Versión Español
EspañolWhat happened on Tuesday in the National Assembly is tragic and regrettable. However, the courage shown by lawmaker María Corina Machado against the brutal attack of Diosdado Cabello and his acolytes is a clear sign that the regime knows it princiis hopelessly lost.
This is the consequence of the fear that weighs on their souls as they feel, for the first time during the last 15 years, the limits of their fraudulent permanence. They are well aware of the precipice they are heading towards.
These are difficult times for Venezuela, but it is necessary to plow through them in order to leave them behind. Now, more than ever, the work of the brave ones who decided to stay in the country to fight this nightmare, using as their weapon of the Constitution and the rights stipulated in it, need external allies who act as information multipliers. The weight of international public opinion is absolutely crucial.
It is important to note that the democratic regime that initially chose Hugo Chávez in a legal and formal fashion, has degenerated as time has passed — due to the nexus of a demagogic, populist, militarist, and authoritarian style — into a dictatorship.
Clearly, the current regime is all about the concentration of power in one person or group. It has co-opted all institutions that betrayed the constitutional mandate to control power on behalf of the citizenry, who are left to watch with perplexity how the government dedicates its efforts exclusively to prosecuting them when they exercise their right to protest. The situation has reached unimaginable extremes, with the government even justifying “the meaning” of torture when it is used for “obtaining information” (according to the public defender).
In other words, we are advancing towards a tyranny, as evidenced by the the way power is exercised in a cruel fashion with the denial of civil and political rights, all without political justification — not even de facto — exercising a fraudulently acquired title. This allows us to state without any doubt that democracy does not exist in Venezuela. Today there is a Dictatorship in Venezuela and we are heading towards a Tyranny exercised by a new social group: the “Chavista Bolibourgeoisie” (cronies of the “Bolivarian Revolution”).
It is important for dictatorships to comply with political and judicial formalities. These allow them to stay in power and project a false image of legitimacy, especially among social groups that are intellectually married with left-wing and humanist ideologies — those attached to orthodox principles that feed their revolutionary yearnings, and the romantic, unengaged international community. The weight of recent events, however, has reduced this group considerably.
In a dictatorship, one is condemned by acolyte and corrupt judges, personally appointed by the politicians in power and without any meritocratic process, who won’t properly weigh the evidence of each case. In a tyranny, one can be executed by firing squad or simply exterminated without prior notice. In a dictatorship, it is important for those in power to count on the support of “public institutions” who sell the idea that they fight for democracy. In a tyranny, those institutions don’t even exist, as the will of the tyrant, of the social group in power, is considered suffice.
This is why it is important to take the mask off the Venezuelan government, now exercising a castro-communist regime in the country, that pretends to sell itself internationally as a democracy. It is crucial to denounce the grave situation we are living regarding key institutions (the Supreme Court, public prosecutor, comptroller general, Ombudsman Office, etc.) that now operate at the service of the regime. This is a task that all of us Venezuelans living abroad, and who wish for a different future for our country and for the whole American continent, must carry through, as the Chavista model is imposing itself by the use of its petro-dollar checkbook in Argentina, Ecuador, and Bolivia, among others.
Today, more than ever, those of us who live abroad, who have had the luck and benefit of living in free societies due to our own efforts — societies where our talent and our dedication is recognized — those of us who have been forced to emigrate towards other cultures in order to develop our life projects in peace, must assume the challenge that we morally owe the Motherland that saw our birth. We must not allow those who, out of hate and resentment, created the conditions that forced us to leave our precious domains, to leave our history behind, our soil, and part of our soul. We left the land that holds the remains of our ancestors, the land where our origin lies.
It is the time to help and support those who opted for not allowing insanity and barbarism to take over our homeland, and creep all over the continent. Those who decided to stay and launch a democratic battle against this cruel, anti-history, and regressive regime. It is time to let the truth about what is going on in Venezuela be known, and not allow the promotion of a biased vision of the democratic efforts by numerous groups of civilians — pushing forward towards a solution for the terrible crisis that our country is going through.
This is a principled fight of a people with a decent and traditional vision of life, against a group of people who have allowed a criminal gang, supported by fraudulent institutions, to take over — and they are willing to go to the crudest extremes in order to secure their permanence in power. This is a fight to the death, between a group that has as its banner the ethical principles necessary to fulfill a life project within the rule of law and against those who fight to keep their government posts and their economic power.
The battles being carried out today in Venezuela are for reinstalling a liberal democracy, based on the rule of law and justice. Our contribution is today, more than ever, of crucial importance for democracy and liberty — not only in Venezuela, but in the whole world.
Justice for Democracy (Justicia para la Democracia)
