By Luis Manuel Aguana
In contrast
to the old popular saying "don't make it clear because you mess
around" I'm going to dare to do it because I think it's important to
explain it insistently, even if it's every presentation, meeting, mail, restaurant
napkin, cell phone message or in any corridor, because the Popular Consultation
we're proposing has nothing to do with what happened on the 16J, even though
they have the same name. And why another consultation if we already did one on
July 16? people repeat to us like a mantra, even to dismiss the proposal
without discussing it.
I think the
best explanation can be given using a simile. What's happening in the country
is like a big movie that's now moving at over 30 frames per second - very fast
- and that started 20 years ago. A consultation would be a photograph that we
take of that film, which freezes in a single image the political state of that
moment. And what a difference between the political moments of the country to
date 16J-2017, the country of today are abysmal considering the speed of
development of current political events. As a result, the photographs of the
two moments are very different.
Let's
describe a little bit the photograph to June 2017. The people on the street,
the regime cornered and under the microscope of the whole planet because they
were killing boys. I was explaining last year after the 16J (see in Spanish What
part of question No. 3 did not understand the MUD, in http://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/2017/07/que-parte-de-la-pregunta-no-3-no.html), in order to stop Maduro's
unconstitutional call for a National Constituent Assembly, the Alianza Nacional
Constituyente-ANCO proposed to the MUD a way out of this impasse through a
concrete proposal: a Consultative Referendum without the CNE, conducted by
civil society and based on Article 71 of the Constitution, to ask the people
whether or not they wanted a Constituent Assembly convened by the government.
Forced, hanged and unanswered for a population dying in the streets, they
agreed to the petition.
The
political moment - the photograph - at that time indicated that the response
that civil society should make to this theft of our constitutional prerogative
to call ourselves a Constituent Assembly was to call ourselves a Constituent
Assembly, as established in the constitutional text. The National Assembly,
applying the Constitution, called us together using one of the "means of participation and protagonism
of the people in the exercise of their sovereignty, politically"
established in Article 70 of the Constitution: the Popular Consultation. This
was a politically skilful way out, since the people can perfectly well summon
themselves to exercise, as they did, their participation in the great issues of
the country, clearly manifesting themselves in the political arena.
However,
this consultation was not on the roadmap of the MUD, nor of the parties present
in the National Assembly at the time. They wanted the regime to call for
elections and the consultation we proposed had the attraction for them to take
people off the streets - collateral effect - and to force the regime to
negotiate elections, which was what they really wanted (not to designate a
National Union Government as the sovereign ordered in question No. 3 of 16J).
But the move went badly because by not complying with the people, but also by
not achieving the elections they were looking for in the Dominican Republic, as
well as the rest of the demands, they created a state of disappointment in the
population that they have not yet been able to get out of.
If the
Deputies had complied with the 16J Consultation, the game would be different
now, but they did not expect the popular expression of the 16J to be
unexpectedly forceful. The people's political sentence was extraordinary, so
much so that it motivated the unanimous support of the international community.
If the National Assembly had complied, it would have been impossible for the
military not to have supported this designated Government of National Union.
The people would have taken to the streets en masse to support any decision the
Assembly might take, just like that. These are the moments that politicians must
"smell" out of a simple political nose. But their noses are stuffed
with petty ambitions. That was the same moment that Henrique Capriles wasted
when the CNE stole the 14A-2013 elections from us and the candidate sent us to
dance salsa and play casseroles.
The window
closed again and the moment was wasted. It's amazing how those photographic
moments in the country have been wasted. No doubt Diosdado Cabello mocks the
official opposition in all his television programs; and there is always, of
course, with the small help of the sophisticated intelligence systems paid for
by the State, many steps ahead of these inepts. Excuse me, but there's no other
way to put it.
That was
the photograph of the 16J Popular Consultation. While it is true that the
mandate in question No. 3 is still in force, the political momentum is NOT,
because it was not taken advantage of. The conditions must then be created
again for the people to express themselves in the face of the situation in the here
and now and to proceed immediately as a result of the outcome,
using the political momentum of this moment.
On 16J we
asked the people if they rejected and were disregarded "the Constituent
proposed by Nicolás Maduro without the prior approval of the people of
Venezuela". The 30J-2017 had not arrived. Well, we reject it and we do not
recognize it, and therefore it is irritating by popular mandate. But beyond
that, Maduro went ahead and imposed it on us on 30J-2017, and now he is making
decisions that directly affect us; so it is now necessary to ignore and
dismantle it in the same way: by popular mandate. It is necessary to ask this
directly to the depositary of sovereignty.
But we must
also ask whether or not we should be called to a true Constituent process on
the initiative of the sovereign people, to restore our right violated by
Maduro, when he called the Constituent without having the quality to do so. And
if so, ask the people whether or not they authorize the appointment by the
Constituent Citizens of a National Union Government, as they were asked in a
previous political photograph.
Already
with such reasoning, a second process of Popular Consultation could be
justified. However, the Popular Consultation has several ways of being
interpreted according to how it is intended to be applied: a) As a form of
non-violent struggle; b) As a way or method of organizing civil society for
that struggle; c) As a mechanism for the unification of society for a common
purpose: to combat the regime. Let's see.
a)
a) As a form of nonviolent struggle.
Indeed, on the
basis of Article 70 of the Constitution, we can promote all kinds of
consultation, counted by the citizens, to discuss the matters that concern us
as a country. No one can stop us from doing that constitutionally. Whatever the
regime does to the detriment of the citizens, we can consult it according to
the scope of the problem: national, state and municipal. Let us use this
mechanism in an organized manner and show whether it is true or not that it is
the people who are in charge, as the Galactic Commander said. There will never
be more people on the streets protesting in numbers than queuing up to
peacefully demonstrate their political disagreement at the polls. That was the
success of the 16J! In the latter there is no risk for the elderly, people with
disabilities, people who work and cannot take to the streets to protest openly,
etc.... (for a more complete explanation of this see Inevitable Fall, in
Spanish at http://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/2014/03/caida-inevitable.html).
b)
As a way or method of organizing
civil society for this struggle. It is civil society that has suffered most from the disorganisation and
lack of strategy of the political leadership. Why not organize ourselves to
generate a permanent system of response to the atrocities of the regime? The
organized Popular Consultation can be a permanent response of civil society at
all levels to articulate a permanent method of struggle. In this respect, we
could well be accompanied by the employers, trade unions, guilds, etc., who
have been affected by the decisions of government crime;
c)
As a mechanism for the unification of society
for a common purpose: to combat the regime. A permanent system of Popular Consultations
that runs transversally to any social group would unify them in a single
purpose. Employers and workers could agree on national consultations on
inflation and wages. These tools are peaceful and constitute a forceful
response against decisions that harm them as social groups.
But most
importantly, a Popular Consultation that encompasses the broad outlines of what
we perceive as the main national problems objectively gives everyone -
nationally and internationally - the answer about what Venezuelans really want,
not
what politicians say we want. If we establish that together, the
international community and the whole world will help us achieve that. We
proposed these questions in our communication to the National Assembly (see our
letter in Spanish at http://ancoficial.blogspot.com/2018/04/carta-la-asamblea-nacional-16-04-2018.html).
As long as
what we want is not defined we will continue to stumble around without
direction and even more so if the political leadership is completely headless
and without a strategy for the struggle. Let us then define the consultation we
need to make as a people and proceed. "There
is no favorable wind for the boat that does not know where it is going,"
said Seneca (4 B.C. - 65 A.D.). If we already have the wind of the
international community in our favor, it is time to define where we want to go.
And who better than the sovereign people to answer it? Let
the Venezuelan people decide!
Caracas,
June 1, 2018
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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