ICH Topic: "An open letter to the people of the U.S. from President Nicolás Maduro"
By Nicolás
Maduro
February 10, 2019 "Information
Clearing House"
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If I know
anything, it is about the people, because
just like you, I am a man of the people. I
was born and raised in a poor neighborhood
of Caracas. I was forged in the heat of
popular and union struggles in a Venezuela
submerged in exclusion and inequality. I am
no tycoon; I am a worker of mind and heart.
Today I have the great privilege of
presiding over the new Venezuela, rooted in
a model of inclusive development and social
equality, which Comandante Hugo Chávez
forged starting in 1998, inspired by the
legacy of Simón Bolivar.
We are living
today in a historical crossroad. There are
days that will define the future of our
countries, giving us a choice between war
and peace. Your national representatives of
Washington want to bring to their borders
the same hatred that they sowed in Vietnam.
They want to invade and intervene in
Venezuela — they say, as they said then — in
the name of democracy and freedom. But this
is false. Their history of the usurpation of
power in Venezuela is as false as the
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It is a
false argument, but it can have dramatic
consequences for our entire region.
Venezuela is
a country that, by virtue of its 1999
Constitution, has broadly expanded the
participatory and protagonist democracy of
the people, and that in an unprecedented way
so that today Venezuela is one of the
countries that has held the largest number
of elections in the last 20 years. You may
not like our ideology or how our society
looks, but we exist and we are millions.
I address
these words to the people of the United
States of America to warn of the gravity and
danger that some sectors in the White House
intend, that is, to invade Venezuela with
unpredictable consequences for my country
and for the entire American region.
President Donald Trump also intends to
disrupt the worthy initiatives to open a
dialogue promoted by Uruguay and Mexico,
with the support of CARICOM, for a peaceful
solution and dialogue on behalf of
Venezuela. We know that for the good of
Venezuela we have to sit down and talk
because to refuse to dialogue is to choose
the path of force. Keep in mind the words of
John F. Kennedy: “Let us never negotiate out
of fear. But let us never fear to
negotiate.” Those who do not want to
dialogue, are they afraid of the truth?
The political
intolerance toward the Venezuelan Bolivarian
model and the desires for our immense oil
resources, minerals and other great riches
have prompted an international coalition
headed by the U.S. government to commit the
serious insanity of waging a military attack
on Venezuela under the pretext of a
nonexistent humanitarian crisis.
The people of
Venezuela have painfully suffered social
wounds caused by a criminal commercial and
financial blockade, which has been
aggravated by the dispossession and robbery
of our financial resources and assets in
countries aligned with this demented
onslaught.
And yet,
thanks to a new system of social protection,
of direct attention to the most vulnerable
sectors of our society, we proudly continue
to be a country in the Americas with high
human development index and low inequality.
The U.S.
people must know that this complex multiform
aggression is carried out with total
impunity and in clear violation of the
Charter of the United Nations, which
expressly outlaws the threat or use of
force, among other principles and purposes,
for the sake of peace and friendly relations
between nations.
We want to
continue being business partners of the
people of the United States, as we have been
throughout our history. Their politicians in
Washington, on the other hand, are willing
to send their sons and daughters to die in
an absurd war, instead of respecting the
sacred right of the Venezuelan people to
self-determination and to safeguard their
sovereignty.
Like you,
people of the United States, we Venezuelans
are patriots. And we shall defend our
homeland with all our soul. Today Venezuela
is united in a single cry: We demand the
cessation of the aggression that seeks to
suffocate our economy and socially suffocate
our people, as well as the cessation of the
serious and dangerous threats of military
intervention against Venezuela.
We appeal to
the good soul of U.S. society, a victim of
its own leaders, to join our call for peace.
Let us be all one people against
warmongering and war.
Long live the
peoples of America!
Nicolás
Maduro
President of
the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
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