On January 4, 2019, the governments of the now clearly declining Lima Group announced that as of the 10th of that same month - the date on which, after winning an election with better figures in terms of majority and participation than those legitimized by several of the leaders who questioned him, Nicolás Maduro would be proclaimed President of Venezuela - they would stop recognizing the Bolivarian government as the representative of the Venezuelan people.
From that moment on, the actions, sanctions and statements against the Maduro government continued one after the other without pause, with an open role for the United States government, in the person of its president, vice president, secretary of state and the Counselor. of National Security.
The recognition by Washington and a group of its allies of a self-proclaimed president in opposition to Maduro, plus economic sanctions, which have involved from the confiscation of billions of dollars of property owned by the Venezuelan government in the United States, Latin America and Europe to the persecution of its finances and its commerce throughout the world, the constant calls and blackmails of the military to carry out a coup d'etat against the Bolivarian government, and a systematic demonization and production of false news about what is happening in the country, make up a scenario in which all the weapons of the fourth generation war have been used.
The climax was the attempt to breach Venezuelan borders from Colombia and Brazil by combining the use of violence, the announcement of “humanitarian aid” outside the country’s authorities, the fabrication of incidents to blame the Bolivarian government, a concert with stars of the mainstream of commercial Latin music and the presence of several Latin American presidents there together with the Cuban-American senator Marco Rubio who tweeted in a state of total euphoria images of the dismemberment of the Libyan leader Gaddafi. A month later, the sabotage of the national electrical system left the entire country without electricity for several days.
Due to the magnitude of these facts and challenges, it is necessary to measure the success of Nicolás Maduro:
- He managed to maintain the civic union to mount and grow in the popular militias that number three million members.
- Oil production has begun to recover after falling to 700 barrels per day, exceeding one million one hundred thousand, to which is added a substantial increase in gold exports.
- Today the opposition is more divided than ever, several opposition deputies accuse the self-proclaimed "interim president" of corruption, and a significant part of them joined an agreement with the government to politically stabilize the country.
- The situation of violence, shortages, large queues and rampant hyperinflation has been overcome, and the country, despite great difficulties, lives in an environment of stability.
- The crisis of neoliberalism has brought large crowds of rebels into the streets in Ecuador, Chile and Colombia, countries that had joined the siege led by Washington against Venezuela.
- The coup d'état in Bolivia teaches the left in the need for the unity of the revolutionary forces and the radicality in not making any type of concessions to the Washington pawns.
- Since the July celebration of the Sao Paulo Forum in Carcas, Venezuela has led a process of concertation of left-wing forces in Latin America and beyond that is rearticulating social movements and progressive forces, the most recent result of which is the launch of an International University of the Communication to endow communicators with the technological and cognitive tools for contemporary ideological struggle.
Time magazine won't say it, but Maduro is the man of the year. He has led the resistance to one of the largest imperialist offensives in history and has maintained the initiative, managing to sustain the unity of the internal revolutionary forces and international alliances in favor of multilateralism, sovereignty and popular interests.
Cuban journalist
Former President of the Cuban Book Institute
