By Luis Manuel Aguana
Sounds like a soap opera title. And it really
is if we take into account that the Venezuelan tragedy has not yet bottomed out
and even the bad guys are dominating the good guys in this tragic soap opera
called Venezuela; and even the long-suffering protagonist is still not marrying
her boyfriend, so she can live happily ever after. Piedad Córdoba, a former
Colombian senator, is one of those soap opera characters who move intriguingly
through the plot, managing to get to know all the secrets of the protagonists
involved. Given her old ties to the beginnings of the Chavista
"Robolución" and her undeniable closeness to the Colombian FARC
guerrilla, confessing those secrets publicly is a good approach to the truth,
and the precise explanation of the infamous reality we are living.
Hence, after seeing, not without a certain
stupor and indignation for its content, the famous video that has already gone
viral on social networks, of his interview with the also former Colombian
senator Juan Manuel Ospina, on the program “Las 2 orillas” (seeing it in Piedad
Córdoba breaks her silence..., in https://youtu.be/lLLkyKOADxY), Venezuelans
can get a precise idea of who is who in this complex and multipolar plot that
affects us as a people and better understand what the real "bad guys"
are in this tragic soap opera. My apologies in advance for the particularly
lengthy nature of this note, but I believe it is important to make this
clarifying reflection for the benefit of our Grancolombian brothers (ver A
Grandcolombian solution, in https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/p/a-grandcolombian-solution.html).
In my opinion, the interview has three very
important aspects that need to be highlighted and clarified in order to have a
correct perception of what is happening in Venezuela, both for Venezuelans, and
- especially - for Colombians who have seen this interview and who are unaware
of the reality of our country. The interview is a practical and updated example
of the serious state of distortion of reality that the actors manifest of why
things are happening in Venezuela, seen from the perspective of a person who
has accompanied the process of destruction initiated by Hugo Chávez since long
before he assumed the Presidency of Venezuela in 1999. That is why I am
interested in tackling these perceptions.
These 3 aspects are intermingled throughout
the interview, so I will only emphasize those I consider most important:
1.- Definition of those responsible for the
tragedy.
There is no socialist who does not say that
the cause of his country's ills is American imperialism. This reminds me of the
famous joke according to which if a socialist finds his wife with another in
bed, instead of claiming it he goes out to burn the mattress in front of the
United States Embassy. Former Senator Córdoba does exactly that, saying, "I
think the (Colombian) leadership has not been able to understand or read
Venezuela. It has lent itself more to U.S. interests influenced by a Venezuelan
leadership that lost power. María Corina was the owner of PDVSA"
(min 15:58). What does former Senator Córdoba maintain that María Corina
Machado (unless she speaks of someone else because she did not say her last
name) had something to do with PDVSA?
In Venezuela, there is no record of this
political leader's handling of the oil industry. In fact, María Corina came to
the public eye in 2003, with Chavismo in full exercise of power, as director of
an electoral NGO to collect signatures in favor of the recall of Hugo Chávez.
Maria Corina Machado could hardly have had anything to do with that industry
before that, and even less so because of her age during the 40 years before
1998.
This type of information directed at a
population like Colombia's, which is unaware of the Venezuelan problem, puts
the problem between "the right" that "wants to return to
power" by putting Machado as the main representative of this tendency and
the Chavism that is preventing them from doing so. To the knowledge of the
truly informed Colombian citizenry, the confrontation is between a criminal
narco-terrorist mafia that assaulted power, which hides behind the ideological
symbols of a supposed left, and a population that has been deprived of all
resources for its subsistence.
2.- Definition of resource ownership
There is no country where those who manage
everyone's resources from the government, dispose of them without control as if
they were their own. This is being presented in Venezuela as a unique case in
the world. The 1999 Constitution of Hugo Chávez gave the President of the
Republic full discretion in the management of public affairs, practically
without any control. That is why a group of Venezuelans from ANCO are promoting
a new genuine constitutional process to re-institutionalize the country after
this tragedy, by reordering power. In Venezuela, all types of Comptroller's
Office, the bidding laws, and everything that puts the citizen in control of
what the administrators of the National Treasury do have disappeared. They are
plundering the Nation and characters like former Senator Córdoba are indirect
accomplices to that crime by being fully aware of it.
Hence, the former senator is astonished when
former Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero tells her, as he
confessed in that interview: "...we were all given a gold mine. We
exploit and what does not come to us from the national level comes to us here.
And I said to him, how is that possible? For example, we just bought mining
equipment in China and we are exploiting. And how is it going? It's going well.
Because everybody wants the gold from here" (min 20:50). It is
clear that I would also perhaps say "go and get yours too" as to
anyone the regime wishes to benefit for its own interests. That explains the
ecological disaster of the Arco Minero, with a lot of people doing uncontrolled
exploitation, to the detriment of what is the property of all Venezuelans and
with the sole purpose of sustaining the narcoterrorists in power.
3.- The role of the collaborationist
opposition
To do the plundering of which we Venezuelans
are victims, the regime needs partners on the other side. When the opposition
becomes "difficult", the regime tries to build bridges through local
and international figures, like the former senator, whose services I doubt very
much are free. Hence her confession of the regime's attempt to cajole Uribe to
serve as a bridge with this opposition that does not allow itself to be fooled:
"President
Maduro wanted to meet Alvaro Uribe. The aim was for Alvaro to represent the
Venezuelan opposition, to help them talk to them. He said (Maduro) that the
person they respect is Alvaro Uribe" (min 6:00).
However, Uribe, as the former senator
concedes at the end of the interview, is far from being an asshole. That's why
former President Uribe did not fall into that trap. Cordoba confesses: "Unfortunately Uribe underestimated
that. They were already making up the theme of Guaido"... "Very pitiful, do you know why Juan?
Because right now the opposition is negotiating with Nicolas. He is reaching
agreements with him. There's going to be an election. They're going to change
the National Electoral Council” (min 8:45). Notice the times here.
Guaidó was not on the political map of Venezuela before November 2018 when the
G4 factors were negotiating the new National Assembly directive for January
2019. It was known that it would be the turn of the Popular Will, but publicly
there were still no firm names, yet Córdoba blames this for the collapse of the
negotiation with Uribe.
What made Maduro come into contact with
Uribe? At the end of 2018, either a legitimate government was appointed by the
TSJ in exile or the National Assembly. The political factors of the official
opposition were forced to do so from the National Assembly as of January 2019,
even if it was out of their own displeasure and Maduro knew it. Maduro did not
need Uribe to reach out to the opposition. He had Henry Ramos Allup, or Manuel
Rosales, with whom he had negotiated in the past. Was he trying to stop that VP
appointment in the National Assembly and negotiate? In any case, we've been at
it for over a year now and things are still going in favor of the regime
precisely because those factors cohabit with Maduro, and they will reach
agreements with him as Piedad Córdoba confesses.
"No one there believes Guaidó. People make jokes. (Ospina: Who
invented it? ( Guaidó)) Do you know who invented it? Oswaldo Cisneros. He has
all the business in the world. And I believe that in an election, with or
without Nicolas, Chavismo wins. As discredited as Guaidó is, again, where does
it come from that it is Oswaldo Cisneros' invention? Guaidó was what was left
of the leadership of the Popular Will to occupy the Presidency of the National
Assembly in January 2019. And unfortunately the least experienced. What does
Cisneros have to do with that? Again we see the same attempt by Córdoba to
associate factors that have nothing to do with reality, with the famous
"right wing" of the rich, with this serious problem, confusing
Colombian society because this polarized discourse is for them.
These three factors define the interview.
However, there is an additional factor that gravitates to the whole meeting:
the serious economic problem between our countries that we cannot leave aside.
If there is a single person responsible for this disaster, his name is Hugo
Chávez Frías.
Who took Venezuela out of the Andean
Community of Nations (CAN) in April 2006, blowing up regional trade that was
nearly $9 billion? Answer: Hugo Chávez Frías. Colombia alone took 4 billion of
that $9 billion with Venezuela, a little more than 44% (see in Spanish El Pais
de España, Hugo Chavez retira a Venezuela de la Comunidad Andina, in https://elpais.com/diario/2006/04/21/internacional/1145570417_850215.html). Claiming that Colombia and
Peru had signed bilateral treaties with the United States, Chavez said the CAN
"was dead". It was a tragic trick to get politically into Mercosur,
whose business levels were around $150 billion that year, but without having
made a single deal with that alliance. Current trade with Colombia now barely
reaches $184 million between January and September 2019 (see Cavecol in https://www.cavecol.org/intercambio-comercial-venezuela-y-colombia-septiembre-2019/). This should teach politicians on both sides that business and trade
agreements are made and crystallized by citizens, not politicians. And that's
how Chávez ruined many people, both in Venezuela and in Colombia. But that's not what former Senator Cordoba says.
Now, who is still responsible for the yucca
and potatoes rotting and the loss of chickens, pigs and cattle in Colombia, as
the former senator complains in this interview, and the trade between brothers
has come to ruin for both countries, in addition to the current famine of the
Venezuelan people? Answer: Hugo Chávez Frías and his disciple and his now
successor Nicolás Maduro Moros, named jointly with Fidel Castro, as he well
confesses.
That's where the Grancolombian brothers come
from, because that's what I want to call them, because our history runs
together. Don't be fooled by the stories on the road and the confessions of
former Senator Piedad Córdoba, as a supposed " expert" on the
Venezuelan problem. She does not know it, and if she did she would distort it
to the benefit of these narcoterrorists who are scourging Venezuela. That has to hurt both of us.
But there is a comment that summarizes the
serious mistake that Colombians are making and that is reflected in this intervention
by former Senator Juan Manuel Ospina, which is very important to clarify: "There
is undoubtedly support for what has been the Chavista project, even for Maduro
with the errors and inconsistencies that they may have had in his
administration. Because if there is a conscience in broad Venezuelan sectors
that would never be willing to return to that pre-Chávez Venezuela, which in
some way was what the opposition represented and which obviously Maduro helped
to increase. If there is an agreement there that is not to return to a past
that nobody or very few are interested in, but to build a way out of the
future, this conversation can be very, very positive” (min 15:10).
There is NO longer any support for the
chavista project that perhaps existed in the population until Chávez died. That
died with Chavez. Castro-Chavismo-Madurismo is a sophisticated, corrected and
increased version of all the ills of the corruption of the 40 years that ended
in 1998. It is not true that what remains of that past and those responsible
for that phenomenon, which is nothing more than the official opposition, want
to build "a way out of the future" with that chavism for the benefit
of Venezuelans. They want to partner with them to continue the
"exploitation" of this land of grace that they found and no longer
want to let go. Both have to leave so that something new can emerge to build a
new relationship that benefits both nations.
Former Senator Ospina's comment "You
can't blow up a country to overthrow a government!" (min 22:16)
has an answer. You can't make an omelet without busting your balls. What
exercises power in Venezuela is not "a government" of politicians. It
is a mafia of narco-terrorist criminals. The only way for narcoterrorists to
abandon the kidnapping of Venezuelans and their resources is by force. That's
what they understand. They have reached the point of committing crimes against
humanity in order to retain power, and although some Venezuelans believe that
this should be formally endorsed through a plebiscitary popular consultation, I
believe that even without that consultation, they will have to leave that way
unless they decide to do so themselves and under external pressure, because
they cannot continue to harm our peoples. If I remember correctly, it was the
Colombian popular singer Carlos Vives who exquisitely enunciated it in one of
his songs, in a way that only the people of magical realism can express:
"He's taking me or I'm taking him, so that the scabbard ends! And so it will be...
Caracas, March 3, 2020
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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