Venezuelan Culture Minister Ernesto Villegas during his interview with Sputnik. Photo: José Negrón Valera.
Before the rifles sound, symbols operate. This was the central theme of the exclusive interview that the minister of Culture of Venezuela, Ernesto Villegas, granted to Sputnik. During the interview, Villegas spoke about the hybrid warfare that the US has carried out against Venezuela for the last 25 years. This assault is carried out not only on a violent and military front but also in the spheres of culture and information.
“The siege and the blockade of countries that imperialism wants to dominate, subordinate, and subjugate is essentially cultural,” he asserted.
“Before physical murder, there is moral homicide,” he remarked. “Imperialism intends to kill Venezuela, including its nationality, the Venezuelan identity.”
According to Villegas, the first act of the script is semantic: to name in order to attack. Therein lies “the systematic stigmatization of the sacred word ‘Venezuela’ and of our fellow citizens, our compatriots, compatriots in any part of the world.”
🇻🇪🗣 “Defendemos nuestra propia identidad”: Ministro de Cultura denuncia asedio contra Venezuela
Antes de que suenen los fusiles, operan los símbolos. Esa es la tesis que sostiene el ministro de Cultura de Venezuela, Ernesto Villegas, en entrevista exclusiva con Sputnik, al… pic.twitter.com/IOP8PSD7w3
— Sputnik Mundo (@SputnikMundo) September 8, 2025
A tragic, well-known script
The Venezuelan minister supported his thesis with the example of a well-known precedent. “The invasion of Iraq was military, but first the conditions were created for the stigmatization of that country,” he highlighted. “I perfectly remember Colin Powell, in the United Nations Security Council, showing an envelope, supposedly containing anthrax, to create the idea and the feeling, the emotion, even of danger, around Iraq.”
He added that the outcome was tragic, and subsequent verification dismantled the war narrative. “Later, the world found out that there were no weapons of mass destruction,” Villegas recalled.
As evidence, he cited a book by the journalist Bob Woodward, “one of the Pulitzer Prize winners for the Watergate case, called Denial of Evidence, which, in hundreds of pages, demonstrates that the [George W.] Bush government did not have any real information about the existence of such weapons of mass destruction. However, the overwhelming global psychological terror campaign with the media that existed at the time was decisive for the final attack on Iraq.”
“They proceeded with a systematic destruction of Iraq’s cultural heritage, which reveals that it was not just about a change in power, a regime change, but an attack on the culture, the memory, the identity of a people,” asserted Villegas.
“In the case of Venezuela, despite our enormous distance from Iraq, something similar is happening,” he highlighted. “There is a stigmatization of the Venezuelan. Even the term ‘Caribbean’ is being used with a certain disdain.”
The objective is not abstract, he emphasized: “The aim is to affect, to disrupt all Venezuelan cultural heritage, all the contribution [of Venezuela] to universal and Latin American culture. The aim is to obscure the Venezuelan character of cultural expression born here, to weaken the nation,” he explained. “Without history, culture, production, and cultural footprint, it is, in essence, not a nation. It is a group of people.”
Therefore, it is essential to defend sovereignty in a comprehensive manner where not only the territory but also cultural diversity and identity is protected.
“Venezuela is not a chauvinistic country,” noted Villegas. “We do not think we are better than anyone, but neither are we less. That is why we fiercely defend our own identity, our own diversities that make up the melting pot that is Venezuelan culture and nation.”
Against these US militaristic acts that align with the long-standing cultural siege of Venezuela—but are now “beginning to have more evident expressions”—Villegas recalled that Venezuela is committed to defending the diverse nature of humanity and its cultures in order to build a more peaceful world.
“Cultural uniformity, homogenization, erasing the differences between peoples, from a cultural point of view, among human groups with their specificities, is what leads to war,” he said.
Obstacles everywhere
Villegas voiced a complaint about a recent event. Some Uruguayans have reported that they could not access a freely available guide with more than 100 Venezuelan films. The minister called this “a sample of that systematic siege” that Venezuela suffers.
The remark takes on greater significance because anyone in Uruguay attempting to access the website received the following message: “Blockaded country. Access to this site is prohibited.”
“The existence of a category such as ‘blockaded country,’ from the perspective of access to culture, cultural goods, cultural services, cultural production, is scandalous because humanity is incomplete when a nation is blocked out and, even more so, its cultural expressions,” Villegas stated. “The contribution of all cultures is what makes us a human race.”
He added that after raising the complaint, Uruguayan users could access the guide to Venezuelan films within a short time.
“The logical, desirable thing for humanity is that there should be no disruption in the circulation of cultural goods for political circumstances of any kind,” Villegas said.
In response, he outlined a line of action on the international level. “Venezuela will bring to the World Conference on Cultural Policies—which will be held in Barcelona, Spain, soon—just as it did in the previous [edition] held in Mexico, the proposal that countries should equip themselves with an international instrument for the protection of cultural heritage in times of coercion through unilateral measures,” he emphasized.
Although there is already a tool for the protection of culture in times of war, the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, today, safeguards are necessary against non-conventional informational wars.
Sputnik in the culture war
The Venezuelan minister also referred to the media and information system, where a large part of the cultural battle is decided.
His assessment is unequivocal when asked about Sputnik: “If Sputnik did not exist, it would have to be created. The current world demands so. If you want to be properly informed about the complexity of the current world, you cannot turn a blind eye to the content that Sputnik has showcased.”
This is especially the case because the published materials express a diverse view on the advancement of humanity and international events that demonstrate a global paradigm shift, Villegas remarked.
“If we are exclusively in the hands of traditional powers in the field of communication, the world would be at greater risk [of conflict],” he said. “The information that Sputnik considers necessary and valuable news is essential for understanding the current world. Without it, humanity would not have reasonable perspectives.”
(Sputnik) by José Negrón Valera
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/SL
