By Luis Manuel Aguana
"There
is a very transparent objective of the opposition: to convey to Maduro's regime
a message as clear as it is discreet: either let the OAS organize free and
multiparty elections, or risk a collective military intervention led by the
United States, a country that has, I insist, many casus belli" (see in Spanish, Carlos Alberto Montaner, “La Oposición venezolana”, en
el Foro “Iniciativas para cesar la usurpación en Venezuela”, en https://youtu.be/SIY0LTlWjoM, min 2:19). Casus belli: "The casus belli is nothing other than
the generating fact or the one that motivates the declaration of war... Case,
cause or motive of war. It is the offensive act executed by one nation against
another, and which the latter judges sufficient for the declaration of
war" (see in Spanish Enciclopedia Jurídica, Casus Belli, in http://www.enciclopedia-juridica.com/d/casus-belli/casus-belli.htm).
With these words Carlos Alberto Montaner, a
prominent member of the Board of Directors of the Inter-American Institute for
Democracy, summed up, in my opinion brilliantly, the substance of what a group
of Venezuelan citizens asked of the OAS in a letter addressed to its Secretary
General, Dr. Luis Almagro, on June 16, 2020 (see in Spanish https://www.gopetition.com/petitions/apoyo-la-solicitud-de-la-sociedad-civil-venezolana-al-secretario-general-de-la-oea-para-la-aplicaci%C3%B3n-de-una-soluci%C3%B3n-humanitaria-de-caracter-electoral.html).
But although this statement is completely
true and we subscribe to it in its entirety, it carries within it a heavy
burden of complexity for its implementation, starting with the tricks that were
applied to us on the social networks by those Venezuelans who did not
understand it, believing from the start that we were asking for elections with Maduro
and his CNE, when we called it a Humanitarian Solution of an Electoral Nature,
because "in Venezuela they no longer apply elections. If this, which
Montaner explained as clearly as possible, is not understood by those who we
assume are on our own sidewalk of struggle and who in some cases have been
beating the regime for years, as we have, what can we expect from the rest of
the Venezuelans?
Even if we manage to convince all
Venezuelans, the OAS ambassadors and their respective governments will still have
to understand it and then begin to think about that casus belli if all options
are exhausted. You see how far we are still from a military intervention,
assuming that the governments of the continent accept the casus belli in the
event that they begin to work actively for this Humanitarian Electoral Solution
proposed. This issue is not as easy as saying in Venezuela that the only thing
needed is for the National Assembly to approve 187#11, or to ask the UN
Security Council to approve a military intervention without the conditions
being met. It is for that reason that we believe that the "or let the OAS
organize free and multiparty elections" of Montaner's intervention would
come faster than the military option of casus belli.
However,
I would like to make a clarification here that I consider extremely important:
we basically asked the OAS to mediate in the Venezuelan problem, and after
accepting that arbitration, to decide on the convenience of two perfectly
applicable options after deciding to intervene electorally in the country:
"a) an electoral act that forces the regime that usurps power in Venezuela
to accept the people's mandate in a binding Popular Consultation, established
in our Constitution, that allows the people in exercise of popular sovereignty
to decide on the Cessation of the Usurpation, the formation of a Transitional
Government that guarantees basic and institutional conditions, of social
coexistence, that allows the holding of free and democratic elections; or b) by
a Presidential Election that replaces the legitimate exercise of the Presidency
of the usurped Republic” (see our support for the Venezuelan Civil Society's
request to the OAS for a Humanitarian Electoral Solution, in http://ancoficial.blogspot.com/2020/06/comunicado-anco-respaldo-la-solicitud.html).
In both
cases, it would be the Venezuelan people who would finally decide the fate of
the country, allowing them to take a step forward in solving the serious
political crisis. But both options have fundamental differences. The
International Community has been asking for years for a constitutional,
peaceful and electoral solution, but it does not walk on the fact that in
Venezuela all the institutions evaporated due to the corrosive action of a
tyranny, including the partisan institutions and the electoral arbiter.
Everything has to be rebuilt, including the parties, which have been
contaminated by the poisons of corruption and collaborationism. To hold a
presidential election without a solid and structured political floor is to
plunge the country into a spiral of instability. The country needs a transition
from the current state of affairs to a new one, with much healthier and
strengthened institutions, which guarantee a minimum of political stability.
If the
OAS decides to act actively in the electoral intermediation in Venezuela, it
will have to go beyond the option that Carlos Alberto Montaner suggested with
meridian clarity of "free and multiparty elections", but the
consideration of a special period of political stabilization with support of
the vote, where the presence of the most representative factors of the Venezuelan
reality exists in the conduction, that allows the country to go reconstructing
all the institutions destroyed by Maduro and his mafia. It is not a requirement
but a recommendation for the benefit of a country that has been destroyed to
the foundations of its nationality.
ANCO has
long recommended the need for a post-mature collegial government to lead a
period of recovery for the country. Given the level of institutional
destruction that will be left in Venezuela by the Maduro regime's
narco-criminal plague when it leaves, it will take the best minds and
experience in all areas to recover from this tragedy a thousand times worse
than the COVID-19 for its capacity to generate death and destruction.
And this
collegiate government does not exist in our constitutional system, so it has to
come from a decision of the citizens. Guaidó does not have that support because
its presidency was not born of the popular vote. Any proposal made to recover
the institutional balance must go in the direction of the popular support of
whoever governs and the form that government has. Venezuela will need a new
form of government to overcome the dangers that will arise from the
institutional destruction caused by the regime. So, beyond thinking about
dispatching this problem with an election, let's first consider the appearance
of a transparent and reliable arbiter, and then think about the direction the
process will take. And since in Venezuela that arbiter disappeared a long time
ago, we are still looking for him outside. I hope that the OAS will be
encouraged to do so. I think it's in their interest as much as ours...
Caracas,
July 24, 2020
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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