By Fernando Ochoa Antich, El Nacional, Venezuela
February 25, 2018
In my previous article, I stated that once the election solution was closed by the Madurista regime’s arbitrary decisions, the democratic opposition faces three complex forms of action: the people’s protest, the military solution or multilateral intervention by countries in the Americas and Europe. The people’s protest has a weakness in itself: every protest, no matter how peaceful and justified, will always be criminally suppressed by military and police forces and the dictatorship’s armed gangs, as it happened in 2002, 2014 and 2017, with a tragic toll of people killed and wounded. The military solution has such a historic tradition in Venezuela and Latin America that public opinion will always consider it as an alternative way out of a serious political crisis such as the one our homeland now faces, with no possible solution arising. Multilateral intervention will be the topic of my next article.
Nicolás Maduro’s position of the past days, absolutely dismissing the possibility of a military uprising, is somewhat hilarious. He seems to not know our political and military history. Many are the legitimate and illegitimate presidents who have made that statement. Once surprised by an uprising in the barracks, they have been left overwhelmed by the turbulent events. That is what happened to Juan Vicente Gómez and to Eleazar López Contreras, Caracas garrison commander, on April 7, 1928; Isaías Medina Angarita, on October 18, 1945; Rómulo Gallegos, on November 24, 1948; Marcos Pérez Jiménez, on January 1 and 23, 1958; Carlos Andrés Pérez and myself, on February 4, 1992; and the felon Hugo Chávez, on April 11, 2002. What is not known is that, besides the successful military insurrections there have been several attempted conspiracies which have ended up in failure or in an illusion. President Luis Herrera was more realistic when he said: “The military is loyal until it rebels.”
So, in the face of Nicolás Maduro’s stubbornness, and the incompetence and corruption of the ruling clique, in order to solve this national catastrophe, when our people are desperate because of poverty, hunger, death and diaspora, the issue of the military way out as a solution to the national tragedy has begun. The state of affairs in Venezuela is so worrisome that the other countries in the region feel their stability really threatened. This reality must have pressured Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in such a way, that before beginning a tour of Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Peru and Jamaica he decided to issue the following statement: “In the history of Venezuela and other South American countries the army is often the agent of change when things are so bad and the leadership can no longer serve the people.” Such a statement is not improvised before beginning an official visit. I have no doubt that the issue was taken up with several chiefs of state. The question that arises is the following: is Venezuela’s situation so serious as to reach the extreme to consider the military way out as a possible solution to the national crisis?
The answer is in plain sight, stressed even more by United| States Chargé d’Affaires Todd Robinson’s statements. The responsibility falls on Nicolás Maduro. His perverse ambition to remain in power at any cost has led him to refuse, in a stubborn way, to solve the crisis: the only way to find an alternative to violence is to ask CNE to call for fair and transparent elections in December of this year or at an earlier date, but not in April 2018. By closing this possibility he has opened the way to a possible military solution. Anyway, should such a delicate circumstance arise, it could not be used by Maduro to portray himself as a victim of a forcible action least of all to call it an unconstitutional act. It has been Maduro himself who has consistently devoted himself to violating the constituion and the rule of law, at the expense of the living conditions of the people that has only demanded from him to be allowed to voice an opinion in full freedom.
A debate went on for a long time on the distinction between good and bad coups based on the historic transformations they were capable of producing. My criterion is that any military uprising against a legitimately elected government, respectful of the Constitution and citizens’ rights, is a betrayal of the military values of loyalty to the Constitution, superiors and subordinates. It can never be a heroic act. This means that the military uprisings against presidents Medina, Gallegos and Pérez were painful acts of treason by the military that violated their loyalty to Venezuela and its institutions. On the contrary, the military uprisings Against Juan Vicente Gómez and Marcos Pérez Jiménez were heroic acts by military who took up arms in compliance with their constitutional duties to depose governments that had no legitimacy whatsoever.
Presently, a decision as complex as taking up the Republic’s arms to rebel, becomes a duty for the professional military. Article 333 of the 1999 Constitution in force, states: “This Constitution will not lose its validity if it were not observed by an act of force or if it were revoked by any means other than what it establishes. In that event every citizen vested with authority or not will have the duty to cooperate in reestablishing its full validity.” This constitutional rule forces any member of the Fuerza Armada Nacional (National Armed Force) as well as every Venezuelan, to do whatever is necessary to contribute to reestablishing its effective validity. It is the duty of the Minister of Defense, the High Military Command and all the armed institution’s cadres to evaluate the constitutionality of Nicolás Maduro’s government.
Its original legitimacy was questioned by the presidential election itself. There is no doubt that his victory was due to sharp abuse of power. As soon as he took office he devoted himself to violating articles 2 and 6 of the 1999 Constitution ignoring its fundamental principles and compromising itsp legitimacy. Venezuela stopped being a democratic and social state of law and justice by disrespecting values as essential as life, liberty, justice, equality, solidarity, democracy, ethics and political pluralism, becoming a totalitarian state. Our people knows perfectly well that this government has violated, throughout its exercise, human rights and citizens’ freedoms, has plundered public money, has completely destroyed national wealth, subjecting our people to the hardships of poverty, hunger, death and diaspora and has threatened the integrity of national territory by committing itself to the negotiation with Guyana. The members of the National Armed Force, as every other Venezuelan, have the moral duty to deepen their analysis of the present national reality and to act in the defense of the Constitution.
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