She betrayed Maduro? The truth about Venezuela: GEH w María Páez Victor and Francisco Dominguez

I am grateful that Radhika Desai took on this topic.  In one sense we want to keep it a secret until it is time, but on the other, we know that those that say Venezuela ‘caved’, are simply uninformed and sour because Venezuela did not do what they wanted them to do.  Yes, Venezuela retreated under guns to save their lives in order to fight another day.  The social values are different from those of the Middle East, where martyrdom is revered.  Chavez though, laid down another value.  Retreat when you have to retreat and live to fight another day.   We know now that Nicholas Maduro was the one who said to lay down weapons and not fight.  All the stories that Delcy Rodriques betrayed Nicholas Maduro are dust in the wind.   There is one social value (there are more but for this purpose …)  that is shared, and that is self-determination and the sovereign right to self-government.  This is what multipolarity is all about in its essence.

The truth on what is happening and what has happened in Venezuela is slowly surfacing. The Bolivarian Revolution is alive and well, yet, in true resistance style, one cannot find it, unless you are out on the streets and understand step by step what they need to do to keep on living, and you understand what Delcy Rodriques is doing.  Gustavo Petro from Colombia recently said that Latin America, if pushed further, is going to explode in revolution.  He has just completed his first visit to Venezuela and he and Delcy Rodriques re-established a new fraternal bond.

Roger Waters, on April 13th, joined Venezuelan protestors outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, demanding the release of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.  This date is symbolic.  In 2002, on that day, the Venezuelan people took to the streets and thwarted the media and business coup that had removed Commander Hugo Chávez from power for less than 48 hours. Venezuela commemorates it every year as National Dignity Day, and in 2026, it did so with a massive national march while, thousands of miles away, US activists and a progressive rock icon demanded the president’s return to his country.    https://orinocotribune.com/roger-waters-demands-release-of-president-maduro-cilia-flores-in-brooklyn/

“Given that Trump’s illegal stunt in Venezuela, bombing Caracas and other cities, kidnapping President Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores and killing dozens in the course of a single night has been followed by so many others: threats over Greenland, lectures to Europe on its civilization and now the botched war on Iran, on the one hand, there is hardly any mention of Venezuela in the press. On the other hand, there is frequent reference to the ‘Venezuela Model’ of Trump’s imperialism. The assumption is that Trump successfully effected regime change, installed a pliant government in the country, practically a viceroy taking orders from the White House, has made Venezuelan oil and other minerals open to investment by US oil majors who are now set to control Venezuelan oil and even controls Venezuelan oil revenues. Venezuela is, in other words, done and dusted.

But, how much of this is true? With me to do all this are two of the most knowledgeable and committed scholars and activists on Venezuela that I’ve ever know, Maria Páez Victor and Francisco Dominguez!”