It is with great sadness and even greater frustration that I report the unfortunate passing yesterday of our friend, comrade and founding director of the Alianza Nacional Constituyente Originaria, ANCO, Sergio Matamoros Pulido, a fighter for many years in this effort to convince Venezuelans of the need to think and transform the country from within. In recent years, Sergio distanced himself from the permanent militancy that this joint effort demanded, due to a lung ailment that finally ended his life. Today in ANCO, once again, we find ourselves mourning the irreparable loss of one of our most important intellectual bastions.
But I would not like to say goodbye to Sergio Matamoros Pulido (because in the end one does not say goodbye to anyone, but meets him again later because we all go there) without first asking Mateo Sanchez, the pseudonym he used for his intellectual battles, a last exchange of his for posterity. Because the debate was for Sergio an indispensable food for his intellectual soul that manifested itself in the confrontation of ideas. I cannot let him go without showing to those who did not know him an exchange of views like the ones we used to have, even if they are posthumous.
Discussions with that teacher were masterful, and as the born educator he was, all his references always began with a story that determined a corollary as a logical conclusion. I missed those stories from the very moment his illness made them impossible, because listening to him was a true delight in the anecdotal journey of the history of Venezuela and the world.
Sergio, as well as another comrade who left before him, Hinderburgo Becerra, had abandoned a well-earned labor and political retirement from his life to pursue the dream of change that we proposed to the country, The Great Change of ANCO (see in Spanish The Great Change, a Proposal for the Refoundation of Venezuela, in https://ancoficial.blogspot.com/p/documentos-fundamentales.html).
And as I will not be able, by God's design, to continue debating with Sergio, I preferred, before making a biographical review of this exceptional human being, that it was better to send him a letter, that perhaps by those vicissitudes of quantum physics, who knows if it will reach him where he is, and at the same time give him some time to have an answer for when we meet again and continue the discussion.
To put you first in context, Sergio was a very pragmatic individual, a politician of the “real politik”, very grounded in reality, who adhered to the dream of ANCO because he was convinced that it was essential, but given his very particular way of seeing reality he saw it very difficult -if not impossible- to make it come true with the current backward components of Venezuelan politics. He was a kind of “ground wire” for the rest of us dreamers who believe that Venezuela, although it does not have the conditions now, does not mean that there is no wood to build them. That this dream has to be worked on and made concrete. And that, my dear friends, is an eternal discussion... But in spite of that, the differences never distanced us, but rather complemented us.
From the extensive debates with Sergio I have chosen a special selection of paragraphs and phrases from the “arsenal” of Matías Sánchez, which occurred in a hard time in the country between October 2017 and January 2018, which will serve me for this posthumous letter, and which in turn will give you a precise idea of the discursive mood that stood out in our friend Sergio Matamoros Pulido, and of how consubstantiated he was with the change we promoted for Venezuela. Here is the letter:
Dear Sergio,
I am writing you this posthumous letter very sad for your departure without farewell. Well, I guess it is better a French farewell than a disappearance without excuses, that although they are similar they are not the same, because in the first one you always count on the one who is leaving. And we could always count on you despite your pragmatic way of seeing the world.
First of all I want to thank you for the deference and the infinite patience you had with this novice that I always was -and still am permanently in constant learning- of Venezuelan politics. You were one of my best and most appreciated teachers. I must tell you, although late, that you were perhaps one of my best postgraduate professors of Venezuelan political practice. And that is not learned in a university classroom, but in the day to day of the political din. ANCO has been for me that graduate school in Political Science, being you one of the best professors. It would be difficult to find in a single person such an encyclopedic knowledge of the historical and political anecdotes of our country, which you selflessly shared with all of us in the autumn and winter of your life.
I believe that coming out of your retirement, pushed by Hinderburgo Becerra to dedicate it to this Constituent crusade, has been the best thing that this crazy and spectacular “llanero” did when in his wanderings he was recruiting people with experience and political honesty, with the most disinterested Venezuelan passion, as a “paisano” of yours from Mérida, Alberto Adriani, would say, although we learned late that you were born in San Cristóbal.
And Hinderburg was not wrong! Because summarizing in two paragraphs what we are pursuing for Venezuela is a legacy that is everlasting:
“I have always believed and I still believe that the objective is “THE COUNTRY PROJECT” Venezuela Reconciled (now El Gran Cambio). DECENTRALIZING the public power, DECONCENTRATING the centralized competences in CARACAS, is an indispensable task for the DEVELOPMENT of the PROVINCE and of each and every Venezuelan. At this moment it seems to be OUR INDEPENDENTIST alternative because it is unsustainable that every centimeter that grows the development of the center of the country is at the cost of many centimeters that decreases the HOPE of the inhabitants of the province.”
“That the LIBERTADOR had not convinced PÁEZ and SANTANDER of the need to agree on the constitution of the great federated nation of the south has allowed us NOT to have been the UNITED STATES OF THE SOUTHERN AMERICAN CONTINENT, the great BOLIVARIAN DREAM that led the PROSCER to say in SANTA MARTA: “if my death contributes so that the parties cease and the union is consolidated, I will descend calmly to the grave””.
But in your masterly insistence you did not leave it there, punctuating in a few words the essence of our struggle in ANCO:
“Paraphrasing it I could say:
The struggle is posed, DECENTRALIZATION against centralism; FREEDOM against
oppression and imposition;
DEMOCRACY against dictatorship;
JUSTICE against barbarism;
PEACE against anxiety;
PROSPERITY against hopelessness;
LOVE against hatred;
WEALTH against poverty;
DEVELOPMENT against ignorance;
COMPETITION against passivity;
STRUGGLE against surrender;
SUCCESS against failure.
So, there we will be, contributing but moving forward.”
But you specified also our mistakes and our shortcomings that we discussed in ANCO ad nauseam at every opportunity that we conversed about this. The problem, my dear departed friend, is that we will lack many like you to launch this Project. But we will not rest until we find them. Because it is not only about money -which is necessary- it is also about many honest people of good will, as you were, to put it into operation for the benefit of the citizens and not for their pockets:
“The NATIONAL CONSTITUENT ALLIANCE -ANCO- reached to outline AN ENTIRE PROJECT to UNITE and CONGREGATE the greatest sum of dissimilar wills in an institution -NATIONAL CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY of ORIGINAL character- to review, analyze and agree on a COUNTRY PROJECT, Venezuela RECONCILIADA (now El Gran Cambio), which would include ALL of us in the task of rescuing FREEDOM and developing DEMOCRACY. I believe that the lack of economic resources constituted an enveloping and diluting cause of the BEAUTIFUL, RESPECTFUL and ACHIEVABLE EFFORTS, of those of us who gathered with such objective”.
That is why you grounded us in the harsh reality of Venezuelan politics, even going so far as to point us out as naive. And perhaps you were quite right. If we were not, there might not have been a Chavez or a Maduro in the first place. However, tragedies also give birth to opportunities and true leaders of peoples. If there had not been a Declaration of Independence by some dreamers, a Simón Bolívar would never have been revealed to the world....
“As lawyers are wont to say:
REASON without FORCE is UTOPIC INGENUITY and FORCE without REASON is BARBARISM.”
“In such a way, my dear friend, that I BELIEVE I have integrated a group of studious, respectable, meritorious, dreamers, naive and with very little practical sense, having reached the extreme that the work done ended up being the government's instrument to mock us and the whole of VENEZUELA with that mock communal constituent.”
“We are dreamers and that is not bad and it is also necessary, but as long as we garnish it with some garnish. Our politicians, our political parties, those of TODAY and those of YESTERDAY, have been, continue to be CENTRALIST, and fighters against DECENTRALIZATION, and, WE, those convinced, rationally, of the need to promote DECENTRALIZATION by strengthening municipal power for the exercise of CITIZENSHIP as indicated in the “COUNTRY PROJECT VENEZUELA RECONCILIED via CONSTITUENT (today The Great Change) of ORIGINAL character” or we have NOT managed to convince the majorities or we have failed in the attempt or the proposed route to be instrumented is wrong. ”
That is possible Sergio, but we are still in the fight, despite the fact that time and illnesses may take down outstanding members like you. The regime may have used our “naive” work in an artful way, and maybe we have not yet succeeded in convincing the majorities, or maybe we are the wrong ones. But that never meant, as we always argued, that THAT WAS WHAT HAD TO BE DONE, explaining to Venezuelans with a Project in hand as The Great Change, the road that had to be traveled to get out of underdevelopment, regardless of who was in charge of the country. I will leave today with this letter to Venezuelans your approach and let them draw their own conclusions, showing the arguments you always wielded, as the best tribute I can make to the clarity and honesty of criteria that always accompanied your life.
In spite of all these differences you were with us, and I want to put on record here for friends and strangers that this is the bravest thing someone can do when accompanying others in a crusade for change: to remain united in spite of the differences. Because that IS THE ESSENCE OF A DEMOCRAT, and I want to put that on record here so that politicians can learn how it is done!
“Now then, I say and do all this because contrary to what some have thought and others continue to think, Sergio Matamoros Pulido is convinced, remains convinced and will continue to fight to bring to the discussion and final decision the “VENEZUELA RECONCILIED COUNTRY PROJECT” (now THE GREAT CHANGE), as the experiment that will allow to promote the FIRST DECENTRALIZED FEDERAL REPUBLIC WITH EMPHASIS AND STRENGTHENING OF THE MUNICIPAL POWER FOR THE BEST EXERCISE OF CITIZENSHIP and so that in VENEZUELA never again a CAUDILLO or a MESSIAH will try to subjugate territory and people for which it is necessary to conquer the FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY that we NEVER had. ”
“When the POLITICIANS wake up from their lethargy, confusion and imbalance, they will find themselves building the ORIGINARY CONSTITUENT to seek the agreement to mount the decentralizing and deconcentrating process of national competences to strengthen the MUNICIPALITY and promote and stimulate the CITIZEN PARTICIPATION as indicated in the “COUNTRY PROJECT VENEZUELA RECONCILIED VIA CONSTITUENT OF ORIGINARY CHARACTER” (now THE GREAT CHANGE).”
“Finally, friend LUIS MANUEL AGUANA, everything indicated shows that the AGENDA of the VENEZUELA of TODAY January 2018 (what the Venezuelans want CONSCIOUSLY or UNCONSCIOUSLY) is to get someone BELIEVABLE, REMOTED from the POLITICAL CONFRONTATION whose concern and competence are tied to solving the ECONOMIC and CITIZENS' SECURITY CRISIS.”
“Nobody is willing to invest time and resources, so diminished, in the DECENTRALIZATION nor in the DECONCENTRATION of the public administration nor in the STRENGTHENING of the MUNICIPAL POWER for a convenient exercise of CITIZENSHIP, that which IS WHAT WE SHOULD BE DOING, that, people NEITHER UNDERSTAND NOR WANT IT, which I do not mean that, we should abandon it. On the contrary, THAT is NECESSARY, IMPULSE IT AND DEVELOP IT for instrumentation of the real solution.”
“But, if we want to PARTICIPATE and in that participation ACT to promote a GREAT NATIONAL ENCOUNTER to REVIEW, DISCUSS and AGREE in exercise of FREEDOM and in DEMOCRACY, the COUNTRY PROJECT VENEZUELA RECONCILIADA VIA CONSTITUENT ORIGINARY we have, THERE IS NO OTHER WAY, than to be promoters of the GREAT NATIONAL UNITY that summons, demands and achieves that, ALL the aspirants place on the table, THEIR TEMPORARY RESIGNATION to their ASPIRATIONS and launch themselves to SEEK A CONSENSUS CANDIDATE that projects a good image and generates confidence for the overcoming of the economic and citizen security crisis which IS WHAT INTEREST 82% of Venezuelans. ”
“Afterwards, only afterwards and NOT NOW, we will have the responsibility, and the possibility that, in LIBERTY and DEMOCRACY, without TERRORISM or NARCOTRAPHY we will convene the GREAT NATIONAL ENCOUNTER, the NATIONAL CONSTITUTORY ASSEMBLY of an originary character to AGREE THE COUNTRY WE NEED AND WANT.”
Better words than those impossible to overcome at this moment that we mourn your departure Sergio, or rather Mateo Sanchez, as you subscribed to your ideas. What I can tell you, because as you already know these words you wrote to me at the beginning of 2018, you were ahead in that time to 2024 -that is what a consummate politician does as you were- by anticipating what María Corina Machado did by renouncing her aspirations in favor of Edmundo González Urrutia as consensus candidate, to the point that even the percentage you got right in the presidential elections of July 28.
As this is a public letter, I apologize in advance, for extending myself, and for wanting your values and ideas to be known in depth, for which we honor you today, Sergio Matamoros Pulido, alias Mateo Sanchez. This is my tribute to you today.
We will try in ANCO to be less naive and more diligent my dear friend. I believe we owe it to you. And although we will never be able to be at your philosophical height, your teachings will not fall into a broken sack and will remain in force as those of all those of ANCO who have gone before you, in this struggle that does not end yet. The ideas you outlined will still be there even though we all have to meet you wherever you are, because this country is doomed to succeed, even if it is in homage to distinguished citizens like you, because as you rightly said, WE ARE RIGHT. No one will take that away from you....
Receive a strong fraternal and infinite hug my dear friend, may it last until we meet again...
Luis Manuel Aguana
Caracas, October 17, 2024
Blog:
TIC’s & Derechos Humanos, https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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