Buenos AiresIt is not the first time that Chavismo has annulled its political rival in Venezuela. On Friday, Nicolás Maduro took office as president to begin his third term, in an event with members of his cabinet, high-ranking military leaders and the various powers of the State, in addition to representatives from different countries. From Latin America and the Caribbean there were the presidents of Cuba and Nicaragua, as well as the foreign minister of Bolivia, and envoys from Honduras, Dominica and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Colombia, Brazil and Mexico, which have maintained ambiguous positions since the elections of July 28, sent their ambassadors to Caracas. Days earlier, the president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, withdrew his: he is the only left-wing Latin American president who has broken away from the trend of his counterparts Petro, Lula and Sheinbaum. Also there were the Prime Minister of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Brahim Gali, as well as representatives of China, India and Iran. Russia sent the president of the Duma – the parliament -, Vyacheslav Volodin, on behalf of Vladimir Putin.
International support for Maduro is not scarce, but diplomacy, as has become clear since the day after the elections, really has limited power. The opposition counts on it and takes it, but what the rest of the countries can or cannot really do for Venezuela, from the outside, is little. Throughout this week, former presidents of Latin America assured that they would accompany Edmundo González Urrutia in his entry into the country, suggesting that they would act as a kind of cuirass in the face of the arrest warrant issued by Maduro, who offered $100,000 for any information about Urrutia, accused of crimes of terrorism and treason. At the same time, Maduro militarized the borders and, hours before taking office, closed the borders with neighboring Colombia and Brazil, to avoid, he said, an “international conspiracy”. Thus, Venezuela was perfectly shielded to guarantee that Maduro could swear not only the new mandate but the commitment to “fight against the global ultra-right”.
Inside the gates, the hope of opposition supporters dwindles with each passing hour. “We knew what was going to happen,” says Johan from Caracas to the newspaper ARA: “People are discouraged.” Mauro regrets that “it’s always the same”, and that “it’s not the first time they’ve done it”, and he remembers 2019 and Juan Guaidó. Dani, who in July had great expectations of change, has now taken advantage of Saturday to go to the beach: “On Monday the country will start, and nothing else will happen”. It is noteworthy that there is no demonstration called: “It is not like the days after the elections”, he points out, in which there were constant mobilizations by the opposition, which ended with hundreds of people arrested . “People don’t go out because they are afraid of repression -justifies María Elena, who does have hope left-. I’m still waiting for the breakup of the armed forces. It is impossible for them to do nothing; they themselves witnessed the election results”. For her, no democratic government in the world should maintain relations with Venezuela “under these circumstances”.
International Anti-Fascist Festival
Meanwhile, also in Caracas, the International Anti-Fascist Festival has been held since Thursday, a congress attended by some 2,000 guests from more than 100 countries, with the aim of debating ideas and proposing actions to confront fascism and the extreme right in the world Talks, work tables and debates are organized at the meeting on feminism, multipolarity, trade unionism, extractivism and the struggle of the original peoples. “The Venezuelan people continue to write history against fascism, against colonialism, against imperialism,” said Vice President Delcy Rodríguez at the opening ceremony, who urged those present to “weave the networks that this era needs, in which fascism aims to take over humanity and our planet”.
Little is known about the next steps the opposition will take. On Friday night, Edmundo González Urrutia published a video on his social networks in which he assured that he was “prepared to enter safely and at the right time”, while he again asked the military, as commander in chief, to disobey the Chavista government. “I will make valid the votes that represent the recovery of our democracy”, he said. María Corina Machado is still in Venezuela, in hiding, and in her last recorded message she again appealed to the international community: she thanked the support of “Venezuela’s democratic allies”, whom she urged to “tighten the pressure even more for make Maduro understand that this is over”.
Source: www.ara.cat
