Maduro and his regime declared war on us: It is time to act!
Floating. That is how the bodies of 23 Venezuelans, several of them children, who were deported from Trinidad and Tobago after a fatal shipwreck, reached the coast of Güiria in Sucre State. The images are indescribable, unforgettable, but they illustrate a country that bleeds daily through its borders.
Who drowned them? Who is responsible for the more than 100 Venezuelans who have been shipwrecked and died since 2018 in similar situations? Some left from Falcón, others from Sucre and others from Delta Amacuro, but all – about 500 a day according to estimates – were seeking salvation.
The murderer is not only the one who ruthlessly evicts them from their lands, as the Government of Trinidad and Tobago does today, but the one who forced them to consider the idea of leaving their own home and fleeing the country. Nicolás Maduro and his regime declared war on us and want to annihilate us, while consolidating a criminal conglomerate that is also targeting Colombia, Chile, Perú and other countries in the region.
They took away all possibility of living with dignity and if we do not assume it, those who argue that our only option is to give up will prevail. For this reason, today we insist that we cannot do it alone and that what is emerging today in Venezuela is a conflict situation to which the world has already arrived late at other times.
It is this permanent pain and drama that drives us to ask for help, knowing that diplomatic times are not the same as our daily urgency, the one we saw expressed in those photos and videos that we will never forget. But the international community knows that it is on their backs to stop with clear and concrete actions the murder of dozens of Venezuelan families.
We value each report that has documented horrors such as the systematic violation of human rights, persecution, torture, cruel and inhuman treatments, forced disappearances, extrajudicial executions and even forced migration, such as those published by the United Nations and the most recent one by the International Criminal Court. However, we also believe that this irreversible damage deserves more than notes and statements of solidarity.
It is an OBLIGATION of the democratic nations of the world to fulfill their responsibility to protect and assume the fact that it is TIME TO ACT, understanding that the only effective measure against this daily tragedy will be to immediately evict the sponsor and person responsible for all these mafias, which is the Venezuelan criminal regime.
To achieve this, we have proposed the formation of a great Operation for Peace and Stabilization (OPE for its acronym in Spanish), which has variants such as those elements of pressure that have emerged from the United Nations through its reports, as well as the approval of new sanctions against regime officials and other measures that are effective in dismantling organized crime from within the State itself.
Is there any option other than a real and imminent threat? What happened to the proposal of the cessation of usurpation? In this context, can an election be considered with Maduro in power? Are we going to accept it? Those are the questions we all must ask ourselves when facing a situation that is not new.
From January 2018 to this December 12, more than 100 Venezuelans have been shipwrecked and died in different failed escapes: four and then 30 tried unsuccessfully to reach Curaçao, another dozen died when their boat sank towards Aruba and dozens have disappeared en route to Trinidad and Tobago, and this is only what is known.
Many of those Venezuelans were also victims of a criminal network that operates off the Venezuelan coasts under the approval of the tyranny that keeps power in our country hostage. Neither has the refugee status of our nationals been valid. All international treaties that protect us and that must alert the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are violated daily.
Everyone has a name, family and a country on their backs that mourns them, and we speak to that country: here no one gives up, we are a united society that does not doubt or consult; that assumes its responsibility as citizens of a nation that is fading, and it is our obligation to be that critical mass that is shed from the mafias, corrupt, infiltrators and cohabitants, because thanks to them today we understand why we have not reached a resolution to our situation.
We appeal to the strength of the West and to the guarantee that those of us who defend freedom recognize ourselves in those values, whatever the cost. «Venezuela is not Cuba», they said; and today others also repeat that they are not Venezuela.
Caracas, December 17, 2020.
