Important Note:
By the time this intervention was sent to the FAVLCAR Forum, the Commission for the Popular Consultation had not been sworn in by President Juan Guaidó in the National Assembly. Two important members of ANCO were appointed: Mr. Enrique Colmenares Finol, National Coordinator of ANCO and Dr. Blanca Rosa Mármol de León, Judge Emeritus of the Supreme Court of Justice and a prominent member of the Board of Directors of ANCO. The work has just begun! We wish them much success in this work for the freedom of Venezuela...
The Consultation is the Cessation of Usurpation
By Luis Manuel Aguana
Intervention in the Forum "The Popular Consultation in the context of the Venezuelan political crisis", October 13, 2020, in the State of Bolivar
Good afternoon,
My gratitude to the Frente Amplio Venezuela Libre del Caroní, for the invitation to this Forum, fundamentally with the people of the State of Bolivar, and guests from all over Venezuela. My cordial greetings to Mr. Genio Lobo and Mr. Carlos Velásquez, organizers of this event.
A few years ago, one of the founders of ANCO went around the country in the clear conviction that the Popular Sovereignty had to be called to solve Venezuela's political problem. The proposal was to collect the signatures of 15% of the electorate for the convening of a new Original National Constituent Assembly, based on Articles 347 and 348 of the Constitution, "Article 347. The people of Venezuela are the depositary of the original constituent power. In the exercise of such power, they may convoke a National Constituent Assembly for the purpose of transforming the State, creating a new legal order and drafting a new Constitution. Article 348. The initiative to convoke a National Constituent Assembly may be taken by the President of the Republic in the Council of Ministers; the National Assembly, by means of an agreement of two thirds of its members; the Municipal Councils in the town hall, by means of a vote of two thirds of them; or fifteen percent of the registered electors and female electors registered in the Civil and Electoral Registry". (emphasis added). In other words, we are talking about the Civil Society of Venezuela.
We wanted a peaceful transformation of what Chávez had destroyed up to that moment - because then there was much more destruction - and to stop the Communist-Socialist State from shoving its way down the throats of Venezuelans without any permission given to the ruler of the day. For that reason, we proposed the discussion within the framework of a Constituent Assembly for a Project of the Country based on the deconcentration and decentralization of political, economic and social power, with a profoundly federalist approach, taking up again the bases and forgotten reasons for our foundation in 1811. We will soon be relaunching this Project of the Country and we hope to be able to discuss it with you in Guyana very soon. Bolivar would be a model State for that Project.
Maduro clearly had the initiative constitutionally, but so do we Venezuelans. We could both call for a constituent process, but the people had to decide in both cases in a Consultative Referendum, as indeed Hugo Chávez did with the 1999 constituent referendum. But Maduro skipped that very small, big detail. He believed that the people were him and called for a Constituent election without the approval of a Popular Consultation of the Venezuelan People. From there our struggle for a Popular Consultation was born.
The idea of the call for Popular Sovereignty then was not born at all because some wish to leave Maduro or Chávez in their opportunity. No. It was born out of the desire to transform the country and never return to the political practices and conditions that made possible the appearance of an eyesore named Hugo Chávez and his socialist "Bolivarian revolution. For us the Popular Consultation was something that emerged on the long road to reach that profound transformation of the State and is a milestone on a journey of much greater significance that we will still necessarily have to go through. The Consultation is for us the Cessation of the Usurpation of Nicolás Maduro Moros, as has been tirelessly repeated by Dr. Blanca Rosa Mármol de León, Judge Emeritus of the Supreme Court of Justice. That is our approach in a single expression!
The lurches that we Venezuelans have made in our eagerness to get out of this criminal regime against humanity must have had better results. There has been no order or concert in the conduct and the only thing, listen well, the ONLY thing that has prevailed here has been the persistence - some now call it resilience - of the Venezuelan people to get out of this tragedy, which has earned us the respect and accompaniment of a horrified and at the same time supportive International Community. But that is not enough. We have the obligation to make an additional effort, even if it sounds hard.
The 16J-2017 showed 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 help and assistance 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 looking for 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.
Since the beginning of his inauguration as President in Charge of the Republic, ANCO has requested Juan Guaidó to call a Popular Consultation (see ANCO Communiqué of February 4, 2019, ANCO ratifies its firm support for the President in Charge of the Republic Juan Guaidó and expresses its position regarding the proposal to call a Consultative Referendum, in https://ancoficial.blogspot.com/2019/02/comunicado-anco-ante-la-propuesta-de_4.html). From that very moment on, when we finally met with the President in charge within the framework of the consultations open to Civil Society, we expressed to him a clear strategy regarding the convocation of the Depositary of Sovereignty, which included not only the questions of that proposed Consultation but also how that instrument should be applied, so that it would really be an effective solution to the famous Cessation of Usurpation, the constitution of a Transitional Government with subsequent free elections, and most importantly, that the mandate of the Venezuelan people be respected.
Here we were not talking about proposing simple questions to be asked to the Venezuelan people and already, but a whole political and institutional route to be followed to achieve the task of evicting, with the help of the International Community, the regime and restoring democracy and freedom in our country.
In our proposal, the mandate of the Venezuelan People had to be supported BEFORE the Consultation took place by those who can make that mandate of the People effective by using institutional strength, previously and as it should be, achieving the necessary commitments of the International Community. In other words, if the Government in Charge agreed to follow this path, it should first obtain from all the countries that claim to recognize it the support prior to a mandate that only the People in exercise of their sovereignty can give, making effective the Principle of Self-Determination of the Peoples. Hence we always said that Maduro should be pressured from outside by the force of free nations to allow this liberating process to take place. Do you realize that we are not just talking about a few simple questions?
In other words, the Consult is not a Consultation in itself to ask Venezuelans something, it goes beyond that! It is the ideal, peaceful, constitutional and electoral mechanism for the people to order the effective eviction of the regime through an unappealable mandate of Venezuelans all over the world. That is why the questions raised by ANCO are tied to this path, to achieve that the International Community helps us to make effective the use of force, if necessary, but with a clear authorization of the Venezuelan people.
At ANCO we have never considered a Popular Consultation as just another instrument to confront the regime, as one might consider a march or a demonstration in the street. No. We propose it as the final solution to end it definitively, where the Venezuelan People, exercising a clear mandate, put an end to it, and without prolonging it, to the disaster where they have taken us, opening the way to a new democratic dawn and freedom, hand in hand with all Venezuelans as the main protagonists. We think it big, putting Venezuela first, beyond the pettiness and political appetites of anyone who wants to use this effort of all to appear in a photo as the protagonist. Here there is no other protagonist than the People of Venezuela.
There can be no personalistic positions of anyone and we reject those that have appeared. If we pose electoralist questions to the Venezuelan people, the Popular Consultation will become more of the same and will be rejected by the great majorities, and we will waste in that case the only silver bullet we have to kill the devil. To do that we better not do anything because it would be one more deception of the citizens. On the contrary, if we ask Venezuelans decisive questions to decide the end of a regime and a system that has been a cancer for humanity, the rest will come in addition and no one will dare to turn their back on us outside. The end of the regime will put us on the path to finish doing what is necessary to change what has to be changed institutionally in Venezuela to give a future to the new generations?
Thank you very much…
Caracas, October 14, 2020
Blog: http://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario