In view of the political processes taking place in Latin America, we Venezuelans often fall into the habit of comparing them with what is happening in our country. And sometimes those comparisons are not possible because each people has its own way of facing the same problems, and precisely the comparisons take place because they refer to the problem and not to the way each one has to solve it, because we are human beings, whose response as a society is based on our ethnicity, customs and history.
Venezuelans can only compare ourselves with ourselves, and beyond the fact that other peoples of the continent are going through a situation that we could eventually extrapolate, hardly the way they are solving it could not be passed without first going through the filter of who we are and what we have done.
We Venezuelans are not very fond of looking at the past, and we are more inclined to follow that famous phrase "as it comes, so shall we see", which contains a different response to each situation, without paying attention to the fact that in the not so distant past we had a similar situation, and now we are not applying anything we learned from it, but rather we are fabricating a new response each time, without thinking.
These brief lines will not change our way of assuming reality. But we Venezuelans, as indicated, can only compare ourselves with ourselves, hence it is interesting to contemplate for a moment a period in the contemporary history of the country that makes us see as in a mirror what happened and how the political forces and the historical context derived from a situation very similar to the current one, added to our way of being and facing conflicts, gave birth to a political response of which there are still remnants in the collective conscience of Venezuelans.
It is not the first time that a government has ruined Venezuelans in every possible way, as the Chávez-Maduro dupla has done. The historical example of Cipriano Castro's government at the beginning of the XX century is perhaps the closest example to our current reality. And when an illness, added to his own fears of being eliminated by his political enemies, he cedes power "temporarily" to his compadre Juan Vicente Gómez, later Vice-President of the Republic, to go abroad for medical treatment. This is the moment that Gómez took advantage of to depose him from power in December 1908.
But it was not that simple. Previously, very serious events had occurred during Castro's government which were carried out by the then International Community against Venezuela, such as the blockade of our coasts in December 1902, carried out by ships from Great Britain and Germany. "As an excuse, they invoked the unpaid debts and the damages caused, real or alleged, according to what was alleged, to banks and natural persons of those nations" (1)(Page 69). That aggression was by no means spontaneous, and those ships did not arrive in Venezuela without the prior knowledge of the U.S. government. There was a year of preparation before that incident.
Indeed, the intention of these countries, as stated in Washington by the German ambassador to the Secretary of State, John Hay, was to force Castro to submit to the collection of debts, and to "temporarily" occupy, as a kind of lease, the customs offices of La Guaira and Puerto Cabello, if the blockade of the coasts was not enough. ).
But the powers exceeded their claim, entering the country by force, and the USA intervened in favor of Venezuela, forcing them to withdraw their ships, after Venezuela had previously negotiated in Washington: "The blockade was suspended after the signing of the "Washington protocols" at midnight on February 14-15, 1903" (1)(Page 75).
But despite the withdrawal of the ships, the debt was still there: "The Court of Arbitration at The Hague ruled in favor of Germany, Great Britain and Italy in the priority they requested for the payment of their claims over the other creditors. This ruling came on February 22, 1904"... "It was not only Germany, Great Britain and Italy who were the alleged creditors. To the list were added the United States, Belgium, Mexico, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Norway, which had various claims...". (1)(Pages 80-81). In this negotiation Venezuela gave as guarantee the revenues from the customs offices of La Guaira and Puerto Cabello.
By mid 1908 Castro's situation was already untenable before the International Community: "On June 13, 1908, the Secretary of State, Elihu Root, instructed the US Chargé d'Affaires in Caracas, Jacob Sleeper, to close the legation and break off relations" (1)(Page 94). According to historian, politician and journalist Simón Alberto Consalvi, "When he carried out the coup d'état, he thought of the great alliances with powerful nations. It was very clear to him that Castro had earned his enmity and, from then on, everything would change in Venezuela's foreign relations with the world. A demonstration of world jubilation was given by the New York Times when recording the news of Castro's fall, with the headline: "All civilized Nations Rejoiced", that is, the great universal euphoria in Europe and the United States, the only civilized places on earth..." (1)(Page 96).
As can be seen, the International Community has not changed one iota in its policy decisions, in spite of the years, as well as the interest-filled treatment they give to their friends, which Gómez was able to use to his advantage, because Castro was no guarantee for the payment of debts. But what about Venezuela, how was the country that Cipriano Castro was leaving behind and what would an individual whose unique situation put him in charge of a destroyed and indebted country find? Arturo Uslar Pietri tells us that:
"Undoubtedly, the Venezuela that Gómez received in 1908 was a country bled dry by the civil war, a ruined country, a country economically destroyed, a country deeply divided by historical caudillismo, and that in the depths of its soul desired peace, desired calm, desired order, desired discipline, and this is what Gómez instinctively gave it. He is going to give him because he is a man of that condition who feels that the good, of discipline, of work is the first good, whose government program is simply "Union, Peace and Work", that is to say, we are going to put an end to divisions, we are going to put people to work, we are going to keep people under a paternal discipline that he was going to exercise with a firm hand..." (see in Spanish, Juan Vicente Gómez, by Arturo Uslar Pietri, in https://youtu.be/UtoqFpj2_eI?t=622)
Does this situation seem familiar to you? Never, as before, has this tyranny of almost 24 years taken us back at least a century to the same or worse place. A country bled by a civil war that we have confronted with the regime, with deaths, persecuted, prisoners, tortured and exiled, with an additional component of forced mobilization abroad of the civilian population of almost 8 million people; a ruined, destroyed and economically indebted country; a country deeply divided by its political caudillos, whose egos and appetites have destroyed the governability of Venezuela. And yet we are still the same country that yearns for peace, tranquility, order and discipline. What we lack, according to this mirror of history, would be a Gómez of the 21st century. And what should this supposed character do? Arturo Uslar Pietri puts him in the mirror, so that Venezuelans can reflect and learn from history in this reality:
"He will complete this situation with two very important things: he will clean up the financial situation of the country, the country had lived in financial bankruptcy during the whole 19th century, and General Gómez will be a kind of maniac that the country has no debts, that the country has no problems with foreign powers, that the country is up to date with its resources, that the country has reserves, and he achieves this. He manages to put order in the finances, he manages to accumulate substantial reserves for his time. And then he also did a work that was going to destroy the caudillos, he was going to put an end to the personal armies of the caudillos, and he was going to create a National Army. This work of creating a National Army is a work that he carried out slowly with the help of many men who understood the need to change the situation in Venezuela..." (see in Spanish, Juan Vicente Gómez, by Arturo Uslar Pietri, in https://youtu.be/UtoqFpj2_eI?t=660). Is there a maniac among us who wants to see the country out of debt? I do not know, but it is needed.
In short, it looks simple, but it is not: pay what is owed outside and unify the country. In the times of Juan Vicente Gómez, the latter meant putting an end to the personal armies of the caudillos with the creation of an Armed Forces under their sole command. Today, the Gómez of the 21st century will also find himself with armed fronts all over the country, a product of the irresponsibility of this regime, and he will have to fight them with the strength that Gómez had in his time, until peace is achieved. But it will also have to put an end to the caudillismo of the parties, and this will only be achieved through a common project of the country that unifies Venezuelans, with a single purpose: to re-found the Nation in order to build it again through the call for a National Constituent Assembly. Otherwise, the unlearned history will repeat itself again...
Caracas, May 27, 2023
Blog:
TIC’s & Derechos Humanos, https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
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(1) Simón Alberto
Consalvi, Juan Vicente Gómez – Biografía, Libros El Nacional, Editorial SEC, S.A.
2007
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