What truly matters in politics is not always what is said, but what is left unsaid. It is the silences that give weight to the words. To put it another way: it\u2019s what is not said about Venezuela, as well as those who choose not to speak, that condemns Venezuela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are no right-wing or left-wing frauds. There are just frauds,\u201d says Sergio Ram\u00edrez rightly. He says this in a piece titled \u201cI\u2019ve seen this movie before.\u201d The title not only refers to the Nicaraguan author, a victim of another dictatorship that is just as bad or worse than Venezuela\u2019s, but also to at least the rest of Latin Americans. Because we\u2019ve seen this movie many times and in many places. Not just the movie about fraud and the atrocities committed by dictators who constantly reappear in these regions, but also the movie about those who remain silent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Such is the case of those who, while having spoken, have also timidly remained silent in the face of the brutalities committed by Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and his gang, before, during, and after the elections. I am speaking of Mexico, for example, where President L\u00f3pez Obrador has said that it is necessary to clarify the election results\u2014as if he were unaware of the dictator’s tricks\u2014and has tried to avoid any firm condemnation of the matter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The same goes for Claudia Sheinbaum, L\u00f3pez Obrador\u2019s successor, who, mimicking his style, has also refused to condemn the tyrant\u2019s actions. She advocates for non-intervention\u2014remaining silent here\u2014yet L\u00f3pez Obrador had no qualms about criticizing and questioning\u2014speaking out here\u2014the government of Peru at every opportunity following the ousting of President Pedro Castillo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Argentina, Uruguay, Costa Rica, the United States. All of them spoke up. For now. If there\u2019s something those two groups called the left and the right share, it\u2019s the silences. If tomorrow \u2014because they always return\u2014 a dictator from the current right commits an act like Maduro\u2019s, surely the right will stay silent. There are no right-wing or left-wing silences. There are just silences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But others have spoken: Chilean President Gabriel Boric (who in the past had praised chavismo<\/em>) condemned Maduro\u2019s undemocratic actions. Beyond his successes and failures \u2014beyond any ideological issues<\/a>\u2014 he spoke and condemned, and it must be acknowledged. It\u2019s true, others have spoken too. Evo Morales, for instance, supported the Venezuelan tyrant. D\u00edaz Canel, Maduro\u2019s Cuban counterpart \u2014understood as a counterpart in terms of tyranny\u2014 also supported him as expected. They spoke. But as pointed out at the beginning, what truly matters in politics is not always what\u2019s said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Venezuelan opposition has had to remain silent. However, just as they are used to, their silence has been carefully considered. That\u2019s why, when they do speak, they must be listened to. Dictator Nicol\u00e1s Maduro persecutes, imprisons, harasses, but Venezuela screams. And it screams this loudly because silence has been imposed on it. A silence in which chavista institutions, like the National Electoral Council, are also complicit<\/a>, remaining silent when the dictator instructs them and only speaking when he tells them to. A silence that much of the international community has also been complicit in, such as when, beyond minimal complaints, opposition leader Mar\u00eda Corina Machado was disqualified as a candidate, and once again, the persecution of any opposition was repeated. Because the very nature of chavismo <\/em>is the imposition of silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the outside, we witness the decline of a nation at the hands of rascals who continue the democratic assault at any cost. From the outside, we have seen the sick body, which had given one signal after another of its illness, now agonizing, and only now is there any real attempt to treat it. Of course, it\u2019s easy to speak when one is not being persecuted. However, whatever happens to the Venezuelan dictator, this has been the consequence of silence. Imposed, chosen, or ignored. Silence that condemned those who were shouting. There are no national or international silences. There are just silences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only one will not remain silent: history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the outside, we witness the decline of a nation at the hands of rascals who continue the democratic assault at any cost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":618,"featured_media":43845,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16855,16812],"tags":[15635],"gps":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-43900","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-autoritarismo-en","8":"category-venezuela-en","9":"tag-debates"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/618"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43900"},{"taxonomy":"gps","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gps?post=43900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}