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Opposition leader and former metropolitan mayor of Caracas Antonio Ledezma told EFE on Tuesday in Miami that he is in favor of dialogue as a means to solve the crisis, but not the one resumed by the Venezuelan government and the opposition because it is “poisoned.”
“It is a dialogue manipulated by the tyranny at its whim,” stressed Ledezma, who leads the Alianza Bravo Pueblo, lives in exile in Spain and is visiting Miami to present this Tuesday his new book, “Carlos Andrés Pérez: the president who died twice.”
Hours before the event organized by the Inter-American Institute for Democracy, Ledezma told EFE that it is “absolutely false” that those who criticize the dialogue resumed in Mexico are “reluctant to a peaceful solution” in Venezuela.
“Dialogue is like bread or arepas, we all like them, but this one is poisoned,” he said.
The former mayor recalled that the Government-opposition dialogues began when Hugo Chávez was president (1999-2013) and there have already been a dozen without “freedom having returned” to his country.
With Nicolás Maduro in the Presidency (since 2013) and mediators such as the Catholic Church or Norway, those attempts “have been a disaster for the struggle for freedom”, he asserted.
The dialogue, which had been unilaterally interrupted by the Venezuelan government in 2021 after the extradition to the USA from Cape Verde of the Colombian businessman Alex Saab, considered a front man for Maduro and accused by the US justice of money laundering, was resumed last week.
Last Saturday, both parties signed an agreement to channel 3 billion dollars of resources that the country has blocked in the international financial system through a trust fund to be designed and executed by the UN to assist Venezuelans in extreme poverty in a three-year plan.
Confusion and weariness in the face of the Venezuelan crisis
He also expressed his opinion that the fact that the U.S. or the EU are in favor of the current dialogue is partly due to the “confusion” created by the Government and an “opposition that is functional to the dictatorship”, and highlighted that there is a certain “exhaustion and weariness” in the international community in relation to the Venezuelan crisis.
Ledezma cited as successful examples of dialogue to get out of authoritarian regimes those of Spain, Chile and South Africa, because they were a “win-win” (for both parties) and not only the democrats swallowed “the toads with feathers”, as, he said, has happened so far with the dialogues in Venezuela.
“In Venezuela, the sweets are eaten only by the tyranny”, he opined.
The opposition politician wrote in the last hours an open letter on the new attempt of dialogue proposing the opposition to incorporate to the table the widows of two “murdered by the tyranny”: Captain Rafael Acosta Arévalo and Councilman Fernando Albán.
“One of them could perfectly represent all the victims of assassinations, tortures and arbitrary detentions, procedures that violate human rights for which both Nicolás Maduro and his closest collaborators are responsible,” said Ledezma.
In the letter sent to Gerardo Blyde, leader of the opposition delegation participating in the dialogue in Mexico, the leader of Alianza Bravo Pueblo says that the “criminal corporation” that governs Venezuela does not have good intentions when sitting at the table.
In his opinion, it only seeks to gain time, while it generates confusion in the international community and plunges the opposition into “an atmosphere of contradictions, uncertainties and frustrations.”
Ledezma asks the opposition to reflect
The opposition’s strategy must be none other than to get Venezuela out of “tyranny”, according to Ledezma.
For that, he adds, it is necessary to free political prisoners, guarantee the return of exiles, lift disqualifications, put an end to “judicialized parties”, guarantee full freedom of expression and set a date for free elections, after purging and updating the Electoral Registry.
In his statements to EFE, he pointed out that it is a contradiction for the Biden administration to be against “fracking” and at the same time authorize the return of a US oil company to operate in a country whose government, he said, is “devastating the Amazon” with mining.
He added that it is also contradictory to maintain a 15 million dollar reward for Maduro, whom the U.S. accuses of being linked to drug trafficking, and to urge dialogue with him.
Nevertheless, Ledezma, who after more than 1,000 days in detention managed to escape Venezuela in 2017 and settled in Spain, was pleased that the EU and the U.S. have so far maintained sanctions against Maduro and his officials.
He stressed that the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela is the result of the Government’s bad policies and corruption – “more than 300 billion dollars were stolen”, he said- and that is why they cannot now present themselves as the saviors or ask for resources to solve it.
Regarding the interim presidency of the opposition Juan Guaidó, who in 2019 came to have the support of more than 60 governments, which -he highlighted- was not even achieved by the heroes Simón Bolívar and Francisco de Miranda in the struggle for independence of Venezuela, he was of the opinion that the project failed because the goal was “distorted.”
It was about calling and holding free elections, not about trying to create a parliamentary government not contemplated in the Constitution, he said.
