WASHINGTON, USA – The General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (GS/OAS) supports the initiative of the interim president of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, to reach a National Salvation Agreement that allows the re-democratization and re-institutionalization of the country.
The country’s situation requires it. Venezuela is mired in the worst humanitarian crisis in hemispheric history, as well as the worst migration and corruption crisis in hemispheric history. Systematic human rights violations, drug trafficking and organized crime have completely devastated the country.
Likewise, with the events in Apure, the lack of territorial control of the Maduro-Jorge Rodríguez dictatorship has become even more evident, and how it has ceded territories to irregular groups and criminal gangs. All this in the midst of an atrocious ecocide in the arco minero.
For this reason, the GS/OAS welcomes the initiative of the interim government and we hope that it can achieve the results that the Venezuelan people long for – freedom and prosperity to leave behind the social, economic and political crisis that they are currently experiencing.
The main elements of threat to the Maduro-Rodríguez dictatorship continue to be those that the GS/OAS contributed substantially and essentially to promoting, such as the reporting of crimes against humanity by the dictators and their officials, as well as the sanctions against them. These pressures on the dictators carried out by the GS/OAS have been subject to attempts to negotiate, obviously in an inadequate way, several times by the multiple “negotiating groups” that have been created and that have been, in the best of cases, mocked in their good faith actions by the regime. We must recognize that, in some cases, “negotiation” has been confused with “appeasement.”
Unfortunately, the influence in these negotiations of collaborationist actors, both from inside and outside the dictatorship, has also contributed negatively.
The step taken by the interim president must be recognized and supported by the international community. We hope that it will give Venezuela the re-democratization that it longs for and that is so necessary to rebuild the country.