NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Cuba and Venezuela have been fighting for years to recover their democracy, and in order to understand why these governments are intertwined, 1010 WINS Noticias spoke to Juan Guaidó, who is today recognized as the interim president of Venezuela by more than 50 countries, among those being the United States.
It is important to highlight that Nicolás Maduro has the support of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces, which makes the democratic transition process much more complicated, which is why he is still in power.
"In the last 15 years there have been huge protests in Venezuela, like what we see in Cuba today and what we’ve seen in Nicaragua in 2018 or in other parts of the continent. In Venezuela we have demonstrated for 15 years, expressing in a very clear way an alternative for change in our country," Guaidó said.
As Guaidó says himself: "What mobilizes in Venezuela is the expectation of change," something that has not happened so far, at least not in a tangible way, which has generated some discontent within the population towards the opposition.
Despite the criticism, the interim government of Guaidó continues to fight with the tools they have. Among those is the proposal of a National Salvation Agreement. This strives to achieve a schedule of free elections with international observation and the access of humanitarian aid to the country. For this to be possible, a negotiation with the Maduro regime is necessary, something that the population does not see with good eyes.
"We do not rely on the good faith of a dictatorship, because they don’t have it, they are a dictatorship because of that. Because they don’t respect the constitution or fundamental rights such as respect for human rights,” said Guaidó
“It is important to exercise that right and to prepare ourselves even if they do not want to negotiate, so that we always have a solution to the conflict," he added.
Since Hugo Chávez assumed the presidency in 1999, the diplomatic relations between Cuba and Venezuela have been strengthened. It is no secret that Fidel Castro was a mentor for Chávez, which turned the South American country into a reflection of the island.
“We must make a clear call to the international community to identify things by their name. Dictatorship has ruled Cuba for decades, which has had a terrible impact in Latin America. We see the mirror in Venezuela, that is to say, we saw how Venezuela and Cuba became basically interdependent dictatorships," Guaidó stated.
Which is why these protests in Cuba have generated a lot of empathy among many Latin American people, especially Venezuela and Nicaragua. They have given the hope of seeing a free Cuba and a possible domino effect.
"I believe that democracy strengthens democracy," he said. "If Venezuela or Cuba return to being democratic countries soon, I think that will have a positive effect on the whole region."
For many people, there is no doubt that if something like this were to happen, it would be a very positive thing for the continent. The daily life of these countries submerged in socialism consists of standing in long lines at gas stations, supermarkets or simply looking from drugstore to drugstore for that medicine that is out of reach. All of these daily struggles leave the population distracted, without time to even think about exercising their right to protest.
"The objective of Maduro's dictatorship leaves us with no doubt that its purpose is to numb the Venezuelan society," Guaidó emphasized.
Cuba had not seen protests since the famous Maleconazo, which is why the recent events are being seen as an "awakening." But this is not the case in Venezuela, which in recent years has witnessed countless demonstrations against the dictatorship of the South American country.
By 2017 in Venezuela, the Supreme Court of Justice attributed to itself the functions of the National Assembly and extended powers to Nicolás Maduro. This was considered a "rupture of the constitutional thread," which originated a new wave of protests nationally and internationally.
"In 2017, the peaceful protests were brutally attacked by the dictatorship, leaving more than 150 killed by the regime. Mostly young people protesting, with even myself still having projectiles in my body from those 2017 protests,” Guaidó said.
“Now what I am sure of and can say with absolute certainty is that Venezuelan society will not get used to it and it will not numb itself," he added.
A day after the protests began in Cuba, officials close to the regime of Maduro broke into Guaidó's house. That same day, they took the opposition leader, Freddy Guevara, into custody, who took it upon himself to document the events through a livestream on his Instagram account.
"Nicolas Maduro, like any dictator, is afraid of mobilizations. I do believe that the fear of the protests in Cuba, which went viral and could possibly be replicated in countries of the region, generated fear in him. But I think it is a plan to disarticulate the democratic alternative, as they have always done. It is a systematic pattern of persecution of illegalization of political parties, torture, and intimidation which inhibits fear that protests or those who call for protests, in the case of Freddy Guevara of Voluntad Popular, or even myself," Guaidó said.
Last Wednesday, July 28, the Organization of American States (OAS) postponed an extraordinary session where the issue of Cuba was to be discussed and which was to be attended by the president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Antonia Urrejola, who was scheduled to present a report on the situation on the island after the protests that took place.
"It is not a good sign... it is harmful, it generates impunity and develops nuclei of dictatorship. There is something much worse, which is to romanticize a dictatorship. They did this with the Cuban dictatorship. I think it’s a very bad sign not to point out what the protest is in Cuba which is a terrible violation of fundamental rights,” Guaidó stated in response to the decision of the OAS.
The lack of guarantees and the political crisis in these countries has caused a lot of damage not only to their people but to neighboring countries. Such is the case of Colombia, which has received more than 1,825,000 Venezuelans, according to the latest data provided by Migración Colombia.
The number of Venezuelans in exile now reaches 5.4 million. This has unleashed a wave of xenophobia, which is unfortunate, since many of these migrants leave their homeland in search of a better quality of life for necessary things such as a decent health system.
"The Venezuelan dictatorship has directly and indirectly financed the Cuban dictatorship, even Daniel Ortega at the time, through oil, and fuel, to name a few. In return, the Cubans sent officials or intelligence agents and doctors, which today is classified as modern slavery. These actions are all in an effort to try to confuse the world, to generate propaganda. Today there is no real health system in Venezuela, much less in Cuba," Guaidó said.
Due to the censorship, Venezuelans do not know the real numbers of COVID cases, much less the death rate. They only know what they hear on the street, what they see on social media and what their eyes witness when they enter hospitals that lack basic supplies.
"The dictatorship hides all the data, not only COVID, but inflation as well as gross domestic product among others. They do this because they cannot reveal themselves for what they are, a terrible dictatorship that has caused the worst humanitarian catastrophe the world has ever seen in a country that is NOT at war. Venezuela's indicators are only compared to countries at war,” Guaidó said.
Since last year, Guaidó's interim government has been requesting the entry into Venezuela of the COVAX Mechanism, which is a global initiative led by the Gavi Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), World Health Organization and UNICEF, whose mission by 2021 is to ensure equitable access to vaccines for 20% of the population of participating countries worldwide.
“Today we have the highest death rate in the health sector. At a percentage level that cannot be confirmed, patients are dying due to lack of oxygen as well as not being attended in hospitals," Guaidó said. "We do not have a transparent or clear vaccination system, even though since last year we have been demanding the entry of the COVAX mechanism in Venezuela to prevent and to have a transparent vaccination system and not a system of improvisation, which is what the dictatorship has done."
“As we do not have clear figures, the best estimate is that 3% of the population are vaccinated at this moment and I say best estimate because it is not clear if it is with one or two doses," the president concluded.
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