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Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza (Caracas, 1973), expresses a sense of tranquility that contrasts with the intensity with which the country has experienced in recent weeks. Arreaza receives EL PAÍS late Friday afternoon in a meeting room of the ministry where there is a bust of Hugo Chavez, a gift from Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has just returned from Bolivar Square, in the center of Caracas, where Chavismo has begun to collect signatures against the interference he denounces from Donald Trump's government. "They condemn us, condemn us, condemn us without even hearing us," said Nicolás Maduro, the government's chief diplomat, who, before visiting the square, met with representatives of the United States who had remained Venezuela. And he guarantees that they will sit down to talk to whom by right: "In fact, there have been contacts we do not know," he says.
Question What kind of contacts?
Response. At the highest level possible, after many attempts. It seems like a lie that we have reached this stage. And we will establish more and we will always be there to be fruitful and respectful between the parties.
P. What does it take for a contact group approach to occur?
R. President Maduro has shown himself very flexible with the European Union. I was just a year in talks with Federica Mogherini [líder da diplomacia europeia] and I told the president that he was convinced that the EU had accepted the US position and was part of the plan to generate a crisis in Venezuela. Ms. Mogherini repeated to us the same plan that was included in the contact group proposal. It's like some kind of irreducible word, obeying a single version of the facts. We met with embbady representatives. I asked the High Commission to meet a week ago, at the pathetic moment of the ultimatum, but we did not get an answer. Attempts for the moment have been unsuccessful, but we have maintained relations with a group of ambbadadors and with an institution that does not recognize us because we are certain that Europe must dissociate itself from the position of United States and contribute to the search for a peaceful solution.
P. Are there red lines?
R. To get closer and communicate, we never make red lines.
P. You speak of an irreducible word, but you have the impression that there are also irreducible questions. Is the presidential election a red line?
R. The red line is the Constitution, but it's not a red line, it's the most basic. We can not demand that the Constitution be violated. This is what the European Union did in the elections last May, so that they would not be respected.
P. But in a process of dialogue, there are always red lines that the other party will not cross. Is it between them to accept a presidential election?
R. I think we are talking about a different Castilian. How to ask a government that, through impositions from abroad, violates its Constitution?
P. Of the three international groups looking to come out, two seem to have few options to flourish because some do not accept them. Do you see the EU as a key factor of the crisis?
R. It is difficult to consider the EU as a facilitator if some of its members have become biased. Now, faced with the madness of the EU, led by Pedro Sánchez, it seems that what you want is to clear your face. It would be better to go to countries in Africa or Haiti, a few kilometers from the United States, in a humanitarian crisis. Europe can not fall to the feet of the United States.
P. Is Venezuela able to do without humanitarian aid or would it be willing to receive it from international organizations?
R. The president told the European ambbadadors that they wanted to collaborate, they would unblock the 1.6 billion Euroclear, based in Brussels. Or that they give us a credit, which we will pay with interest, to make up for the American blockade. This is what one might think of the European Union, the constitution of a Jean Monnet, his spirit and everything that emerged after the Second World War against fascism and impositions. We can pay quietly for what we need.
P. Do you claim that in Venezuela there is no crisis of food and medicine shortage?
R. If we have a lock, how could there be a shortage of certain products? This year's penalty costs exceed, with the possible confiscation of Citgo, $ 30 billion. Of course, there must be certain limits. The EU, the Spanish government and the United Nations should do what they have done in Cuba after nearly 60 years: call for the end of the blockade. Hyperinflation may comprise 25% of the Venezuelan government's responsibility, but 75% is induced by an exchange placed on certain web pages.
P. They always talk about the outside enemy, the economic war, but what have you done wrong, what concessions are you willing to make?
R. The concessions must come from outside. We are willing to receive development badistance from the UN to enable us to access international credits with payment flexibility. But there is no offer.
P. With concessions, we also refer to management, to which errors are admitted.
R. We are a government of human beings and we have probably made many mistakes, but I can badure you that if our economy was not blocked, if the institutions did not boycott us, the situation would be visibly better. If we sat with Joseph Stiglitz or [Yanis] Varoufakis, they would say that they can not do anything here, because the laws of the economy in a situation as worrying as that of Venezuela are not possible.
P. You denounced the interference of the United States, the European Union, the countries of Latin America … What role does Cuba play in the Venezuelan government?
R. It's even offensive to Cubans. What Cuba did was that when the Venezuelan doctors did not dare to go to the outlying districts, the communities and the jungle, the Cuban doctors came and did it. When we had problems with physiotherapy, the Cubans came to occupy this space. This was Cuban help. Here live a little over 8,000 or 9,000 Cubans who help people in neighborhoods; are doctors, teachers.
P. There is discontent among their own constituents. Does that worry you?
R. This is the strategy adopted three years ago to attack the economy and even to undermine the effectiveness of income redistribution policies in communities and, as a result, the population will generalize the rejection. Has it had an effect? Without a doubt. But it is still useless to count who is the majority in the country. It's a permanent expression and I felt on the street a year ago that the Chavist forces were reorganizing themselves.
P. What do you think of defections of officials, officials and diplomats?
R. In 2002, we had a runaway of generals, the military situation was important. Now, I believe that there is an active general [que desertou]. Foreign diplomats are called, they are offered the green card a permanent job, access to housing, to speak in favor of this government of Narnia, an imaginary government.
P. In addition to the military summit, you have under your control the forces of parapolice, gangs and FAES [Forças de Ações Especiais] …
R. I'm not sure what you mean In 2017, when 29 Venezuelans, men and women with dark skin, were burned in the neighborhoods of Caracas, mothers said: "Come to avenge the death of these boys." We had to spread in the neighborhoods of Caracas, Maracaibo, Valencia to talk to groups you call gangs. Without the control of the revolution, this struggle would have been expressed by a civil war and not expressed or even expressed by a civil war provoked from the outside.
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