By Luis Manuel Aguana
At this point in the country's history, I would venture to say that it
is difficult to find any Venezuelan who does not have a clearly formed
criterion in relation to what is happening, who or who is responsible for the
crisis and what the solutions may be to get out of the problem. On January 23,
2019, all Venezuelans thought they agreed when the official opposition headed
by President Juan Guaidó Márquez, reciting the famous mantra "Cessation of
the Usurpation-Government of Transition-Free Elections," summed up for the
country in a few words a clear route that would lead us to end years of
misgovernment. That was really
the success of the 23E.
But if we add to that the fact that in order to make this mantra
official, the National Assembly unanimously approves the Law
of the Statute for the Transition where this route is put in black and white,
establishing the terms of a transitional government and the guidelines for
holding elections after a maximum of 12 months, we were then - or thought we
were - faced with a unanimity of criteria in the country: We left the
delinquents first, to then establish a transitional government (of course
entirely opposed) that would lead us to an electoral process free of pitfalls
in a maximum of time established in the aforementioned law.
With that in hand, the opposition took to the streets to demand this
"cease of usurpation" without realizing that as in previous years we
were asking for the same thing: that the government yield and leave without
more force than the reason for its illegitimacy. And that, as in previous
years, again cost the same in violence, detentions, torture and deaths. The
opposition leadership from 23E itself had no new idea of how to resolve this
"cessation of usurpation" beyond sleeping with the enemy, something
that was bitterly discovered last April 30, and later with the negotiations
carried out in Norway.
On the other hand, another group of Venezuelans have insisted that the
only way to stop the usurpation is to stop considering the regime as a
politically belligerent group that can be negotiated with but as criminal gangs
that must be evicted by international force, arguing the Responsibility that
States have to come out in the protection of Venezuelan citizens (R2P) victims
as we are of crimes of Lesa Humanidad by the regime, and that the authorization
contained in the Constitutional 187#11 which gives the green light to foreign
military peace missions to accompany humanitarian aid be approved as soon as
possible. This possibility has been persistently denied by President Juan
Guaidó and practically the majority of parties represented in the National
Assembly.
It has not been possible to reconcile an agreed action between the two
opposition groups. The Directive of the National Assembly is the one that leads
constitutionally the strategies to achieve this "Cessation of
Usurpation" and the only one that recognizes the International Community
as the one that directs the actions to leave the regime through the methods
they deem convenient. That is why they do not wish to open the game to other
opposition actors so that together an agreed solution can be sought, even if
this is for the good of Venezuelans.
It will be 6 months since that 23E and the disappointment and confusion
of the country cannot be greater as well as its deepest deterioration. We are
in a situation that technology specialists call "deadlock", mutual
blockade, interlock or deadly embrace. This is a technical condition in which
one falls when two or more actors (processes) remain in a circular wait for a
resource that the other has in order to resolve their mission. It is
exemplified in a simple way with two actors: "two children who try to play
bow and arrow, one takes the bow, the other the arrow. No one can play until
someone releases what they took" (see Wikipedia, Mutual Block, in https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloqueo_mutuo).
Applying the example, the official opposition, although legitimate,
cannot exercise the government because the regime has the strength and the
regime, even with its strength, cannot force the official opposition -nor the
rest of Venezuelans- to recognize it, and that is why its performance is
prevented by all means and the sanctions against its members are deepened. The
net result is that all Venezuelans are victims of the situation of both actors.
On the other hand, the official opposition refuses to request the application
of the international force to unblock the game that it itself initiated by
proposing a path that had no other possible solution than the exclusion of the
opposite, a path on which we all agreed but which did not have a possible
solution if we did not have the force of arms to apply it, nor the willingness
to request it outside the country.
What, then, is the solution to this mutual blockade? If the official
opposition does not want a way out of force, nor is the international community
willing to do so, the mantra solution is not possible without making
adjustments. What then is the approach? Far from renouncing our first option,
international force (because we are dealing with criminals), I believe that an
alternative solution is possible that, without forgetting the advantages of the
force solution, offers guarantees to all parties to release the resources they
both have for the benefit of the Venezuelans. And what is this possible
solution? A negotiated plebiscite. Let's see:
The international community has insisted ad nauseam on an
"electoral" solution to our problem. If you are in the majority, then
"measure with Maduro" is what the European Union says. But
Venezuelans do not recognize Maduro's current presidency because the electoral
process of May 20, 2018 was illegitimate, nor Maduro himself, since Maduro was
convicted of corruption and legitimizing capital, and illegitimate from the
very beginning because he could not even be a candidate in 2013, when he then
occupied the Vice Presidency of the Republic. But it is a fact that he now
holds de facto power and arms.
However, the International Community DOES NOT RECOGNIZE IT TAMPOCO and
the European Union and the Lima Group press for an electoral process,
especially because the latter was constituted due to the lack of knowledge of
the spurious National Constituent Assembly that called for the elections of May
20, 2018. If we turn that desire of the International Community for elections
into a Plebiscite that decides with a YES or NO the continuity of Maduro in
Power, we would be satisfying that requirement of the world that basically says
the same thing as us: that the Venezuelan people decide what to do with Maduro.
In the end, the right of Venezuelans, which was violated by the regime when it
prevented Maduro's Revocatory Referendum in 2016, would also be restored.
Why do I say the plebiscite must be negotiated? Because in the mantra
there is no negotiation possible, so it is a logical contradiction that Guaidó
has gone to Norway to "negotiate" that Maduro left. Which usurper
ruler comes to a negotiation table to negotiate his head? What stupidity is
that? If you want to negotiate, negotiate something that can be negotiated. And
there I enter the next part of this proposal: the transitional government. Note
here that it is necessary to dismantle the Transition Statute Law as a
prerequisite for the plebiscite proposal to make sense.
In the trilogy of the mantra the presence of the regime or any of its
representatives is not raised. It could not be there. And this is because the
nature of the mantra itself did not allow it, which was to root out the regime,
to constitute an opposition transitional government that would lead us to free
elections. This plebiscite proposal would offer to negotiate the composition of
that transitional government with the regime first. Do you think that's
scandalous? No one will sit around waiting for a plebiscite without first
negotiating the terms of its exit. And that alone could guarantee that is what
will happen the next minute of leaving power for the plebiscite. The proposal
would be to offer a participation in the percentage result of the opposition
versus the percentage of the regime in that plebiscite, requesting at the same
time the dismantling of the spurious National Constituent Assembly, and of
course to negotiate what the criminals would ask to leave (which they have
already said, to lift their sanctions). I don't think Guaidó and the G4 are
pruritus with this if they were willing on April 30 to have Padrino López as
Minister of Defense and Maikel Moreno as President of the TSJ.
The last and most important thing would be the guarantees of compliance.
How do you sell the Venezuelan to go to a plebiscite if the closing of the
regime does not comply with the result? What system of counting votes would be
implemented? There is the detail, Cantinflas, dixit. The entire international community must be convinced of this
solution beforehand, especially the United States. Why? Because then there,
before even proceeding with the idea, one would have to count on the certain
and credible threat of a foreign multinational intervention to enforce the
result of that plebiscite. The votes would have to be counted one by one with
the technical intervention of the OAS, opening the bowels of the CNE. That
would not be negotiable.
Some will tell me what if the regime refuses? Then let the force proceed
because this is the way to go. Others will ask and what would be the plebiscite
question? None. The numbered ballot of the Chilean plebiscite only said
"Plebiscite-President of the Republic, Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, YES
NO" to mark with an X above each option (see "Plebiscite-President of
the Republic, Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, YES NO"(see https://ciperchile.cl/wp-content/uploads/Voto_1988_plebiscito_1-900x600-e1537908281498.jpg). We'd just change
the name. If the official opposition wants to negotiate, then they should
negotiate openly and face all Venezuelans a plebiscite so that we can define
what to do with this country. The rest is to follow an indefinite course of
irreconcilable mortal embrace, with death as the only unblocking...
Caracas, June 5,
2019
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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