By Luis Manuel Aguana
On July 16, 2017, the Venezuelan people were
not asked about Maduro's presence or not in Miraflores. That consultation, at
ANCO's suggestion, was designed and proposed to stop the call for a Constituent
Assembly convened on May 1, 2017 by Nicolás Maduro Moros in an unconstitutional
manner, for July 30 of that same year. Then, why does María Corina Machado
insist in her public letter of August 29, 2020 to the President in charge, that
"The country was consulted on July 16, 2017"? What was the country
really consulted about? Let's look at the following historical sequence.
By mid-May
2017, a peaceful solution to the country's crisis was not in sight, and street
protests had worsened. There was no solution in sight to the silvery civic
protest by the citizens, which the regime brutally repressed with the death
toll that we all know. The MUD-G4 was working in the four known conditions to
stop the protests, but the street was extinguished when the regime did not give
in. Constituent elections were planned for July 30th based on the
unconstitutional call of the Maduro regime, and the MUD had not found a way to
stop that election.
It was at
that time that a commission of the Board of Directors of ANCO, integrated by
Eng. Enrique Colmenares Finol and Col. Luis Alfonso Dávila proposed in the name
of our Alliance to the Board of Directors of the National Assembly to activate
the constitutional provision established in Article 71 of the Constitution to
call the people to a Consultative Referendum on a matter of special national
importance (see in Spanish formal communication of May 25, 2017 in https://tinyurl.com/yd8w2dqy).
The
National Assembly's directive initially rejected the proposal, but later made
the position more flexible by aggravating the problem in the streets and not
having a valid proposal to offer Venezuelans, submitting it to consultation
with civil society organizations. After many meetings, the National Assembly
decided not to use the requested route of a Consultative Referendum proposed by
ANCO and announced in the Chacao Theater (Art. 71), modifying the proposal
towards a Popular Consultation based on Art. 70 of the Constitution.
It should
be noted that our initial proposal was only in the sense of stopping the
constituent process called unconstitutionally by the regime on the 30th of
July. The National Assembly went further and incorporated two additional
questions, especially the one regarding the renewal of public powers and the
designation of a National Union Government to restore the constitutional order.
This proposal was accepted by the whole country after its official announcement
on 5 July 2017.
After 16J it was indisputable to everyone
that the consultation of the Venezuelan people was the most appropriate thing
the opposition has done since Chavismo-Madurismo reigned in the country, to the
point that everyone has assumed the defense of what was decided by the
Venezuelans that day.
On the
17th of July, Nicolás Maduro's regime was technically fallen and what should
have been mandated by that consultation did not materialize, but it brought as
a result collateral policy an alignment of the whole world in favor of the
situation of the Venezuelan people. Even though the National Assembly did not
fulfill the mandate of the people on the 16th of July, the political results of
that Consultation were tangible in the concrete reactions of the International
Community in favor of the Venezuelan people and against the Maduro regime. Let
us not blame the mechanism that put the Venezuelans in the eye of the world's
political hurricane on 16J-2017. Do not confuse gymnastics with magnesia.
What we propose now has that same political
sense and purpose and goes in the same direction. The 16J demonstrated that the
strength of citizens can change the course of political events and can mobilize
forces that have so far remained on the sidelines. What we are proposing now as
Civil Society to the Venezuelans is to summon the power and strength that only
resides in the will of the Sovereign People of Venezuela to displace the regime
and to make that will be fulfilled with the assistance and help of the
International Community, which precisely from 16J-2017 began to understand that
it is the Venezuelan people the only one capable of deciding the destiny of
Venezuela. This is internationally called the Principle of Self-Determination
of the Peoples. Fortunately, the Government in Charge finally understood that
if it is not by seeking ways for the Venezuelan people to express themselves
forcefully to the world, we will not be able to achieve the desired
displacement of the criminal regime of Nicolás Maduro Moros.
Therefore, the Popular Consultation that is
now being proposed has other objectives completely different from those of July
16, 2017, as well as other mechanisms to make the mandate of the Venezuelan
people be fulfilled. To insist that "The country was consulted on July 16,
2017" is a way of ignoring and limiting the Venezuelan people to express
themselves as many times as deemed necessary before a reality absolutely
different from what happened in Venezuela in mid 2017. There are no
constitutional limitations to ask for the pronouncement of the Venezuelan
people at any time if it is necessary to save the Republic.
On June 16, 2017, the Venezuelan people
ordered, in the third question of the historic Consultation of that day, with
an overwhelming majority, their representatives in the National Assembly "the renewal of the Public Powers
according to the provisions of the Constitution and the holding of free and
transparent elections as well as the formation of a Government of National
Union to restore the constitutional order", and the Deputies decided
to disregard that order. In this opportunity, it will be the people themselves
who will sign the dismissal of Nicolás Maduro Moros in direct exercise of their
sovereignty. This is an overwhelming difference between what was ordered on July
16, 2017 and what is intended to be done now, and which is not fully understood
by those who still recite as Maria Corina Machado that "The country was
consulted on July 16, 2017". And for those who still say that Maduro is
not President because he was unconstitutionally elected or because he was
condemned by a court, they must understand that what is in Venezuela is not a
legal problem. IT IS A POLITICAL PROBLEM, especially for those nations that
still recognize that criminal as the Head of State of Venezuela. And that can
only be decided definitively by the People of Venezuela DIRECTLY.
In almost every ANCO communiqué we close with
a text from the Liberator's letter to Santander in October 1826: "In a word, my dear general, I know of
no other health party than that of giving back to the people their primitive
sovereignty so that they may remake their social pact. You will say that this
is not legitimate: and I, to the truth, do not understand what crime is
committed in committing to the source of the laws to remedy an evil that is of
the people and that only the people know. I say frankly that if this is not
legitimate, it will be necessary at least, and, for the same reason, superior
to any law: but above all it is eminently popular, and, for the same reason,
very proper to an eminently democratic republic”.
I regret that there are still political
leaders in Venezuela who insist on denying what not even the Liberator himself
dared to deny. Just like Bolivar, we cannot understand what crime is committed
in occurring at the source of laws and returning to the people their primitive
sovereignty. That should be in the DNA of every Venezuelan democrat, especially
in these dark hours when the Republic is sinking, so that it is the people who
will remedy an evil that belongs to the people and that only the people know.
That is what we proclaim, we demand and we will continue to demand, in spite of
whoever it may be, for the salvation of Venezuela.
Caracas, August 30, 2020
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario