The President of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro, quietly left last Saturday for the distant lands of Egypt to participate in the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP-27) and perhaps for this reason, from that moment on he generated much speculation and expectations in the large media outlets that regularly publish information against the image and management as president, especially given the possibility of running into counterparts whose countries ignored his legitimacy in 2019, due to the “self-proclamation” of Juan Guaidó.
Since his arrival in the African nation, Maduro began to generate news with his first statements: “Venezuela brings a firm position to accelerate the steps for the fulfillment of the agreements that have already been signed in the past and the processes so that the capitalist model destructive is replaced by a human model,” he told Venezolana de Televisión.
The first major media coup was delivered by Maduro on Monday, November 7, when he had a brief meeting with the President of France, Emmanuel Macron.
This event was echoed by most of the international media that were giving coverage to the event, including those that have traditionally developed an information campaign to affect the image of the Venezuelan Government, taking into account that precisely France, along with 19 other nations that are part of the European Union, considered that the then president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, was president in charge of Venezuela for the organization of democratic elections.
El País, a newspaper with a well-known right-wing trend in Spain, described part of the meeting between the two presidents as follows: “The meeting, brief and cordial, took place at COP 27, which is being held these days in the desert city of Sharm el Sheikh. The interpreter of the Venezuelan made a bridge between the two. Maduro asked her when she was visiting Venezuela, to which she did not answer, and then pointed out that they had friends in common.
The French president referred to the advance of the left in Latin America, with the recent victories of Petro in Colombia and Lula da Silva in Brazil. He noted that the continent “is putting itself back together.”
On the historic moment, the French media outlet France 24 published in this way in its headlines on the television channel: “We open a Press Review commenting on the meeting that took place in the corridors of COP27 between Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron. A symbolic conversation, since the French president recognized the opposition Juan Guaidó as president in charge in 2019, breaking relations with Maduro. This is one more step in the diplomatic opening of the nation, which on Monday also resumed commercial flights with Colombia after almost three years.”
“I will be delighted that we can talk longer, that we can undertake useful bilateral work for the region,” was Macron’s phrase bounced by the world’s media, after Maduro’s exhortation.
But the Venezuelan president was not only in the news for his “shakes” of hands with leaders and personalities, but also for his proposals on strategies that must be applied to live in a healthier environment.
The newspaper El Tiempo de Colombia, another of the traditional media outlets linked to the right and the Colombian oligarchy, gave extensive coverage to his statements to the press during the climatic event.
“The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, told journalists present at the COP27 climate summit, which is being held in Egypt, that it was the duty of the South American countries to assume the responsibility of protecting the Amazon biome. According to Maduro, the harmful practices that have resulted in the destruction and deforestation of the Amazon rainforest come from capitalism. This, after Gustavo Petro insisted on the harmful effects of the exploitation of hydrocarbons and the energy mining sector on the environment.
He added that it is the right time to resume agreements such as the Amazon Treaty, which brings together all the nations that have a border and access to the tropical forest.
In addition, he described Petro’s speech as one of the most intelligent and with the greatest proactive capacity that he has heard at the summit. It’s up to South America to save the Amazon jungle and we’re on time, he said.”
Meeting with Joe Kerry. Another key moment experienced by Maduro in Egypt was the brief meeting with John Kerry, the United States’ special envoy to the summit.
The website of the news agency specialized in economics Bloomberg, reviewed part of the meeting in this way: “Although it was not a planned meeting, it is the first time that Maduro, whom the United States does not recognize as the legitimate president of Venezuela, has a meeting public with a high-ranking American official.”
Greetings to Portugal. It is worth noting that Portugal was one of the European nations that endorsed in 2019 the rejection of Nicolás Maduro as legitimate president; however, the head of state appealed to the historical links between the two peoples and met with the Iberian prime minister, António Costa.
CNN Portugal picked up the moment and issued this report: “The Prime Minister of Portugal, António Costa, met this Tuesday with Nicolás Maduro at COP27, the Climate Summit that takes place in Egypt. ‘How is Portugal?’ asks Maduro. ‘Go ahead’, the Portuguese replies, explaining that the scenario is ‘balanced’, but ‘it is not easy, with inflation and the price of oil and gas. Everything is a problem, but we are going little by little, managing things’, says the prime minister”.
The Voice of America, the official media outlet of the US government, confirms the resurgence of the image of the Venezuelan president in the international arena, reflected in this partially transcribed analysis: “In this regard, consulted by the Voice of America, the economist and consultant politician Miguel Velarde considers that the position with Venezuela has changed and that the interim is implicitly no longer recognized, a situation that, he says, is not surprising because even the US has begun to find a way to change its position.
