Claudio Fermín is a university professor and veteran political leader in Venezuela. Cutting his political teeth with Acción Democrática (AD) party, he became Caracas’s first elected mayor (1990-93). He went on to become a member of the 1999 Constituent Assembly as well as a perennial presidential candidate. Within the Venezuelan opposition, he has been known for his commitment to dialogue and opposing US sanctions.

In this exclusive interview, Fermín reflects on his role in the Venezuelan opposition, the consequences of the blockade against the Caribbean nation, the US “theft” of natural resources following the January 3 attack, and the challenge of recovering sovereignty.

Going back more than two decades, what was your relationship with former President Hugo Chávez like?

Chávez had a sharp tongue that spared no one. Yet whenever he referred to me, he always did so with respect and affection. I am grateful for his generosity.

In the early years, Chavismo was not just a vast popular movement but almost a religion. Since President Chávez spoke of me with such consideration, I think that filtered down to the base as well, and grassroots Chavistas have always been very warm toward me. I have never stopped going anywhere in my life, not even to the Esquina Caliente [a Chavista spot in downtown Caracas’ Plaza Bolívar]. Chavistas or Adecos [AD supporters], I greet them all the same. I have been fortunate in that regard.

My relationship with Chávez was always one of respect and consideration. As a conciliator, what people call a moderate, someone who doesn’t get carried away by extremes, I have always demanded respect for President Chávez and have always acknowledged the positive things his government did. Sometimes journalists are surprised and ask me for an example. I talk about Misión Vivienda [the public housing program], about the people who live much better there than in the shack where they used to live. And that is just one example; I could give you 30 more Chavista achievements that I defend, just as I could give you as many things I object to.

Chavismo knows that my criticisms are honest and sincere. We have had a good relationship. I deeply regret that it is, in my view, a very closed-off movement. Beyond its record in government, from a political standpoint my criticism would be its lack of self-criticism.

Claudio Fermín and Hugo Chávez took part in a presidential debate in March 1998. (Archive)

What is your assessment of the Maduro government?

President Maduro faced a very difficult period, much more difficult than President Chávez’s, in my opinion. These were years of an infamous [US] blockade and terrible conspiracies. I think he was very brave when he lifted currency and price controls, and when he proposed the special economic zones, which practically amounted to a wholesale critique of the Chavista economic model.

That is very easy to propose when you are in the opposition. But to take those measures from within a Chavista government… It was very hard to survive that storm for 14 straight years. Oil revenues, which had topped $50 billion a year, fell to less than $1 billion.

In recent years you have tried to build spaces for unity within the opposition, for example in Henri Falcón’s 2018 presidential campaign. However, those attempts ended up fractured by extremist figures such as María Corina Machado. Why has it been so hard for the opposition to build a coherent alternative?

To answer that, I think a brief look back at history is useful. Chávez’s early years were a time of endless promises, when everything seemed possible and there was money to back it up. Everything was in crescendo. Chávez, besides his electric, truly mesmerizing charisma, was also a man who carried a heroic narrative.

The initial opposition to the Chávez government was class-based and bent on confrontation. The Carmonazo [the 2002 coup] and the oil lockout failed because the people saw them as alien initiatives, the exclusive project of a political class. And the honeymoon with Chávez was still ongoing. However, that period gave rise to very confrontational behavior on both sides of Venezuelan politics.

There came a point when showing the greatest aversion, the greatest hostility toward Chavismo, meant being against the system and not participating. That is how María Corina Machado and her [US-funded] NGO Súmate got started, directly or indirectly encouraging abstention. The 2018 elections and those that followed cannot be understood without this induced abstention, which ended up benefiting Chavismo. That is not to take away from Chavismo’s own strengths, such as its organizational capacity and grassroots work.

However, in 2015 there was high turnout and the opposition won a majority in the National Assembly…

The 2015 elections were a very particular moment. It was an important election, now facing Chavismo without Chávez, and the opposition, which had been completely fragmented, came together. I think it has certain parallels with Chávez’s election in 1998, when there was a desire to punish, to make someone pay, which made it possible to bring scattered groups together.

If we look back over the years at the speeches of opposition leaders, Julio Borges, Leopoldo López, Henrique Capriles, Henry Ramos Allup and so on, they spent their time insulting one another. But in 2015 they called a sort of truce and were electorally smart in running on a single ticket, avoiding fragmentation.

But it was an exceptional moment. As soon as they reached the National Assembly the squabbling started again, for instance over who would hold the presidency of the parliament. In 2019 a new fight broke out between Guaidó’s faction and the others, whom they called “alacranes” [scorpions]. Guaidó ended up losing the National Assembly in the middle of his “interim presidency,” which was nothing more than a crude coup attempt.

Claudio Fermín presently heads the opposition party Soluciones. (Cronica Uno)

Although you are an opposition politician, you have firmly denounced US sanctions against Venezuela. Can you tell us a bit about the economic reality of recent years?

Starting in 2015, thanks to President Obama – whom I once admired – a defenseless country was attacked, a country where store shelves were empty and pensioners were begging to survive. It was a country terribly battered by the economic situation, mired in an endless internal conflict. And the last thing it needed was sanctions and an economic blockade.

However, we also have to look further back. Thirty to thirty-five years ago, Venezuela exported aluminum, iron, and cattle. There was at least a minimum of economic diversification. But by 2015 it was a poor, single-product economy, and on top of that a blockade fell on us, which led to the country’s total impoverishment. Sanctions are a serious attack on human rights in Venezuela. Every nation has the right to trade freely.

The intention was to starve Venezuela. I remember some despicable statements by former US Ambassador [William] Brownfield, who said it didn’t matter how many people died as long as the government fell. They had not been able to beat Chávez’s charisma, or Maduro, because of the opposition’s mistakes, so they tried to strangle the country. The blockade has been a criminal act that brought about a total collapse in investment. The impact on pensions, wages, hospitals, and the electrical grid has been terrible. And figures like María Corina Machado or Leopoldo López called for sanctions in the morning and demanded wage increases in the afternoon. That is the level of cynicism and demagoguery they reached.

The plan had the desired consequences: investment dried up, discontent grew, and the quality of life collapsed. But that did not bring down the government; the US had to do it with a military intervention on January 3.

Over the last 10 years, Venezuela only had resources thanks to trade with countries that defied the blockade, such as Russia, China, and Iran. But it was done covertly, on the high seas, through parallel channels, and all of that was fertile ground for corruption.

By the same token, we have to point out what I call administrative mistakes. For example, in the midst of that terrible blockade, how can you justify keeping more than 30 ministries and 6 vice presidencies? Those mistakes have to be pointed out and analyzed, but to me they are of a much smaller magnitude than the impact of the blockade. I am not saying this to back Maduro; one simply has to keep a sense of proportion.

Venezuela went from a blockaded economy before January 3 to one controlled by the US. What is your reading of the present context?

Venezuela has been the victim of an outrageous and barefaced theft. On the one hand, the countries that dared to open a door for Venezuela to bring in foreign currency are now off limits. The United States imposes an iron curtain and says we can only have relations with it. The self-proclaimed champion of the free world prohibits free trade, using terrorist threats against those who do not obey.

On top of that, in an act of piracy, the US seized several Venezuelan oil tankers and then took 40 million barrels that we had in storage because a naval blockade was preventing us from selling crude.

January 3 raised enormous expectations. I admit it myself: I welcome much-needed investment, the investment the blockade kept out. But I don’t want it to come at the expense of our sovereignty. Yet in these months, instead of bringing dollars in, they [the US] have taken them out, stolen them. The Financial Times reported $13 billion in the first six months of the year. They have also taken shipments of gold. The money is deposited in US accounts. Absolutely nothing has been returned.

On top of that theft, our resources are still frozen: the IMF special drawing rights, close to $5 billion, as well as the gold held hostage at the Bank of England. These are resources we badly need, in addition to what the US is taking and to its barring us from relations with certain countries.

You have also focused on the foreign debt and the announced restructuring plans. Can you tell us why this issue matters?

Indeed. A narrative had taken hold that Venezuela owed $150 billion. And overnight that became $240 billion. That is absolutely false. Venezuela does not owe that money to anyone.

Of course Venezuela has to meet its obligations. The country has not paid its foreign debt since 2017. But with the blockade, with what resources were we supposed to pay it? That is why I insist that this debt must be audited.

The debt includes bonds, but people who bought them on the cheap now expect to be paid at face value. Then there are the debts to multilateral organizations, arbitration awards, commercial debts, and so on. All of that has to be audited by professional firms, and there has to be a debt restructuring committee made up of Venezuelans.

It seems that in Venezuela we can’t do arithmetic, and it has to be Marco Rubio who appoints the firm in charge of the restructuring: Centerview Partners. This firm charges $50,000 a month plus 0.1% of the debt. In other words, the fox is guarding the henhouse. It is in its interest for the amount to be as high as possible. It is armed robbery in broad daylight.

The opposition politician called for national unity to defend Venezuelan sovereignty. (EFE)

Let’s return to January 3, a turning point in Venezuela’s recent history. How do you assess that attack and everything that followed?

The theft I was describing is a consequence of January 3, when a foreign army bombed our country. It was an unforgivable act of aggression by the United States.

They kidnapped the president after fabricating a campaign claiming he was the head of the Cartel de los Soles. Now the CIA and Southern Command have been here for months, and they haven’t investigated a single military officer for drug trafficking. Where is the Cartel de los Soles? It is a monumental lie, like Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

What we are experiencing is a crude recolonization, by force. By force the US is taking millions of barrels of oil; by force they imposed changes to the Hydrocarbons Law and the Mining Law. Under the supposed pretext of making the sector attractive to investors and giving them security, what was actually done was to hollow out the Venezuelan state. They leave it powerless, reducing royalties and taxes to a bare minimum.

Today we have a Venezuelan state that depends on a single product. What revenue will it have if it can’t collect anything from its main industry, or from mining? What’s more, if a restructuring of this abusive debt goes ahead, how is it going to be paid? What is being done with Venezuela’s resources is monstrous.

But there is no shortage of people eager to hand the country over, from “activists” who write letters to the US chargé d’affaires asking for supplies for this or that hospital, to fake trade unionists who ask him for wage increases. I find it undignified and humiliating. Even María Corina Machado gave her Nobel Prize to Trump and still can’t get him to give her the time of day.

January 3, and everything that followed, was not an attack on Chavismo. It was an operation to seize Venezuela’s resources. We have to create consciousness against that. And Trump is not going to be there forever. It pains me to see the naivety of certain voices who think Trump is saving the country. Venezuela is living through an hour of infamy, confusion, uncertainty and shame. If we can’t unite even in the face of an aggression as serious as the one we are suffering…

Venezuela has undoubtedly been the great triumph, perhaps the only one, of Trump’s foreign policy. What is your view of Trump’s stance on Venezuela and of current relations between Caracas and Washington?

First of all, it must be said that this so-called dialogue is a mockery of the country. Trump and Rubio pulled out of their pocket, like someone finding something they had forgotten, this National Assembly whose term expired in 2020. And they forced that [defunct] parliament into talks with the current one. So we have two parliaments of “yes men” following the White House’s directives. And it is Mr. Rubio who announces what is going to happen in the country with his three-phase plan.

Trump mocks us, saying people are dancing in the streets and offering to make us the 51st state. A tremendous disrespect, and nobody raises their voice against it. Venezuela needs a strategy to denounce to the world what is happening, this imperialist colonization based on terrorist threats.

Venezuela has lost its sovereignty, and that is very serious. It is painful, but it is an undeniable fact. Venezuela has every interest in having good relations with the United States, as it has had for almost all of our history, but we cannot accept these conditions. We want investment and to trade with the whole world, but not at the cost of losing our sovereignty as a nation. Giving up sovereignty is not a necessary condition.

Having made that diagnosis, what, from your standpoint, is the way forward?

For the last 28 years I have been called a moderate, ambiguous, a “nini” [neither-nor], for defending my views. But I simply don’t agree with the fanatical positions of the extremes, and I denounce what is happening in my country today.

Ever since I started raising my voice about the seriousness of this situation, from January 3 onward, I have hardly ever been invited for an interview. There is a grave silence, and we are talking about the national interest here. Whether you are a Chavista or an Adeco, a businessperson or a street vendor, the national interest calls on all of us. If a nation cannot agree even to defend its sovereignty, it is finished. This is an existential question, not a matter of who wants to carry out Trump’s orders.

I don’t have a recipe, but we have to react. Let’s sit down and talk, look for common ground. But let’s start by admitting that we have a problem. Of course we have to sit down with the Trump administration. But with a minimum of dignity, not with this tone of capitulation, as if nothing had happened here.

I am not calling on us to confront anyone. We also have to be aware of our weaknesses. But I am calling on us to defend what is ours. Let’s build an agenda, a plan to recover our sovereignty, to explain to the United States that, while we are willing to have good relations and receive investment, we are an independent country and we will fight for that.

The post Claudio Fermín: ‘We Must Forge a Consciousness Against the Recolonization of Venezuela’ appeared first on Venezuelanalysis.

From Venezuelanalysis via This RSS Feed.