President Maduro details the new dialogues with the Unitary Platform opposition during a radio program. Photo: Presidential Press.
The Venezuelan government aims to recover state assets worth billions of dollars blocked in financial institutions abroad due to the blockade and unilateral coercive measures imposed by the United States, Canada and the European Union. This issue will be the principal theme of the dialogue between the Venezuelan government and a sector of the opposition represented by the Unitary Platform, which is restarting in Mexico on Saturday, November 26. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced this and affirmed that the recovered resources will be invested in public services and welfare schemes for the Venezuelan people. He made these comments during the radio program La Hora de la Salsa y la AlegrĂa, broadcast by Radio Miraflores on Thursday, November 24.
President Maduro commented that the government has been in talks with the Unitary Platform for months, accompanied by the Kingdom of Norway as a facilitator country. “All the money that we can recover from these bank accounts containing billions of dollars, we will invest in the necessary electric service, in water supply, health, education, in Las TejerĂas, in El Castaño, in the places where bridges have been destroyed due to the torrential rains, due to the climate change,” the president said.
He reiterated that the dialogues have taken place “in silence among Venezuelans, with the support of the Kingdom of Norway.” He thanked Norway “for its prudent diplomatic work… without any desire for prominence, for showmanship as we say in Venezuela.”
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He also thanked the government of Mexico led by President AndrĂ©s Manuel LĂłpez Obrador and Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard “for their positive and prudent diplomacy that has supported and serves as a basis for these dialogues to be resumed at a new level, a new point of dialogue. A new point in terms of recovering the frozen resources to invest them in the Venezuelan people, and then we will see what other issue can be discussed with this sector of the opposition.”
President Maduro emphasized that his government is committed to dialogue with the entire Venezuelan society. “Venezuela has very advanced levels of social, political, economic and cultural dialogue with all of society,” he said. “But now we have committed ourselves to dialogue with the political sector that is dependent on the United States, that responds to the orders of the US government—with the sector that, for a while, was grouped around GuaidĂł and is no longer so.”
Venezuela has always had dialogue
The president considered it an exaggeration by international media and press agencies to say that “dialogue is being resumed.” “Venezuela has always had dialogue,” he said. “It is not that dialogue is resumed. It is that we are going to dialogue with the extremist opposition sector that tried to carry out a coup d’Ă©tat in Venezuela and failed. We are reaching out to them as a bridge of salvation for them to return to democracy, to the Constitution. Our people and the world must be clear about that.”
“We are negotiating with a sector that sought military intervention in Venezuela, that called the government of Donald Trump to invade us,” he added.
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He explained that although the Unitary Platform represents only 28% of the total opposition vote in the country, the dialogue is important for the good of the nation. He stated that he dedicates a great deal of time to communication with all the Venezuelan opposition parties.
The president emphasized that peace is the path of the Bolivarian Revolution. “Peace is our port, as Liberator SimĂłn BolĂvar used to say. And we are going to look for peace through dialogue, understanding, harmony, the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, respect for the Constitution,” Maduro stated.
He called the dialogue “encouraging, auspicious good news.”
President Maduro emphasized that Venezuelans will not tolerate any “imposition by the news agencies, the hegemonic media of the West, or the United States and foreign governments, neither today nor ever. Listen to the people’s voice: nobody is going to impose anything on us today, tomorrow or ever!”
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/SF
