I will not be the one to stop holding the armed forces responsible for not having fulfilled their constitutional duty of guaranteeing the country's institutionality. They are responsible and continue to be responsible, even if their chiefs have distorted the objective of that institution. But from there to make firewood of the fallen tree to the only ones who can do something to get out of this political tragedy, there is a long way to go. They are already discredited enough for that. I am still on the side of those who still think that there is a need for dignified Armed Forces, defenders of the territory and true guarantors of the Constitution, and that in that institution there is still the seed for the necessary change of attitude that will make possible a turnaround in the current state of affairs.
In the Armed Forces, as in all institutions, there are valuable people who do understand the country's problems and the need for structural change. This has been amply demonstrated by the military prisons full of officers who have dissented from the regime and have even given their lives in the dungeons, because the criminals in power are terrified that this feeling is massive in the Armed Forces. This is not over and I believe that what we Venezuelans must insist on is not the terrible thing that has happened to the Armed Forces -which is evident and must disappear- but the good things that still remain, keeping as much as possible, messages so that the salvageable things that are left there are not definitively extinguished.
Long before Hugo Chávez came to power, there were certain indicators of the existing decomposition process in the Armed Forces. The very fact of the existence of a subject such as Chávez within the armed institution was a clear symptom of the need for changes, not only in the Armed Forces but in the entire political structure of the Venezuelan State. As it was later demonstrated, Chávez was part of a long term strategy of ideological infiltration in the institution, of which unfortunately we were victims, besides the armed institution, all Venezuelans.
Society as a whole must continue to demand from the Armed Forces the faithful fulfillment of their Constitutional obligation. And why? Because the military are the only professionals that the Nation supports from the time they study their careers until they die. They do not go out to the streets to look for a job after graduation because their life is guaranteed, and they even have the opportunity to study and practice civilian careers. The Nation grants them this preferential treatment precisely for that reason, because they are the last bastion in the defense of its institutionality. The military and police who have fulfilled this oath to the Nation should be honored and recognized, as should all those who have suffered for having made it effective.
I continue to believe, as I have stated for many years, that any Armed Forces, institutional, military and police, have the obligation to try something to displace a regime that has violated the Constitution. That is the essence of Art. 333 of the Constitution. And as we already know, there are military and police officers who have tried to do so, fulfilling their oath, at the cost of their lives or their freedom. There are still officers imprisoned in the dungeons of the regime. This cannot be left aside no matter how much the criticism justifies that the institution, as a whole, still responds and maintains, for ideological or corruption reasons, the regime in power.
There are still worthy officers there, and in my opinion what we should all do, civilians and military, is to propose ways to change this situation, which is not only the responsibility of the military. So, instead of burning a piece of the fallen tree of the Armed Forces, making a catharsis justified by our frustration about how they have destroyed them and why they have not yet pronounced themselves in favor of a change, society as a whole should rather be looking for positive channels so that the military who do wish to comply with their oath, in this difficult moment of the country, can effectively do so.
But this co-responsibility is not new, as I pointed out some time ago. In my father's work for his Doctorate in Law at the University of Carabobo, in the 1960's (see in Spanish Raúl Aguana Figuera, Consideraciones sobre el Derecho Militar Venezolano, in https://tinyurl.com/y4kw78s2), Dr. Aguana established that the expanded conception of National Defense included all Venezuelans, not only the military: "... The continuity of the State in the order of time and space rests on the defense of its existence, protecting itself from the agents of decomposition that constantly affect it, endangering the community organized as a State in terms of its internal security and its external security. National defense corresponds to all the members of that community, that is, to all citizens, as well as to the public bodies, the realization of the so-called great objectives of permanent character of defense, which include the political, economic, social, military fields, the promotion of citizen welfare and of society in general, the survival of our culture and the strategic objectives" (emphasis added).
This conceptualization, given in the context of the 1961 Constitution, is renewed in the framework of the 1999 Constitution, where we are all involved in the problem of defending the Nation, not only the military. The 1999 Constitution assigns very clear responsibilities to them in its Article 328, but also to the rest of the sectors in Article 326. If the armed institution is in a state of coma, because all moral, civic and institutional values were lost, caused -we must not forget that- by the decision of Venezuelans to elect an ideologized coup leader to power, it is not only up to them to rescue it and defend the Nation.
In this sense, we have always wondered why the Government in Charge and the G4 parties that support it, never appointed a Military High Command with high ranking officers (who exist and are in exile), deeply knowledgeable of the military problem, capable of designing an institutional rescue strategy to address the many concerns that still exist within the military ranks. This is an eminently civilian -and crucial- step with implications deep within the Armed Forces, and it is something that can be done right now.
However, the political motivations of many existing dinosaurs in the political parties of the 2015 National Assembly have consistently prevented this. They are terrified that something different from them, which they cannot control, may hinder their ambitions for power. They prefer the continuity of the disaster of Castro-Chavismo-Madurism that is affecting the Venezuelan people right now -not by 2024- in hunger and destruction, betting on elections that will never bring them to power, in their absurd desire to coexist with the regime. It must not be forgotten either that many of those who now sit in that National Assembly of 2015 talking about "democracy and freedom", and impede any strategic action for recovery, were accomplices of the conspiracy against President Carlos Andres Perez and indirectly responsible for the creation of the spawn Chavez, destroyer of the Armed Forces.
What is happening there is not only the responsibility of the Armed Forces. Not in vain the military saying that there would be no incentive for the uniformed officers to leave the regime if the result ends up being to hand over power to individuals worse in corruption and values than those in Miraflores. A much deeper and less superficial analysis must be made about the real reasons why this institution is self-flagellating by letting its worst criminals lead it. It is not enough reason to wield the corruption of the High Command when there are honest middle and high officers, starving like the rest of the Venezuelans.
This in itself represents a much greater calamity than the known destruction of the entire institutionality of the Armed Forces and of the country: that something could be done so that the military can comply with their oath and it is not done. That we continue blaming the military felons, without going deeper into the problem, and without saying a word of encouragement to those who did comply and are imprisoned and tortured; without a condolence to the families of the military who have been murdered in the dungeons of the regime for having fulfilled their part of the deal. If we do that, maybe, just maybe, at some point we will have back the Armed Forces to defend and rescue the country. That is precisely what should be done from now on.
Caracas, July 14, 2022
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