Gonzalo Gómez: Marea Socialista Calls to Vote. Yet, it’s Anti Democratic to Forbid Messages for Abstention

By: Aporrea.org / Prensa Marea Socialista | Tuesday, April 24th, 2018 09:02 AM | 

GONZALO GÓMEZ, from MAREA SOCIALISTA

Gonzalo Gómez belongs to the National Directive Board of the Political Movement Marea Socialista. Regarding the recent electoral regulations given by the Venezuelan Electoral Authority, the Electoral National Council (CNE in its Spanish accronym), his political organization considers antidemocratic banning the messages in favor of the abstention in spite of exhorting the Venezuelan people to vote.

The Special Rules for the Electoral Propaganda in the Media, approved by the CNE, and introduced by its authorities will rule the Venezuelan presidential elections of 2018. According to Gonzalo Gómez they continue a line of violation of the electoral rights adopted by the Venezuelan National Constituent Assembly (ANC in its Spanish Accronym), the Venezuelan Government and the very self electoral entity. It’s controlled by Nicolás Maduro’s government according to Gómez.

However, “This is actually not new. The General Rule is a Resolution approved by the National Electoral Council, in a session celebrated on January 18th, 2013”, Gonzálo Gomez stressed.

The CNE President has reminded that, “the propaganda that discourages  the free exercise to the vote is fobidden”. The Article 204 of the LOPRE General Rule, regarding the non allowed electoral propaganda includes on its numeral 7 those propagandas that…”Discourage the exercise to the right to vote”. For us, this provision violates the right to the freee awareness and to express it. (Art. 64 Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela) within a country where voting is not a mandatory act.

Gonzálo Gómez represents the political movement Marea Socialista. He unpinned from the VenezuelanUnited Socialist Party (PSUV in its Spanish Accronym) in year 2014, and he always kept a critic position within PSUV. Gonzalo Gómez participated in yezr 2007 in the foundation of the main officialist party of the current Venezuelan government, as a preexistent current. “We think this is highly ambiguous. All kind of interpretations might arise, aimed at restricting every political freedom”. We disagree with the argument that seeks to give that the right to abstain is an individual issue of each voter. In a democracy, the position of the citizens can be assumed collectively, aimed at making a social forcé around their positions and purposes”, Gómez added.

“Marea Socialista doesnt’ share the call for abstention. We perceive that there there is an interventionist agenda behind this exhortation by the right opposition. However, there are people of the Chavismo who are also dissapointed. There are also people from the critic left, with their right to remonstrate these elections. That is a matter of political opinión and awareness. This is not something to be forbidden”, Gonzalo Gómez affirmed. 

In several occassions, sectors from the left and social movements of fight assumed abstentionist positions (such as in the 4th Republic). The former President Chávez did similar with the Bolivarian Movement for some time.

“For us, those who actually discourage the right to vote are not those who denounce the elections due to the lack of guarantees and the arbitrary, illegitimate and illegal electoral handling, but those who commit such violations, subdue the people to conditions of privation of their rights and then pretend to force the people to vote by the authors of such abuses”, the leader of Marea Socialista added.

“Marea Socialista exhorts to vote. This time we support the presidential candidacy of Reinaldo Quijada (From UPP 89). We aspire to postulate within the frame of this Alliance the men and women candidates to councils. We make this call, not because we believe that these forecoming elections be clean, but because we firmly believe that the best way to defend the people’s rights is their very own exercise of them. This, in spite of the limitations and obstacles imposed from the elites of power. Therefore, as citizens we do not decline in the exercise of our right to choose, to elect and being elected. That’s why we are in favor of using the tiniest democratic scraps left. We think this is favorable for the fight”.

However, according to Gómez it is evident that “the electoral system ought to be reformed. The electoral power must be renewed, in order to restore the electoral rights and guarantees of the Venezuelan people. The fundamental problem is, it is seized by the Venezuelan government. This leads to prove uncapable to stop the official advantage”.

"I’d also like to remind you that Marea Socialista could not start its legalization process because of whim by the CNE. According to CNE,  our political movement was not a denomination of a party with political aims. For this reason we had to turn up before the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ in its Spanish accronym). The TSJ after having summoned a unique audience, has not issued any decision to preserve our right after two years. Thus, they grant Maduro one of the alternative names we had already reserved, and they had denied to us. We had postulated the name of SOMOS. This evidences the official advantage we are denouncing”, Gonzalo Gómez pointed out.

Gómez tops off: “It’s mandatory to assure and to put ahead the real, full and free individual and social participation in the processes, specially the ones corresponding the social comptrollership, the transparency and the abolition of the advantage an the governmental beaurocratic-governmental manipulation. Also from those who own capital goods and transform the elections into commerce and a matter of money: Out of reach of the working class, the peasants por, the popular communities and the indigenous peoples. They are understood by its authentic sense and not of the usurpation of its place by those who seize the power”.

“In order to accomplish this, it’s also necessary to restablish the full enforcement of the Venezuelan Constitution. It’s being extinguished by the current authoritary government. It’s frankly also threatened by the old right wing that aspires to rule again”, Gonzalo Gómez, from the political movement Marea Socialista, concludes.

 Read the original Version in Spanish, here: https://www.aporrea.org/ddhh/n324130.html

English Version: María Eugenia Acero Colomine (Venezuela)

Email:  aporreainternational@gmail.com
acerocolomine@gmail.com

Twitter: @andesenfrungen

"The Economic War is a Huge Lie", Reinaldo Quijada Assures

REINALDO QUIJADA, THE CANDIDATE OF UPP89

Caracas, April 24th - According to the Venezuelan candidate of the Party UPP 89,  Reinaldo Quijada, the President and candidate running up for the re-election, Nicolás Maduro, , has made lies his main instrument of government and considers that the greatest of them is the "economic war". It exposes the arguments that sustain its affirmation and says that it is the most evident sign of the "ethical claudication" of the government.

"The great lie of the IV Republic, of the years before Chavez, was to point out that the Orinoco Oil Belt contained not 'oil' but 'bitumen', and for that reason it was called the Bituminous Belt of the Orinoco.An entire country was deceived, the oil was sold at the price of coal.The equivalent, in our days, is the 'economic war', narrative of a lie held in time and fed with the media support, the support of some economists and even some intellectuals ", Quijada warns.

"Certainly, there was an antecedent that was true, the economic and oil sabotage of the end of 2002 and the beginning of 2003 with which an attempt was made to overthrow the government of President Chávez." Then began the feast of the diversion of foreign currency, the fraud in the use of the preferential currencies, the bleeding of the country, but already that phase was done with the complicity of the responsible governmental entity CADIVI, and then also of the BCV and the general laxity of the government, the same serious business, that there is, and it is not the minority, was subject to the obligation to pay bribes to obtain the foreign currency and coerced into silence, others were accomplices ".

"The real ethical breakdown came with the illness of President Chávez - recalls Quijada - and then with his death, although in 2008 we had the background of PDVAL converted by public opinion into PUDREVAL. Most of the foreign companies, manufacturers of food or inputs, sell directly to the Venezuelan government, but they do so through intermediaries or briefcase companies that had access to preferential currencies.Public companies, like CASA, always buy at much higher prices At international prices, these surcharges are evident when compared to purchases of small volumes of the same products made by private sector companies, they also buy low quality or expired products at prices of premium products. rise "in international prices and never in" low. "It is bought in unusual terms in the international (terms FOB or FAS, instead of CIF terms that was a mandatory requirement of CADIVI). The containers that brought the imports of PDVAL, belonged to PDVAL, when it is normal that they belonged to companies specialized in handling containers. All this network of procedures, strange or atypical in world trade, what they sought was to hide corruption. And, finally, the government stopped "nonsense", 3 years ago, it reserved all the imports of food and supplies with the intention of not showing up with huge surcharges and other irregularities.

"Most of these facts we denounced in a communication sent to President Maduro and VP Arreaza, on April 25, 2013, that is, only 6 days after Maduro took office, but no one paid any attention to us", The candidate Quijada ends his explanation.

Reinaldo Quijada is a presidential candidate of the UPP 89 and has electoral support from other leftist organizations such as Marea Socialista.


Read the original version in Spanish, here: https://www.aporrea.org/economia/n324156.html

The Onix: The Venezuelan Cryptocurrency that Came Before the Petro

Caracas, April 8 - Eight years ago, a user commented in a forum that he would pay 10,000 bitcoins to the person who sent him 2 pizzas. A simple challenge, ended up going down in history when dealing with the first transaction made with cryptocurrencies.

The 10,000 bitcoins paid in that operation represented $ 25. Which means that those pizzas would have cost, according to the current price of bitcoin, approximately 75 million dollars. Of course, they did not yet know the extent of cryptocurrencies in the future.

In this anecdote, Venezuela can be seen, since today it is going through this stage of discovery and exploration in the world of cryptocurrencies. With a petro that has not even been released in the market, many would think that it is not yet time to adapt to this reality, however, there are other criollo digital currencies that have given something to talk about.

Launched on May 29, 2017, onixcoin is the first cryptocurrency created in Venezuela. With just under a year on the market marked a milestone, since with it the first transaction was made with a Venezuelan digital currency, it was a 2010 Jeep Cherokee truck that was sold in 500,000 onixcoins.

Ángel Salazar, co-founder of this cryptocurrency, celebrated the recent success that the onix has had since the creation of the Superintendence of Cripoactives and Related Activities, since the legal framework has facilitated the operation in the country and promote a more ambitious project.

"It went from being a social experiment to a formal project and we created four divisions to address specific aspects of onyx development. The execution has gone very well, we have formed very important alliances and we managed to be present at several important international conferences, "he explained.

The project is in the process of constant expansion, for that reason, they have turned to neighboring countries to promote their currency and establish strategic alliances. Negotiations have been held in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Panama, Argentina, Colombia and Brazil, where even Onyx will be listed in an exchange house. They have also attracted advisers from the United States, South Korea and Sweden. They even have an offer of alliance from the United States.

"The international brand recognition of what the onix project is doing in Venezuela is being noticed. We are growing, our goal is to convert the onix into the bitcoin of Latin America, "he said.

One of the benefits generated by the expansion of the cryptocurrency in different exchange houses in the region, would be the sending of remittances from relatives abroad to their countries of origin with the use of onixcoins.

Crypto society. Since the creation of the petroleum was announced and the handling of cryptocurrencies in the country was legalized, Venezuelan society has acquired great interest in digital money.

Salazar said that the community that moves in the world of digital assets has grown organically and a large part of the population does not know about the subject but wants to learn about it.

"When you go to an international conference, you realize that everyone here is handling the issue. In a local conference, the vast majority is unaware of the issue but everyone wants to learn, "he said.

Faced with the wave of enthusiasts seeking to invest in these types of alternatives to safeguard against inflation, Salazar recommends that they be documented before completing any business, since it is necessary to know how cryptocurrencies are used, and how the market interacts to avoid create false expectations.

While for the miners, he invited them to consider the onyx as an alternative to mine. "You can use the same machine that was used to mine dash and the performance is much higher, it is very profitable," he said.

The impact of sanctions

The government of the United States issued a decree in which every American citizen is prohibited from carrying out any transaction or business involving the petro or any other instrument based on the Blockchain technology created by the Venezuelan government.

Although these sanctions affect the main Venezuelan cryptocurrency, the other crypts are not affected, according to Ángel Salazar, co-founder of the Onix currency.

"Directly they will not affect the other cryptocurrencies, because the sanctions are against the petro. It is a problem with the government, but not with the crypts. Onix is ​​even a free software, we do not own the codes, "he explained.

The impact, particularly on the onix, has been null, even Salazar has received proposals from the United States to establish strategic alliances with investors from that country.


Regarding the possibility that sanctions may generate fear among potential investors, Salazar argues that they "can read, they can interpret, and those who are getting involved can also investigate", so it is unlikely that they will be carried away by the decree.

Read the full article in Spanish, here: https://www.aporrea.org/economia/n323342.html

Venezuela to Ask UNESCO Declare the Drums of San Juan Heritage of the Humanity

04 de Abril.- The Venezuelan President, Nicolás Maduro, reported this Wednesday that the National Government had started the request before the United Nations Education Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO) for the recognition of the Drums of San Juan as a cultural heritage of the humanity.

Read the article in Spanish here https://www.aporrea.org/cultura/n323182.html

Gonzalo Gómez: "Maduro Is Dismantling the Revolutionary Process"

In an interview with Esquerda.net, Gonzalo Gomez, spokesman for Marea Socialista, denounced that the Venezuelan Constituent Assembly is "adapting the Venezuelan political and economic regime to the interests of the bureaucracy and its process of assimilation to capital." The government of Nicolás Maduro deepens the extractive policy and the transnationals expelled by Chavez return. By Luis Leiria.

Gonzalo Gómez: "Socialism is not made with traps". Photo: Aporrea.org

When the elections for the Constituent Assembly of Maduro were held, the movement Marea Socialista denounced it them as an undemocratic coup, which was intended to avoid the convening of general elections at that time. What role has the Constituent Assembly played since then?

Well, first of all, it must be said that this Constituent Assembly was convened in the margins of that established by the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, which establishes the need to hold a prior consultation in a referendum so that it can be convened. And that it is necessary to submit to popular consideration, in this consultation, the conditions of the call. Nonetheless, they convened this Constituent Assembly and established rules that ensured the State apparatus and the PSUV the ability to shape the Constituent National Assembly (ANC). Therefore, regardless of whether it has been subjected to elections, it turns out to be a constituent of constituted power, not of sovereign popular power.

It is true that some of the leaders of workers 'or peasants' trade unions are in the Constituent Assembly, but we are talking about something purely functional to the state bureaucracy and where the predominant are people who even had functions in government, such as ministers or vice ministers, or presidents of State enterprises, or holders of important positions as ambassadors, etc. That is to say: it is not reflected the popular movement and the expressions of popular power. And I would like to say that, in Venezuela, these expressions have been copied, patronized, and instrumentalized at the service of the party-state apparatus. Thus, the Constituent, I insist, is not of popular and sovereign power, but of the constituted power that usurps popular sovereignty with a semblance of legitimacy.

A situation was created with a Constituent Assembly and a National Assembly.

Yes, there has been a kind of duality of powers, but in reality there is a process of concentration of all powers with authoritarian, pseudo-institutional and legal-looking mechanisms.

At this moment, the Supreme Court of Justice is completely subordinate to the government; the National Assembly was considered "in contempt" because four Members were accused of being fraudulently elected. Instead of suspending these four votes, what they did was to invalidate all decisions of the National Assembly, without ever being called new elections to replace these deputies. Faced with an assembly that was won by the right and by the political sectors linked to the traditional bourgeoisie, the form used to annul the loss of this House was an antidemocratic subterfuge, because the obligation of Maduro's government was to rescue the popular vote, to win support to maintain control of the assembly, but with a correct policy.

The General Attorney was removed...

Yes, indeed. The General Attorney was dismissed and replaced for having questioned the Supreme Court of Justice and also questioned the convening of the National Constituent Assembly in these terms. But we must also say that what has been the National Constituent Assembly and the way it has operated is not something that we can consider progressive, or in tune with the Bolivarian Revolution. First, because there is almost no discussion, debate, elaboration of proposals that come from below. In addition to making a few rallies, with many applause, there are no mechanisms to collect the will of the Venezuelan people.

And what the ANC has approved is regressive. Their aim is to dismantle the revolutionary process. This ANC is placed as plenipotentiary, as supraconstitutional, leaving us in a situation of almost suspended and uncertainty regarding the validity of the Constitution of 99, Chavez. Among the things I can mention, recently approved by the ANC, is a constitutional decree-law protecting foreign investment. That replaces the way in which transnational corporations and the investments of other countries take part in conditions prejudicial to the sovereignty. And this was said by some prominent intellectuals, such as Luis Brito García, an important writer who has generally had positions of support to the government of Nicolás Maduro. He pointed out that with decisions like this, the result is to undermine the basis of what has been won in terms of national sovereignty in the Chávez period. So if we see what the ANC is doing, it is not strengthening workers' rights or regulating labor. What it is doing is to adapt the political regime and the Venezuelan economic regime to a new situation that responds to the interests of the bureaucracy and its process of assimilation to capital.

The Mining Arc violates the Sovereignty, the Democracy and Rights

It is a total paradox ...

There is a story that shows well the character of this National Constituent Assembly and why it is not a Constituent of popular power. In the elections for mayor of Simón Planas, in the state of Lara, a candidate was nominated as a candidate whose designation was made by election in the commune of El Maizal, a peasant commune, productive and fairly well organized. This candidate, Angel Prado, presented himself and the Communist Party and the PPT, members of the Patriotic Pole that supports Maduro, decided to replace an earlier candidacy, in which they went with the PSUV, and present this candidate. The National Electoral Council did not change the name of the candidate on the electoral list and the ANC said that it did not authorize this constituent to run for election. He had to obtain authorization from the ANC. But many leaders of the PSUV who were constituents were allowed to be candidates. The people of this commune took to the streets to protest, closed roads, made popular assemblies, went to the National Electoral Council, went to the Supreme Court of Justice, demanding that Prado be declared victorious. Where a commune has won, the political regime of this Constituent Assembly refuses to acknowledge it. One does not want that the popular power has real space of power in the institutions.

After the Constituent Assembly elections, there were already municipal and regional elections, summoned by surprise, which resulted in a victory for Maduro...

Maduro wins, but he doesn't convince...

What happens is that the elections that are to be convened in Venezuela are under undemocratic, disadvantageous, irregular conditions, summoned by surprise, compress the electoral calendars, change the rules from night to morning, there are registered candidates who are not accepted ... When they can not have another resource, they even remove candidates in the middle of the process and even arrest them. We denounced the case of the former mayor of Cumaná, in the state of Sucre, who had been a candidate for governor, and shortly thereafter, did not run for the mayoral elections but was at the head of the promotion of 15 candidates from that state . He was then arrested, charged with embezzlement, supposedly four years earlier when he was in the chamber. I learned that the accusation was that he had not returned a gun that is given to the mayors for his defense, but he showed the return minutes. Still they kept him in jail and the trial was postponed. And so he was held until recently.

It is in these conditions that we participate in the elections.

But I must say that Marea Socialista, despite denouncing these elections, decides to participate because we think that we can not renounce our citizens' rights. We must try to exercise them, whenever and when we make this frontal complaint. We participated in alliance with another organization that has legality, because the Socialist Tide was prevented from starting its legalization process. They did not authorize us to collect signatures under our name. And we introduced alternative names. One of them was "We". Which has now been used by the President of the Republic to name that kind of party movement that created Nicolás Maduro to have a game of two formulas in the elections, and who knows what other purposes. It is a party assembled with the apparatus of the State and with the resources of the State.

But we at Marea were prevented from starting the legalization process. We were denied by the National Electoral Council and we appealed to the Supreme Court of Justice, which summoned a hearing, in what became practically a political trial, questioning that we could use the name of Socialists because we attacked the government; and then never again called the trial hearing. The Supreme Court never made a pronouncement, so we could never begin the process of legalization.

But we were in alliance with the Popular Political Unit 89 (UPP 89) and I must say that of the 385 municipalities we managed to present applications in 181 and that in several states and municipalities we obtained very important results. Some cases of candidates who obtained 30 and 40%, 20 or 15%, considerable percentages. In some places, such as the Portuguesa state, this electoral force was the second, immediately after the PSUV. We think there are places where those who stayed in 2nd or 3rd places could have stayed in 1st. But you have to face the use of the media, communicative hegemony of the state apparatus, you have to face the use of state resources, you have to face the use of the security corps used to intimidate ... A number of conditions that deny what we could understand a socialist democracy or participatory democracy that was inscribed in the Constitution.

Socialism is not a trap. Socialism can not be done with discrimination. Socialism must have breadth, participation, debates, discussion. With opportunities to intervene and this can be used for decision-making. It is not that Nicolás Maduro asks: "let me get ten proposals" and from all subsides of the party and social organizations come thousands of paperwork with ten proposals. But then we do not know what happens, who selects them, which are the majority. This is the scenario: simulation.


And what do you think of the presidential elections scheduled for April 1?

They were summoned for April, although constitutionally they should be held in December. They argued that the opposition had called for the advance of the elections as a mechanism for Nicolas Maduro's departure.

But as the government has been able to build on this new manipulative electoral model, it feels safe enough to be able to call and win elections, even if they are a minority. And this is the situation that exists now. Most of the opposition will not stand for election. Some were because they were being outlawed, or because they no longer had the opportunity to participate because they did not meet requirements, others because the court withdrew their candidates the right to present themselves.

There were no agreements in the negotiations made by the MUD and the government - and I must say we are against, since it is intended to resolve the affairs of the country between the right-wing opposition and Maduro's government. What about the rest of the paper? What are we, the others? What are the rest of the political opposition and the rest of the social organizations? They can meet in the Dominican Republic with mediators who have been linked to bourgeois governments and who have their connections with sectors of imperialism to decide what will happen to the country. We disagree with that. We defend a multi-dialog with popular, democratic participation.

Will Marea Socialista present a candidate?

We intended to promote an application that emerged from what is known as the critical, democratic chavismo of the radical left that questions the government of Nicolás Maduro. In fact, we participate in a platform where there are several of the former ministers and former Chavez ministers who had a very important participation. We have been working together with them, who have been removed from government, but not because they are corrupt or because they are not ashamed. They were pushed aside because they defended the "coup" Chavez spoke of before his death, a shift of democratic radicalization of the Bolivarian Revolution to achieve its objectives.

Marea Socialista has been working together to the critic Chavistas

The deadlines set by the government, the conditions under which the elections were convened, do not allow the time for discussions, agreements, consensuses, and the construction of joint programs. The devices have already solved everything. They already have candidates, they already have proposals, everything is ready and set up. It is only then that they announce the elections and summon the others. And they do not give the time, reasonable deadlines, to be able to solve the situation.

The organization with which we went to the elections decided to launch its candidate: UPP 89 will launch Reinaldo Quijada. We intended to have room to discuss other possible applications, including some arising from this group of former ministers of President Chavez, or from any other source. It was also possible to agree on programmatic proposals and the formation of a government team discussed with the people. Because it is not presidentialism, the figure. It is about being able to assemble teams of fighters and fighters of the revolution to be able to say to the country: "There is a possibility here of the exercise of a revolutionary and popular governability."

With the Crisis, the old left shows its miseries.

We still do not have a decision about what we're going to do. In principle we are inclined to participate in the electoral processes. Deciding a presidential figure in these conditions is not the same as participating in the presidential election to gain local achievements to advance revolutionary work. The situation is different. But the options we have are: Maduro, those who are right and agree to participate, who are very few - a couple of candidates - or some applications that have appeared and that have the characteristic of being critical, or have broken for the left with the government by Nicolás Maduro. Among them was the one I mentioned, and General Francisco Visconti Osorio, who was a companion of Chávez on February 4, 1992, in the civic-military uprising, was also the commander of a second action that that same year, which was that of November 27. He identifies himself as Bolivarian, claims to be in favor of the Communal State and of a constituent process, despite having some proposals that from our point of view have an antiparty character - he distinguishes between parties and popular and social movements, we think they have of the existence of different forms of organization - and also considers that socialism and communism, Marxism, are Eurocentric expressions, and that Venezuela, as a mestizo country, should not adopt these guidelines. Despite making statements in defense of the shape of the communal state.

Well, as you see, there is much to review and discuss and we have relationships with both sectors. The other alternative would be abstention. There are some sectors of critical Chavism who are willing to make alliances with right-wing organizations because they say that it is necessary to form a strong opposition and get Maduro out anyway, but we do not think that is the alternative. There must be a broad framework, but that claims or values the achievements of the Bolivarian Revolution, and at the same time marks their very serious deformations.

Over time, a power elite emerged from the bureaucracy that was accumulating capital through corruption, through the embezzlement of the Nation, which became a kind of lumpen bourgeoisie. That is why in Venezuela what happens. Because there is a change in the class condition of what was the direction of the Bolivarian Revolution.

Some people call it a Bolibourgeoisie ...

Yes, they are bourgeois sectors that are linked to the government and were favored for their business, which financed the leaders, or the high officials...

At the same time, the economic situation continues to be catastrophic...

The economic situation is terrible because what has been applying the government of Nicolás Maduro is a deep and crude plan of adjustment. Measures of economic adjustment against the working class. They say they are against neoliberalism and all these things. But if you have a situation in which they take a worker's salary to a level of between 3 to 4 euros a month, anyone can imagine the meaning.


It's impossible to live...

The salary was crushed. The government says it's an economic war. It started a wild lock. There are some of these things; but more than economic war, what prevails is the logic of capital, the pursuit of profit. And in this, too, the bureaucracy that has embezzled the country, brought resources abroad, has money in tax havens because it has transacted with the transnationals and has taken advantage of this because it is opening the way to the entry of the transnationals and the emerging imperialisms in the country, for example in the Mining Arc. The state bureaucracy is involved in extractive smuggling, to withdraw products from the country, to use imports, even food, to benefit from the exchange differential with fraudulent, fictitious imports. Now there is a serious problem with the milk that is imported from Mexico into the boxes of the CLAP(2), it is said that it is affecting the children because it is an improper milk.

Gonzalo Gómez: "There are interests of the very same divided bourgeoisie" 

At the same time, they pay the debt and they sacrifice the people to pay for it. A revolutionary government would at least have to start by auditing it, and once done, say, "Well, this part of the debt is illegitimate and we do not recognize it." But they can not do this because they are involved in buying and negotiating debt bonds acquired in Bolivars but can be traded in dollars. The change is paid and received, as they say in Venezuela. That is, there are interests of the bureaucracy itself in debt. They are interested in being "good payers" of debt, but not because this is a moral quality.

Against this, it is evident that we can not support the government of Nicolás Maduro. We think that this government has to be replaced, but not by the right-wing opposition. We must build a political, revolutionary and popular alternative that will recover the keys of the Bolivarian Revolution, overcome its mistakes and deviations and move on. This is not an easy task.


Obviously we are also against any form of interference or foreign interference.

There was a lot of talk about that possibility. Is there a danger of a US intervention?

This danger should never be ruled out. And we believe that the politics of the bureaucracy of the party-state makes us more vulnerable to the possibility of intervention, because they break the alliance with the people, they allow the imperialist interests in concrete, in the economic life, through corruption...

We have the imperialist intervention, but it comes from China, Russia, and the trasnationals  that are being reintroduced into the Venezuelan economy. We are afraid of the damage that is being done to the Bolivarian Revolution. Then we have the potentiality of the intervention.

The Venezuelan Tragedy.

But I also think that imperialism plays with the stick and the carrot. It uses hard mechanisms, threats, but it also tries to obtain in the negotiation the possible concessions that the government of Nicolás Maduro, at a certain moment, can give.

We must reject this. There are sectors of the opposition that call for a foreign intervention. We say that aimed at not having a foreign intervention, or to make it more difficult and make the people combat this intervention, it is necessary to change the government policies and to make a transformation. These policies are the ones that are putting us to a great extent in this scenario of vulnerability and risk.

1. After this interview, the National Electoral Council postponed the elections for May 20.

2.  Local Committees of Supply and Production. System implanted by Nicolás Maduro in April of 2016 to sell food baskets at subsidized prices and to fight the shortage. Baskets are only sold to people registered with local committees and may include wheat or corn meal, pasta, oil, rice, sugar and milk.

Read the full interview in Portuguese, here: https://www.esquerda.net/artigo/venezuela-maduro-esta-desmontar-o-processo-revolucionario/53919

Read the full interview in Spanish, here: https://www.aporrea.org/venezuelaexterior/n322991.html

English Version: María Eugenia Acero Colomine (Venezuela)

http://fantasiasneurastenicas.blogspot.com

Twitter: @andesenfrungen

Emails: acerocolomine@gmail.com

aporreainternational@gmail.com