Four former ministers of former president Hugo Chávez, addressed the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva, to reject the statements in which he assured that authoritarianism in Venezuela is a “constructed narrative” and questioned that “it eludes, without any justification, the serious violation of human rights” in the country.
Rodrigo Cabezas, former Finance Minister during the Chávez government; Héctor Navarro, former Minister of Education; Ana Elisa Osorio, former Minister of the Environment, and Oly Millan, former Minister of Popular Economy, all militants of the “democratic and progressive left,” asked Lula and his government “to be consistent with a democratic solution” to the political, economic, and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela.
In the letter addressed to Lula, who maintained close relations with Chávez and his government, the former officials considered part of the so-called dissident Chavismo, denied that Maduro’s “authoritarian and, therefore, undemocratic drift” is a “constructed narrative.”
“It does not respond to any propaganda plan of those who oppose it, and most seriously, from a human perspective, it has left and continues to leave too many victims,” the letter states.
On Monday, during a joint press conference with Maduro, one day before the summit of south american presidents held in Brasilia, Lula Da Silva assured that a “narrative regarding authoritarianism and anti-democracy” has been built in Venezuela and urged to “deconstruct” the narrative.
The former ministers, who were close to former President Chávez, assured that the “Venezuelan autocracy” intends to “retain power no matter what, and at any cost”, turning their political project into “intolerant of those who think differently, eliminating the State of right founded on the separation of powers which it controls, especially the judicial and electoral ones”.
In the text, the former officials referred to violations of the Constitution, political prisoners, closures of the media, blocking of web pages, corruption cases revealed in recent weeks, the failures in public services and made special mention of the “anti-worker” contracts that have placed wages in Venezuelan territory among the “lowest in the world.”
In addition, they reminded Lula Da Silva of the “flagrant violations” of human rights in a generalized and systematic manner committed by the Venezuelan government and verified by the Independent International Fact-Finding Missioncreated by the UN Human Rights Council.
Lula’s comments generated rejection among various organizations defending fundamental rights inside and outside Venezuela and even by presidents from Uruguay and Chile, Luis Lacalle Pou and Gabriel Boric, respectively.
“We are glad that Venezuela returns to multilateral instances because we believe that in these spaces is where problems are resolved (…) that, however, cannot mean sweeping under the rug or turning a blind eye to issues that are important to us. Boric said Tuesday. “It is not a narrative construction, it is a reality, it is serious and I have had the opportunity to see it in the eyes and in the pain of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who are in our country today.”
More than 7 million people have left Venezuela in search of protection and a better quality of life, according to UNHCR.
This is the largest human mobility crisis in the region, a consequence of the crisis that the country has been going through since at least 2015, two years after Maduro took power after holding elections, after the death of Chávez who in one of his last public appearances, he asked to elect Maduro as president.
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