezuela's history.
Thank you very much....
Caracas,
28 de Mayo de 2018
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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