“We want to remind the world that Venezuela is a noble, cheerful people who want and invites all the countries of the world to know that we are on the right side of history.”
2024 is a crucial year for Venezuela politically and diplomatically. In view of this, what are some of the priority areas to be considered prospectively in Venezuelan foreign policy?
Governed by our Constitution and guided by the Constitutional President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro Moros and his Government team Venezuela seeks to achieve its place on the global geopolitical board through an internal policy whose objective is to generate as much happiness and well-being as possible for its people, and a foreign policy of the State governed by the Bolivarian Diplomacy of Peace.
In this New World Order that we want to attain, where plurality, diversity and collective development of people are in harmony and peace, Venezuela has faced a large number of obstacles that make it difficult to reach its political and economic objectives.
One of these elements that continue to focus on Venezuelan foreign policy is the application of unilateral coercive measures by the United States and hegemonic countries, generating an economic war exercised through this perverse and destructive mechanism and that continues to affect the entire country. As a sovereign nation, we will continue to build strategic alliances by designing mechanisms to face such unilateral coercive measures.
This year 2024 is also crucial for Venezuela, since on July 28 the free and sovereign election of the President of the Republic will be held. In them, the political plurality of our electoral system has allowed various personalities from the political sphere to be running for office and 13 candidates will participate with the support of 37 political organisations.
The Venezuelan government has endeavoured to introduce a series of political decisions aimed at encouraging progress, even in the face of adversities, of Venezuelans in general. Can you highlight some of these recent decisions taken by your government?
Faced with the historical point in which we are, our planet has two possible slopes to travel, or it decides to continue on the unilateral path where all countries depend on the decisions of an authoritarian Western power bloc or chooses the path that we are building and that we vision through multilateralism. Venezuela has chosen the latter, always within the framework of solidarity and respect for the self-determination of each country.
President Nicolás Maduro Moros, hand in hand with the sovereign people, has shown that the decisions are not unilateral but in a team, so under the democratic, participatory and leading popular consultation that was held at the beginning of the year, has implemented and designed an Action Plan where the vision of the country that we all build together is reflected. Through, among others, the 7T Plan, which represent 7 Transformations that are immediately actions in favour and protection of our sovereign people at the national level.
This plan seeks to transform the economy, promote and maintain the full independence of the nation while defending internal and territorial security; the humanist and socialist model is renewed through policies of inclusion and participation; and that are accompanied by an ecological transformation and a policy focussed on insertion within geopolitics and global leadership through the Bolivarian Diplomacy of Peace.
Indo-Venezuelan ties are deep, celebrating in 2024 the 65th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral relations between the two countries. How do you evaluate this bilateral partnership?
Indeed, in October of this year it will be 65 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between Venezuela and India. Over more than six decades, we have united bonds of friendship, solidarity, commercial, energy, agronomy, health, cultural, academic cooperation, among others.
This year it is planned to hold the Third Mixed Commission, which will contribute to promoting and strengthening various productive areas.
The BRICS, which are a strategic part of that vision of the New World that we want to achieve, will be able to guarantee environmental, food safety and protection, but above all, the preservation of life and the species in general. This organisation, of which India is part, would help deepen the bilateral relationship between our countries, and the creation of a multipolar power within that new international order that will contribute to a better world.
India and Venezuela have shared close economic cooperation in the field of hydrocarbons for decades. In your opinion, what are some of the other key areas that would allow the expansion of bilateral trade between the two countries?
In 2005, President Hugo Chávez visited India, establishing strategic alliances that activated our oil industry. That moment was the beginning of a new foreign policy of the Bolivarian Government towards India that promoted transcendental advances through the signing of agreements and legal instruments in the area of oil, gas and other hydrocarbons.
On the 65th anniversary of bilateral relations between the two countries, Venezuela seeks to work on the possibility of attracting markets and investors in other areas that allow strengthening, for example, the technological and scientific field through training exchanges, or exchange of equipment and training of specialised technicians.
Our country is also open to seeking strategic alliances in the cultural and tourism field as well as the possibility of establishing maritime routes that reduce import and export costs of goods that merchants and entrepreneurs can acquire with flexibility of port taxes, among others. The relationship between Venezuela and India has a lot of potential and areas where it can continue to be strengthened.
In your long and recognised career, you had the opportunity to serve your nation in multiple and diverse roles, ranging from academic to now representing Venezuela as Minister of People’s Power for Foreign Affairs. How do you remember those years of service?
Since I was young I have fought for a better world. The man I am today resembles that of yesterday, in a progression product of the ideals and dreams that have always accompanied me. I would then say that the experiences lived, the failures, the disappointments, have fuelled who I am and have prepared me for new challenges.
Throughout my life I have assumed various responsibilities throughout the Bolivarian Revolution, as President of institutions, Deputy Minister, Minister of Agriculture, and now as Chancellor of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. These honours are in turn only titles within the constant struggle that involves being revolutionary and visioning a better world where each of us builds the Homeland that Simón Bolívar, our liberators, as well as Commander Hugo Chávez, left us.
Venezuelans will meet on July 5, 2024, as every year, to commemorate the Signing of the Venezuelan Independence Act of 1811. What are some of the main events scheduled to commemorate this historic occasion?
This year will be 213 years of that victorious day on which the Act of the Declaration of Independence of our country was signed, and which consecrated the beginning of a long independence struggle of our liberators. Under the ideology of Simón Bolívar and Francisco de Miranda, the freedom, consolidation and conformation of the Nation State of what we now constitute as a Republic, was consecrated at the time.
This date is a day of joy in which, year after year, various historical, political and cultural celebrations are held throughout the country. Among them can be highlighted a floral offering in the National Pantheon, a mausoleum where he is watching from the afterlife for our America and our sovereign freedom. The exhibition of the original Act of Independence to the general public is also programmed, among others, in the National Assembly and in the hall of the Municipal Council.
The Constitutional President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela as Commander-in-Chief of our Bolivarian Armed Force also attends a military civic parade in which the people take part as members of the Bolivarian militias, the various schools and military academies, and also young people from educational units, social movements, cultural movements, all together in civic and military union, celebrate with joy our Independence.
Would you like to send a message to our readers of “Envoy Excellency”?
Bolívar taught us the courage to believe and fight for our dreams; he, his men and women believed at that time in a different world. Today we continue to fight for that dream, to defend our Independence, for decolonisation and denial of any type of foreign interference that wishes to impose its laws, customs and decisions towards sovereign people.
Venezuela along with President Nicolás Maduro Moros, under the inspiring and ideal legacy of Bolívar and Chávez continues to strengthen the foundations of the emancipatory and liberating thought that another world is possible.
We want to remind the world that Venezuela is a noble, cheerful people who want and invites all the countries of the world to know that we are on the right side of history. We have demonstrated it and we will continue to do so and with the union and strength of our people we will find that world we want, under a democratic, participatory and leading vision.