Ledezma warns of worsening situation in Venezuela
There is an imminent risk of imprisonment for María Corina Machado and the virtual winner of the Venezuelan elections, Edmundo González Urrutia, warned Antonio Ledezma, spokesman and leader of the Venezuelan opposition, in exile in Spain.
Settled in Madrid, since he managed in 2017 to escape from house arrest in Venezuela on the orders of dictator Nicolás Maduro in his persecution of opposition voices, Ledezma has dedicated himself to denouncing the outrages committed by Maduro in terms of civil liberties, human rights and forced disappearances of people opposed to the regime. "Venezuela is not on the brink of the abyss, but in the abyss".
Following the presidential elections in Venezuela held on Sunday 28 July, the former mayor of Caracas has been in the spotlight of the media in Spain, who want to know the first-hand opinion of a politician who has known and experienced the persecution of the regime.
The official election results show that Maduro has won the elections, while the opposition bloc, backed by millions of Venezuelans in the streets, denounce state fraud.
"I have said, as the political leader, son of Commander Hugo Chávez, that the alliance of the Great Patriotic Pole and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela are ready to present 100 per cent of the results," said a threatening Maduro in the face of international pressure.
In Madrid, the opposition in exile has been going back and forth, looking for ways to coordinate and continue supporting the former deputy of the Venezuelan National Assembly María Corina Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia, the virtual winner of the elections with more than 4 million votes, according to the opposition platform itself, which denounces the regime. They are well aware that these are very delicate times and fear a bloodbath or that the lives and freedom of both Corina Machado and González Urrutia are at risk.
On Sunday 28 July, election day, 24,770 Venezuelans out of a total of 400,000 Venezuelans living in Spain were able to vote at the 46 polling stations set up; an exodus that, year after year, is growing as thousands flee their country in the face of the impossibility of a change that would allow them to progress and live in a democracy. In the first quarter of this year alone, 22,600 Venezuelan migrants have entered Spain.
In an interview with Ledezma this week, the Venezuelan politician described Maduro as a typical bizarre dictator: "He is so boastful, so aggressive and inhuman, that we can say that he is Uganda's Idi Amin, but in Venezuela".
The 69-year-old politician, international coordinator of "Con Venezuela", also denounces the fact that Maduro is committing a massacre against the civilian population in Venezuela.
"He had already announced it because he was preparing this scandalous fraud and he will not be able to hide it because all the verified results indicate that the advantage of Edmundo González Urrutia, the president-elect of Venezuela, is immense; an advantage already close to 4 million votes. And to demonstrate this advantage, María Corina Machado has made available to the whole world the real results that confirm that Maduro is carrying out a sovereign fraud", she says, outraged by what is happening in her country.
The National Electoral Council in its pro-government way is giving victory to the dictator Maduro, what actions will civil society take?
There are millions of Venezuelans who are still in the streets; the same Venezuelans who accompanied María Corina and Edmundo González Urrutia in the final stretch of this campaign are the same Venezuelans who mobilised massively last Sunday to vote for the formula for change that Edmundo represents; and they are the same Venezuelans who are taking to the streets in order to exercise their legitimate right to claim the victory that Maduro wants to disown.
In this regard, Ledezma makes an international appeal: "We expect a militant, timely and efficient solidarity from the international community; what Maduro is doing is an act of terrorism, killing people, kidnapping human beings, and in the face of this we believe that there must be a more forceful reaction from the international community".
If not by voting, how are they going to get rid of Maduro's dictatorship?
Undoubtedly, by fighting, there is no alternative but to fight bravely and persistently as the people of Venezuela have done; we see a combination of citizens with leadership because there is a strategy and we have followed the route that the international community itself has set out for us. When one spoke to leaders anywhere in the world, whether in Mexico, Canada, the United States, Spain or Argentina, they all told us not to leave the electoral route... look for a solution and participate in the elections.
Undoubtedly, says Ledezma, Venezuelans did so knowing that they were moving in a minefield with fraudulent explosives; Corina Machado's advisor recalls: "María Corina had to overcome the disqualification of which she was a victim and with Edmundo González Urrutia we saw a candidate with a great sense of responsibility and unitary leadership always seeking the path of free elections".
In the opinion of the also ex-governor of the former Federal District, one cannot be more permissive with a dictator like Maduro, who is capable of ordering the killing of as many people as he wants; Ledezma also points out that it is time for a very firm decision by the international community, which must know that the life, freedom and democracy of a people who are being persecuted by Maduro are at risk.
Are there risks of civil war in Venezuela?
For there to be a civil war there has to be two armed groups and, for our part, our weapon of struggle is the vote... It is our instrument that is visible to the whole world.
"But Maduro has wanted to point the finger at María Corina Machado for leading a military coup and that is not the case, for that you would have to have cannons and tanks of war. At all times María Corina is displaying flags, while Edmundo speaks in a calm and measured tone calling for peace and civic struggle of all citizens", he remarked.
After the elections on Sunday 28 July, several foreign ministers from Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay said in a statement that they were following events in Venezuela "closely" and called for respect for the will of the voters.
Maduro cares little about these pressures given that he has Iran, Russia, China and North Korea on his side, how do you see it?
Well, he has made a diabolical alliance. If the tyrant in North Korea violates freedom of expression or kills people they go in blind... they defend each other, they are one and the same; one and the same constellation of dictators.
Just look at what Ortega is doing in Nicaragua or the Castros and their heirs in Cuba. All these tyrants are killing and emasculating human rights and in the face of this group that represents the axis of evil there has to be a forceful response from the free world, from the world that defends democratic values. It is not a problem of left or right, it is a problem of safeguarding the human rights of a people.
And to think that there are young people who were born while Chávez was taking over Venezuela and, twenty-five years later, the so-called Generation Z is still trapped in the clutches of Maduro's dictatorship...
This began in 1992, when Hugo Chávez attempted two failed military coups: one on 4 February and the other on 17 November of that year. And, since then, the country has been shaken... without stability... then came the assault on power by Chávez and the mistake was made of opening the way for an authoritarian man who did not respect the line of the Constitution, nor the line of the Republic, and who has ended up plunging our country and our people into this dreadful abyss of obscurantism.
That is why these young people, Ledezma continues, continue to fight: "This generation you are referring to are the young people who are currently being kidnapped by the police groups that serve the dictatorship. They grab them without any kind of consideration, without any contemplation, and take them away".
Ledezma reiterates that this Generation Z is fighting for a democracy that it has never known: "As did the boys who were killed in 2017 when they took to the streets shouting Freedom! and Maduro responded with lead. Young people who had the illusion of putting an end to this tyranny that continues to usurp public powers died there".
The two-time deputy of the now defunct Venezuelan National Congress and also senator in 1994 remarked that the struggle of Venezuelans is very dignified and very patriotic: "Women take to the streets and risk their lives in the protests because they know that it is more painful to continue to allow their children to be away from home and perhaps not return".
