Venezuela: "This revolution has overthrown and carried away the Latin Americans left behind"

At the age of 20 this Saturday when Hugo Chávez came to power, many of his supporters denounce today that Nicolás Maduro has buried the project that created the founder of the Bolivarian phenomenon. They are dissidents of Chavismo, former high officials who consider Maduro "illegitimate", although they do not all support the liberal Juan Guaidó, self-proclaimed interim agent. Many of these former leaders, some grouped to promote a negotiated exit or recall referendum on Friday, blame the two poles for pushing the country to foreign military intervention and civil war.

The former Minister of Commerce and former ambbadador, Gustavo Marquez, critic of the Cuban state model, observes with astonishment the critical point of the crisis that his country is going through: Maduro, "to cling to power and to legitimize its legitimacy ", and Guaidó setting up a parallel" state "with US support and economic sanctions," both sides of the same coin, "he says. or war (…), there will be a distribution of the cake. The United States, Russia and China are looking to keep their play, "said the former 72-year-old official.

Luisa Ortega Diaz, who paid dearly for her break with Maduro, is another witness of the time. She was sent back to the post of public prosecutor after denouncing a democratic break and the repression of the 2017 protests, with 125 dead. Finally, he escaped to Colombia. He praises Guaidó as "a brave man". "I bet Juan Guaidó, his success is the success of all Venezuelans, we have Maduro against the wall," he says.

His bet, before, was another. During his tenure, the prosecutor's office accused Leopoldo López, political leader of Guaidó, of being sentenced to nearly 14 years in prison at home. "I do not regret (support Chavez), but I apologized for the mistakes I made (…), especially for not having said certain things in time," he said. . Ortega, 61, says that Chávez's initial proposal was "humanistic", but that she was blurred with corruption, and that Maduro "consolidated" her "destruction."

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"We Venezuelans are on two high-speed trains that are about to break down," warns Héctor Navarro, who has held four ministries with Chávez. Friend of the exmandatario since he fell captive by the coup attempt of 1992, believes that the Maduro government is dying.

However, he says, "the question is whether this final phase is to drag the country and put it in the hands of" foreign interests or triumphs "of politics and that the people decide".

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Aged 69, he states that cancer separated Chávez from power well before his death and that he could do nothing, even though he had witnessed the devastating economic crisis.

He thinks that the former president chose Maduro as his successor, "convinced that he would not die". His anointed, his regrets, failed.

Maduro applied for the post as soon as he came to power and, after joining the corruption charges, he was expelled from the ruling party.

"This revolution has sunk" and has taken the Latin Americans out of account, says the former official who, with a pension equivalent to six dollars, lives on the money sent by a son who emigrated. He spends his time looking after his grandchildren and promoting a third road.

Former Minister of the Popular Economy, Olly Millán, says for his part that "we are discussing between a negotiated solution and the war". The former leader chews disenchantment after turning his pbadion from left to the Bolivarian process. University professor, aged 52, she organizes with her former Cabinet colleagues a referendum for the renewal of all powers. but he recognizes that in the "extreme polarization", few people buy the idea.

In an academic tone, he explains that the project was exhausted by a vision of socialism in which the state controlled everything, an "extremist opposition" that never recognized Chavez and the radicalization that followed. the coup d'etat of 2002.

He believes that the oil boom (2004-2014) and the "closing of self-criticism" have favored corrupt castes that have ambaded fortunes and remain in power.

A denunciation by him of bribes by hiring was qualified by Chávez conspiracy of the United States. It's the straw that broke the camel's back.
CARACAS. Agencies