The President of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro, receives at the Miraflores Palace delegates who have been meeting in Caracas since this Friday around the Expanded Working Group of the Sao Paulo Forum, with the aim of continuing to consolidate the strategic plan to advance together in realizing the sovereignty of our America.
The head of state, and president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), highlighted the unifying role of the Sao Paulo Forum and pointed out that this meeting space, which raised the voice of the continental left since the last decade of the 20th century, counts with a great advantage from his birth certificate. “that has never excluded any sector of the left, any progressive sector.”
He celebrated that the Sao Paulo Forum «has never started from exclusion, but from inclusion; of the invitation… union and diversity… is one of its great virtues», and that it is a meeting space for the resurgence of the left and progressivism« the new world, the human community », he said.
He added that the meeting space allows “convening everyone for a respectful, high-level, deep-level debate… to seek joint paths.”
He pointed out that there are always differences in political perspectives even if they start from the left and progressivism and invited to use these “differences and diversity to find meeting points for action.”
He narrated the role of the Sao Paulo Forum in the first decade of the 21st century «the emergence of Commander Hugo Chávez; of the victorious constituent process of Venezuela” and in the resistance to the attempt from the US to impose the commercial alliance called Alca, with which a new form of colonialism and dependence from the north was sought for the Latin Caribbean republics that took a different course with progressive governments.
He referred to the Caracazo that Venezuela experienced on February 27 and 28, 1989 “which was the break with the oligarchic domination of the fourth republic… the awakening of Venezuela in that year 1989 was inaugurated with blood; more than three thousand dead massacred in the streets,” he said, and then recalled the uprising of February 4, 1992 led by Commander Chávez and described it as miraculous and the genesis of the Bolivarian socialist model that is now passing through the country and that led to a successful constituent process, basis of the Revolution.
In Chile better moments will come
The PSUV leader pointed out that after the social outbreak of 1989 and the uprising of 1992 from which “Venezuela founded a new State… it was a revolutionary rupture… marked by the gigantic leadership of Commander Hugo Chávez and by the Bolivarian project,” he said and He explained that it was the transition from bourgeois democracy to “radical, socialist democracy under construction.”
Maduro stressed that from the revolutionary milestones “a leader emerged; a project… that became a constituent and then became a victorious founding Constitution of a new republic” while in Chile the uprising of the people did not find a leadership to advance in the constituent transformations necessary to leave behind the society inherited from the Augusto dictatorship Pinochet.
He repudiated the lack of leadership that frustrated, for now, the constituent project that began in Chile after the social outbreak between October 2019 and March 2020 under the government of Sebastián Piñera.
«Unfortunately I have to say it, with pain, for the people of Chile, the people of Allende, with pain for more than two thousand political prisoners; young people who are still behind bars »after being arrested during the demonstrations that paved the way for the presidency of current Chilean President Gabriel Boric, he noted.
He explained that this popular demonstration against the political system inherited from the dictatorship had “people, but there was no leadership, there was no project… and in the end the people ended up voting against themselves, against a rejected and repudiated government,” he said frankly.
Maduro celebrated that issues as critical as this “can be discussed at the Sao Pulo Forum… it is the setting to discuss these issues, learn from experiences; not make the same mistakes, refound the projects, resume the paths with respect and ideological and philosophical height, “he explained, and after receiving a copy of” The proposal of the Government of the Popular Unity of Salvador Allende; text of the original constituent project for Chile, he assured that for that South American nation “better moments will come… we have always believed in the ways of optimism.
Left in constant transformation
After proposing for the debate issues of the new economic reality facing the region, Maduro explained that in the Bolivarian Revolution “never, neither our beloved Commander Hugo Chávez, nor any of us have been governed by an immovable, dogmatic, statist, false ideology.” ».
«We believe in the construction of a new society, which must be socialism, a socialism for the 21st century; Libertarian, profoundly social, democratic… that overcomes neoliberal capitalism, dependent on the gringo empire that we have known for 100 years, we believe in an alternative model and we are building it”, he explained.
He highlighted how, from some sectors, they accuse the Bolivarian Revolution of being dictatorial for defending itself against the coup attacks to overthrow the Government.
«Maduro the dictator, I understand that Sebastián Piñera does it, that Bolsonaro accuses me, that fascism accuses us, but from the left, whoever tries to accuse us, will have to sit face to face with us to debate the truth of Venezuela, the truth of Latin America, our democratic truth… whoever wants, wherever, whatever, whatever their name is, wherever they are, whatever position they have,” he said and pointed out that cowardice is not a characteristic for which the Revolution is singled out Bolivarian.
A new geopolitical age for Latin America
The president stressed that Latin America is “without a doubt; At this moment, before a new scenario that is very favorable for the forces of change, the progressive forces».
He said that “the electoral victories of President Gustavo Petro in Colombia, and of President Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva (in Brazil), open up a new geopolitical age for Latin America and a great opportunity to build our new independence, new democracies… to finish the neoliberal model and give our peoples the right to education, health, work, life, and food,” he said.
He pointed out how Lula proposes at the 27th United Nations Conference on Climate Change in 2022 (Cop27) he proposes an urgent summit of the Amazonian countries to face climate change “we tell Lula… we disagree… it is a great point of the progressive agenda, climate change… we are suffering from it,” he explained, and referred to the destruction and tragedy suffered by the peoples of the south.
He asked for a new agenda “for a new stage… it’s up to you to define it, that’s what the Sao Paulo forum is for,” he said.
He valued as admirable “the powerful, courageous, sincere and very creative leadership of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, of Mexico… is shocking, impressive,” he said and highlighted his courageous attitude to defend the right to participation of all, including Cuba and Venezuela against the Summit of the Americas that took place in his country and also highlighted the role of President Xiomara Castro, of Honduras, for the new geopolitical era that has begun in the region and that the forum should discuss.
Agenda for the new stage
Maduro stressed that the new stage that Latin America and the Caribbean is experiencing, with the arrival of progressive and left-wing governments, although heterogeneous, is very positive for the peoples and pointed out the need to propose the new agenda from the Sao Paulo Forum.
“We have to put an end to the disgraceful systems of persecution, blockade… against Cuba, Nicaragua” and against Venezuela, Maduro pointed out as a fundamental point to discuss.
He repudiated how from movements identified with the left “they try to justify the attack against Nicaragua and try to normalize it… as they try to normalize the attack against Venezuela,” he snapped.
He indicated how unfortunate that from Chile “in which they say, as (the former Chilean extreme-right president Sebastián) Piñera said before, someone with a left-wing voice says it now,” referring to Boric.
He also pointed out the unfortunate role played by some writers “some pen” on the left in trying to normalize the attack against Cuba, repeating the narrative from Washington. «Well, those are practices that we already know; since his entire life… since the 1960s”, he explained, and asked “where are those who lent their pen and their voice from the left to attack revolutionary Cuba?” and he answered “they dried up, forgotten in the garbage dump of history.”
At the beginning of the meeting, the president thanked Mónica Valente, Executive Secretary of the Sao Paulo Forum and representative of the Workers’ Party (PT) of Brazil, as well as the rest of the meeting delegates and visitors from Europe and Asia. for accepting the invitation to Miraflores and through the PT leader he congratulated Brazil and Lula Da Silva for the electoral victory over the extreme right of the Jair Bolsonaro government.
Adán Chávez, vice president of International Affairs of the PSUV informed the head of state that participants continue to join the meeting of the continental left and detailed that this Saturday 5 work tables will be set up to “discuss the political situation in Latin America and the Caribbean, the economic situation” of the region and that such debates will give the final declaration that will be presented at the end of Saturday in the Plenary session.
