Special program on the eve of Nicolas Maduro's inauguration on January 10, 2010
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome to our special programme Venezuela Decides 2025 on the eve of the
00:16swirling in ceremony of President Nicolás Maduro. I'm your host Alejandra García and I invite you
00:21to stay with us for all the details on this event of great significance not just for Venezuela but
00:25also for Latin America and the global south.
00:55So
01:25so the people of Venezuela gathered on Thursday for the great march for peace and joy in support
01:40of the swirling in of President Nicolás Maduro. The route included several points and started from
01:46the great wall of Petare passing by the Francisco de Miranda Avenue, the Miranda Park, the Ministry
01:52of Housing and Environment, the Lido Center and José Martí Square. The great anti-imperialist march,
01:58the great patriotic march against fascism and for peace and the great caravan of motorcyclists in
02:04favor of peace also took place in several states of the country such as Bolívar, Monagas, Sucre
02:10and Zulia. The demonstrations showcased the support of the people for the democratically
02:16elected president. On Friday re-elected President Nicolás Maduro will be sworn in for a new
02:26six-year mandate, a ceremony which will be attended by delegations from over 100 countries
02:32confirming that Venezuela's institutionality is respected worldwide despite the numerous
02:36misinformation campaigns and destabilization attempts the nation has been the target of
02:41in the past month. Before we begin our debate let's recall how we arrive here today by the will
02:47of the Venezuelan people. After a negotiation process with the opposition through the so-called
02:54Barbados agreement, the parts agreed on setting July 28th as the date for the presidential
02:59elections in which main candidates Nicolás Maduro Moros and Edmundo González Urrutia
03:03will face each other. Following a peaceful voting day, the National Electoral Council of Venezuela
03:09announced Nicolás Maduro as the winner with 51.20% of votes. The extreme right-wing opposition
03:18which had been preparing the ground beforehand to disregard a potential electoral loss
03:23claimed fraud and incited violent actions within the territory.
03:28After a process of contentious appeal filed by the executive power before the Supreme Court
03:34and amidst massive cyber attacks against the electoral system, the court certified the
03:38election results and announced Nicolás Maduro as the candidate to start a new term of office
03:43on January 10, 2025.
03:50The political process in Venezuela has become one of international concern. The eyes of the
03:55world are upon the country while it fights back one of the most brutal misinformation campaigns
04:00in recent history. To go deep into the relevance of these days I'm not alone. I'm joined by Chris
04:06Gilbert, professor of studies of science of the Bolivarian University of Venezuela. Welcome,
04:13thank you very much for joining us today. Happy to be here. Thank you. So professor, what is at stake
04:20today? What is the relevance of these days and also what are the reasons for this huge
04:26international attention to Venezuela? Well I think you're right there's a lot at stake. First,
04:32that's important to point out. And there is a lot of attention I think with both good and bad
04:36intentions. On the one hand, starting with the bad, a lot of people look at Venezuela and they
04:44or you should say certain nations in the world, especially the United States and Europe and
04:49perhaps Japan, look at Venezuela and they hope to see the process ended. I think that often people
04:55point to the petroleum reserves. It's true that Venezuela has huge petroleum reserves, the largest
05:01in the world, and of course that's one of their objectives. They would like to take control of
05:04those things. But I think the most important thing that the people in the global north or
05:09countries in the global north, governments in the global north don't like, is that this is a country
05:12that's declared itself sovereign, has produced an independent project, is pursuing socialism.
05:19And I think it's important actually to maintain that idea in our heads because
05:25that's a hugely important achievement. I think that Venezuela 200 years ago led a process of
05:32continental independence. And approximately 20 years ago it began a process, something we could
05:37call the second independence of the continent. And those are hugely important things, a kind of
05:43rebellion against imperialism, against an unequal global order. And I think that's one reason that
05:51certain countries in the global north do not want to see this project continue. But at the same time
05:56there are also good intentions of people who look to Venezuela, people who want to see the
06:00continuity of the process, people who understand the importance of having sovereignty, of confronting
06:06imperialism, and going forward with a socialist humanist project. I think those are the good
06:12intentions and the reason there's also positive eyes turning towards Venezuela.
06:18Precisely. And in this context, after virtually like silence for several months,
06:27the far right has suddenly reopened its campaign against the swinging ceremony of President
06:34Nicolás Maduro. They are also calling for demonstrations on the streets of the country,
06:40throughout the country. They are calling for violent demonstrations. And as this is taking
06:45place, also foreign media and foreign powers are multiplying and spreading fake news towards
06:52this process. They are mentioning that the main representative of the far right of the country,
07:00María Corina Machado, is being held in prison, even when she really denied these allegations. So
07:09what do you think about this strategy of the far right? And also, speaking about fake news,
07:15what's the role that the media is playing in these days? For sure. I mean, I think when you
07:20look at the attacks that come from the global north, or parts of the global north against
07:25Venezuela, it's not only mediatic. Mediatic is an important part of it. But there's also,
07:29as you're pointing out, I mean, they always pursue the non-democratic, the violent, direct methods of
07:36taking, of toppling a government they don't like. And so we've seen both of that for almost 20
07:42years. I mean, the first coup d'etat attempt here was in 2002. And there have been almost
07:50perpetual or ongoing attempts to take down the country by undemocratic means. So we've seen that
07:56in the past year. Of course, they went to elections in the summer. But you could see a lot of, I mean,
08:03the first highly undemocratic thing they pursued was, or clearly undemocratic thing they pursued,
08:10that's hugely significant, is the sanctions. I mean, the US put sanctions on this country,
08:14and Maria Cornelia herself asked for the sanctions. Meanwhile, she was also asking
08:18Israel to invade the country, another little detail. But that's a hugely anti-democratic,
08:24hugely destructive thing, almost an act of war. I mean, I was actually out of the country
08:29for almost two years between 2018 and 2020. And when I came back in 2020, I was astounded by the
08:35condition, the destruction that sanctions had wreaked on the country. And I think that is
08:41really an act of war, outright cruelty. So that is something that is an immediate direct attempt
08:48by anti-democratic means to intervene in a country, very similar to when the United States
08:52started the Contra War against the Sandinistas. Essentially a way of twisting the arm of the
08:57people and saying, look, you want to suffer, or you accept what we want. So that's a clearly
09:03anti-democratic thing. And then immediately after Maduro won the elections on the 29th,
09:07they went to the streets. But it wasn't what appeared to me, because, I mean,
09:12I was witness to this. I saw young people go to the streets. But in that day, they only lasted
09:18one day. I assume they were paid to work for one day. And then they retreated from the streets.
09:24So you can see how these unwillingness to accept democratic results and the quickness with which
09:31they resort to violence around democratic means to achieve what they can't do through
09:36democratic means. Precisely. Looks like Venezuela has no right to defend itself in the face of an
09:43attempt of coup d'etat. And it's like the president has no right to defend himself and defend the
09:52country. Yeah, I think one thing that's very important is the question of institutions. I mean,
09:56I think that when you look at a country, a process, a revolution, it's important. Many
10:02people, I think well-meaning people around the world express solidarity with the Venezuelan
10:06people. And many people understand the importance of a process of emancipation. But they should also
10:12understand that this process of emancipation is capable of developing projects, and it has
10:17institutions. It's developed institutions, and it's developed leadership. In fact, leadership is
10:21one of the most cherished things in this revolutionary process. Obviously, the leadership
10:26of Chavez, which was a globally important phenomenon, is one of those constructions.
10:31But also Maduro's leadership is extremely important. So the continuity of that leadership
10:36is one of the things that we defend. At the same time, of course, it's also what they wish to not
10:41see. They wish to break that continuity. So all kinds of means. Like some people will try to break
10:46the continuity between Chavez and Maduro, or they simply wish that Maduro would not continue,
10:53though they don't seem to be able to achieve that through democratic means.
10:56Let's start back from what the foreign medias are saying about the country, and actually
11:02talk about what really happened here in the country today. What is your perception of the
11:06demonstrations that took place today? That was not only the opposition demonstrations, but also
11:11a great support and demonstrations in favor and in support of President Nicolás Maduro's
11:16swearing-in ceremony. Sure. I mean, the overall impression of the city, Caracas, is quietness,
11:24tranquility. And then, you know, I read The Guardian every day, unfortunately, because it's a
11:30free online English-speaking newspaper. And I woke up to the word dictatorship. They put the word
11:37dictatorship in the article about Venezuela. Curiously, the article did not mention any such
11:42thing. I'm sure the last-minute order from above, some editor said they had to put the word
11:46dictatorship in the headline. And that's just totally out of place. And of course, the reality
11:52that they describe is likewise totally not the reality here. It's actually, I've never seen the
11:57city so quiet. I mean, this is post-Christmas. In Venezuela, Christmas is an extremely important
12:02holiday. And post-Christmas is always somewhat lethargic. And so the city is very quiet. And
12:08there were marches. The opposition march was notably small. And the Chavista march was
12:15impressively big and enthusiastic. Thank you. At this moment, we are going to see some live images
12:23of the streets of Caracas at this hour to see how the streets are and how the city is
12:30doing at this hour. Let's see. As we can see, we are at this moment presenting some live footage of
12:40the main avenues of Caracas. We can see there is peace, there is calm, tranquility, and silence
12:49after a long day of demonstrations in favor of the government of President Nicolás Maduro and also
12:58demonstrations by the opposition. We can see, in contrast with what the foreign media are saying,
13:07the country is at peace. There's no violence at this hour. And this is what the city looks like.
13:16So at this moment, we're going to take a short break. But don't go away. We'll be right back.
13:28Welcome back to Venezuela Decides 2025. Professor, let's move on with our debate. Today, farmers,
13:47indigenous peoples, working class, motorcycle drivers, the base of the society took to the
13:54streets in support of President Nicolás Maduro. And this is not accidental. While the mainstream
14:00media were unleashing this campaign of discredit and misinformation towards Venezuela, Venezuela
14:06was focusing on strengthening the bases and also on projecting the communes in the center of the
14:14country's political decisions. And I wanted to recall some facts. In 2024, Venezuela built
14:22five million households, conducted several national popular consultations to select
14:29state-funded projects, approved the allocation of 70% of the national budget to communes and
14:35communal councils. Additionally, over 15,000 justices of peace were elected throughout the
14:41country. In one of your latest articles, you mentioned the following idea. Democracy we defend
14:47is better understood as people's power. What does that mean in this context and all
14:53of this being done by the country? That's a huge question. People's power is actually the
15:00best definition of democracy. In fact, if you take the word democracy, demos would be people
15:05and crassia would be power. So it's actually democracy literally should be understood as
15:10people's power. And without delving into the whole history of democracy, I think one important thing
15:15to realize is that in the history, the real meaning of democracy should be people power,
15:20but especially people, as the word in Spanish, pueblo, people is the working people. It should
15:26be a power of the working people. And unfortunately, in the West, that idea has been lost,
15:32actually erased. The United States had a big role in that. Approximately 200 years ago,
15:37they began to understand that they can manipulate the concept of democracy to exclude people,
15:42especially working class people from democracy. So recovering democracy, real democracy, popular
15:48power, has been actually one of the big achievements, ongoing projects of the Bolivarian
15:53process. Actually, from before Hugo Chavez took power, the notion of participative democracy
16:00entered in his work in the 1990s, especially the Blue Book, if people know the Blue Book.
16:08And that's been an ongoing development. There's been a search for new ways of empowering people
16:12in this country. An important step was the development of community councils. That began
16:18around 2004. Actually, Marta Harnaker, the great Chilean intellectual who was advisor of Chavez,
16:23I think had an important role in that. And then the communes is the latest development of that.
16:28I think anyone who knows about the communal project here, and many people have written about
16:32it, and I've written a book called Commune or Nothing that came out last year about the
16:36communes here, knows how it's something of really world importance. And actually, that's one of the
16:41reasons people look to Venezuela, because they're interested in this communal project.
16:46I think one way that communes are a richly democratic space is that it brings democracy
16:52to quotidian affairs. Democracy is not, as it is in the United States, choosing one of two very
16:58bad people to rule you over the next four years, to commit genocide against Palestinians, for
17:04example. Both of them will be enthusiastic about it. Professor, actually, at this moment,
17:10Minister of Interior, Diosdado Cabello, is offering a statement, so we are going to go live
17:14to listen to what he's saying at this moment.
17:40Identify with that.
18:10They didn't do anything, no.
18:25My purse was stolen. When you listen to those staffs, my purse was stolen. You say,
18:51when you listen to those staffs, my purse was stolen. You say, when you listen to those staffs,
19:00my purse was stolen. You say, when you listen to those staffs, my purse was stolen. You say,
19:09We
19:37were listening to statements of the Minister of Interior, Diosal Cabello, in the framework
19:42of the eve of the swinging ceremony of President Nicolás Maduro, and to keep debating with
19:48you, Professor, we were speaking about the importance of the communes to strengthen the
19:54bases, or how it has been, or has become, one of the most prioritized sectors for the
20:03government.
20:04Sure.
20:05Recently it was announced that $600 million would be allocated to communes through process
20:09of consultation.
20:10You know, one thing, I was berating democracy of the global north before we finished, and
20:15I was saying that every four years, depending on the country, you get to choose some evil
20:19person to rule your country for the next four years, and you actually have no, you almost
20:24have, your democracy is really reduced to that.
20:26Jean-Jacques Rousseau famously said that people, that, he said English people had a chance
20:31to exercise their democratic power 15 minutes every few years, and they did it badly.
20:35And that's pretty much the state right now.
20:37But another thing about what people call democracy in the global north that is very easy to understand
20:43is that even if there were a democratic election in the global north, what's never democratic
20:48is workplaces.
20:50Workplaces are always dictatorial.
20:51In other words, people, workplaces are always top down.
20:56Everyone accepts that.
20:57Everyone accepts that your work, you'll be controlled by a boss, and he or she will tell
21:01you what to do, and you have to do that, and they're extremely hierarchical.
21:07So one thing that communes offer in this country, not only a participant of democracy that enters
21:12in a quotidian life, people can solve their problems, as happens through these consultation
21:17processes, but also the possibility of democratic workplaces.
21:22Communes are both units of government, but they're also units of production.
21:26So there's an effort to develop democratic workplaces.
21:30So the project is extremely ambitious.
21:32Essentially, the idea is creating a new democratic, I call it metabolism, that can be extended
21:37to the whole society.
21:39So I think that's actually kind of like a world historical development.
21:44And of course, people here are enthusiastic about it.
21:46Of course, people in the world are enthusiastic about it.
21:49There are proofs that this political campaign against Venezuela has been financed from abroad
21:57and also well articulated from abroad.
22:00And in 2024 alone, for example, the U.S. approved the allocation of 50 million U.S. dollars
22:07to the Economic Support Fund to finance what it calls democracy programs in Venezuela.
22:13Why do you think that Venezuela is so important for them?
22:17Do you believe that perhaps it's Venezuela's determination to build a society, the socialism
22:24of the 21st century, and that's why they can bear this project to move on and to evolve?
22:34That's absolutely correct.
22:36From day one, they've been unwilling to accept, not even socialism, they're not in favor of
22:40sovereignty, but of course, socialism represents a much more important challenge to the existing
22:45order of things.
22:46I mean, if you want to see, if you want a graphic illustration of how the United States
22:51against other countries in this continent, especially those in the south of this continent,
22:56having their sovereignty, just look at the way Trump has been speaking in the past few
22:59days.
23:00He seems to be in the most extreme form of, I call it Anschluss, to refer to, you know,
23:04Hitler, when he took power, joined Germany and Austria, it was called the Anschluss,
23:08the coming together.
23:10And so the latest edition of a fascist leader is also looking to unify Canada and the United
23:18States and incorporate Greenland and possibly Panama, and what else?
23:23So obviously, it's been a longstanding project of the United States to deny sovereignty to
23:28other countries in this sphere, Cuba being an extremely graphic example of the United
23:35States unwilling to accept a sovereign project.
23:39So of course, they shell out money to destabilize the country.
23:44You know, USAID has been, was notorious from when it was here for giving money to the opposition,
23:50which interestingly, they tend to spend very badly.
23:52I remember Juan Guaido managed to frivol away a lot of the money in Cartagena, and so there
23:59was very little to carry out the coup d'etat.
24:01So that's actually kind of the, our daily bread here is the U.S. financing the opposition
24:08in an attempt to destabilize the country.
24:12Thank you very much, Professor, for joining us today, for analyzing with us these remarkable
24:16days that, as we mentioned at the beginning, that is not important just for Latin America,
24:21but also for the world.
24:22Thank you very much.
24:23Thank you very much.
24:24We were joined today by, with Chris Gilbert, who is a professor of political studies of
24:31the Bolivarian University of Venezuela.
24:33And like this, we end our Venezuela Decides 2025 special program.
24:39Thank you very much for joining us today.
24:41And before we end, please stay tuned, because we're going to be live with the declarations
24:47of the Minister of Interior, Diosdado Cabello, at this hour.
24:51Thank you very much.
24:52Probably that's the case, because she has to defend herself, if the purse doesn't appear,
25:06because Rick Scott says all this, then what do they want to do with Venezuela?
25:13Overthrow the Venezuelan revolution.
25:17They have always tried, and they have the objective of overthrowing the Venezuelan revolution,
25:24and they have used every mechanism they have used in other parts of the world, and they
25:28have failed here.
25:30I don't know why.
25:31I think it's due to the dignity of our people.
25:34I don't speak bad about other peoples, but I think it starts with the dignity of those
25:41who rule.
25:45When they decide, for example, when they mess with Panama, Rey de Riga, he was part of the CIA,
25:57and they overthrew them.
26:00And they threat Panama again by taking the kennel, and the president of Panama is hiding,
26:10in spite of answering with dignity in the face of the threat to his country, but that's other matter.
26:18Commander Chavez has a theory about this, and I want you to hear it.
26:28Let's continue with both hands, building the new historic bloc with one, building socialism,
26:41building the new political society that will be the socialist state, the socialist republic,
26:56and the new socialist state.
27:03We were listening to statements from the Minister of Interior, Diosal Cabello, in the framework
27:07of the eve of the swearing-in ceremony of President Nicolás Maduro, to be held on January 10th, tomorrow.
27:14Thank you very much, and stay tuned with From the South.