What reason could lead a son or daughter of Venezuela, bearer of the indelible fire against foreign oppression, to raise the hand of whoever intends to tread the soil of the Homeland and make the people suffer? No matter how much we dwell on the subject, despite the many economic interests that may be found along the path of sedition and treason, we cannot find valid arguments for such infamous behavior. What is the purpose? To burn, like Nero, the greatness of the Homeland to then govern over its ashes?Attempting to clean up the imperial will of mercilessly looting our wealth, sacrificing the life of our people, cannot enter the rationality of the children of Bolivar and his libertarian fire.

It is necessary to review the history of our independence to understand that opportunists have always existed, the groups and individuals who submit themselves to temptation and the lure of oppression, as long as they can reserve for themselves a few material crumbs or political perks. A noticeable tension in the process resulting in the Declaration of Independence in 1810-11 could be perceived between those proposing temporary liberty as a mechanism to safeguard the colonial properties of Ferdinand VII. Their suggestion was that in peremptory time, the overseas interests of the King would be handed back to him. As counterproposal, from the Patriotic Society, Bolivar already called for the definitive resolution of this conflict in favor of Venezuelan interests in a celebrated speech:

“Our National Congress dithers over its discussion of what should already have been decided. What say you? That we should start with a confederation, as if we were not already confederated against foreign tyranny. That we should lend an ear to the results of this or that policy in Spain? What do we care if Spain sells its slaves to Bonaparte or if it keeps them, when we are determined to be free? This indecision is the sad after-effect of ancient shackles. Great projects have to be crafted slowly? Are three hundred years of patience not enough? The Patriotic Junta respects, as it must, the nation’s Congress, but Congress must also heed the Patriotic Junta, hub of enlightenment and of all revolutionary interests. Let us fearlessly lay the foundation stone of South American freedom: he who hesitates is lost”

This duality, this tension between full emancipation and submission, lives in Venezuelan political identity, and we have always dealt with it.

Throughout the entire independence struggle, there was a necessary struggle between the duality of the national political operators. Between victories and setbacks, our independence strengthened itself and along with it the Liberator’s capacity to interpret the reality of each of the actors in the disputed politics and war. On September 7, 1814, in the Carupano Manifesto, Simon Bolivar reflects over the causes for the fall of the Second Republic. In one of the passages he speaks of those persons that in a way still had intentions of living under the Spanish empire: “It is not just to destroy the men who do not wish to be free, nor it is liberty that which is enjoyed under the empire of the arms against the opinion of fanatic beings whose spiritual deprivation makes them love chains as social ties”.

From that capacity for inclusion, for understanding that liberty is for all, even for those that do not want it and that prefer to remain under the despotism of the Spanish Crown, Bolivar takes on these groups as a fundamental part of the country. The Liberator continues the path of the construction of an indivisible nation in face of foreign interests and convenes the necessity to create a Homeland for all, even for those that do not recognize it, and in a way, do not feel part of it.

After thefeats of independence, numerous internal conflicts and skirmishes were unleashed attempting against national integrity, but no event threatened national sovereignty and the existence itself of the Homeland as much as the naval blockade of the Venezuelan coasts of 1902. The sovereign vision of Cipriano Castro led the powers of his time to intervene our country in the most untimely, violent and pernicious manner. The response from President Castro, as a nationalist, a firm follower of the Bolivarian doctrine, was to convene all sectors of the country, despite their beliefs, status or political position, for the comprehensive defense of the national interests. It is embodied in the following fragment of his distinguished proclamation:

“(..) But justice is more on our side, and the God of Nations that inspired Bolivar and the pleiad of heroes that accompanied him in the great work of bequeathing us, at the cost of great sacrifices, Homeland, Liberty and Independence, will be who, at these decisive moments for the life of our nationality, will inspire us in the struggle, will encourage during sacrifice, and will assist us in the also great work of consolidating National Independence. On my part, I am willing to sacrifice everything upon the august altar of the Homeland; all, even that which could be called my resentments for reasons of our intestine differences. I have no memory for whatever may have been ungrateful in the past. Erased from my thoughts as a politician and a warrior is all that was hostile to my purposes, all that may have left a mark of pain in my heart. Before me there is nothing other than the luminous vision of the Homeland, as Bolivar dreamed it, as I want it”

This political testament was not mere words, it was accompanied by a total national convening for the defense of the Homeland. He even called upon his most acrimonious political and military rivals, who were jailed, for the new liberation of the Homeland’s soil in face of the foreign threat. One of the most distinguished persons was Jose Manuel “El Mocho” Hernandez, who had risen in arms against Castro a few years earlier and was imprisoned in the San Carlos Barracks. Once liberated, in face of the foreign threat, he cried out this firm statement: “As soon as I breathed the air of Liberty, I received along with it the news that the soles of the foreigner had trampled upon our soil. I have needed nothing more! The Homeland is in danger and I forget all of my resentments to come to its assistance”.

Today, the Homeland faces the worst threat in its recent history. It saddens that a fraction of the country has promoted and placed on a silver platter the possibility that national dignity may be trampled upon. From a petty, non-reflective and anti-historic posture, the Venezuelan oligarchy, at the service of the governing U.S. elite, promotes and justifies sanctions and blockades against the people. They only receive crumbs for handing over the national wealth and they dispute them like birds of prey in sorry scenes of transnational corruption. Any action from that Venezuelan opposition composed of a pleiad of spirits that bend their knee to imperial power, is directed towards violating the dignity and the libertarian history that determines us.

These fellow – compatriots? – make us remember the Cuban Apostle, Jose Marti, in his impeccable publication, Our America:

Only runts—so stunted they have no faith in their own nation­— will fail to find the courage. Lacking courage themselves, they will deny that other men do have it. (…) These carpenter’s sons, ashamed that their father was a carpenter! These men born in America, ashamed of the mother who raised them because she wears an Indian tunic! These scoundrels who disown their sick mother and leave her alone in her sickbed! Who is more truly a man? One who stays with his mother to nurse her through her illness? Or one who curses the bosom that bore him, forces her to work somewhere out of sight, and lives off her sustenance in corrupted lands, sporting a worm for a necktie and a sign that says ‘traitor’ on the back of his paper jacket? These sons of Our America, which must save herself through her Indians and is on the rise; these deserters, who ask to take up arms with the forces of North America, which drowns its Indians in blood and is on the wane! These delicate creatures who are men but do not want to do men’s work! (…)

For this reason, President Nicolas Maduro convenes us to close ranks in defense of our sacred sovereignty. And convenes them as well. We should understand, as a united nation, that the attack is no longer concealed; that there are no longer doubts about it, it is no longer left in the realm of interpretation: we are threatened with a military invasion, while a savage blockade is imposed upon us, hurting the Venezuelan people in its most felt necessities. It is a blockade clearly defined with the purpose of intervening in the country’s internal affairs, and from abroad, altering the democratic course that the Venezuelan people had designed. The spokespersons of the Trump Administration, from an absurd obsession for the figure of Nicolas Maduro and against Bolivarian Socialism, which by the way, questions their sanity, issue offenses and threats to the integrity of the Venezuelan people. They act on the margins of International Law and they shield themselves in that self-perception that they are the world’s police, judge and executioner to justify, with the approval or by coercing these internal lackeys, their racist fundamentalism that intends to destroy national dignity.

As for us, we are convinced more than ever that we are on the right side of history. We follow in the footsteps and vision of Simon Bolivar, of Hugo Chavez. Independence and Sovereignty are not a possibility, they are always a certainty and they constitute an unavoidable patriotic obligation. Retaking the Bolivarian concept, we hope that those “fanatic beings of spiritual deprivation” reflect. That the “MochoHernandezes of the 21st Century” arise, and that above our internal differences, they reject the imposition and blackmail of foreign powers, and come to the side and meet the expectations of the patriotic people who, above difficulties, are capable of giving up their lives one and a thousand times for their Homeland, their independence, and their liberty. “We are the possibility of the future” like the poet Chino Valera Mora said.