Transcription
We have Andrea Nach Chavez with us, who is a journalist, a Venezuelan journalist on the ground in Caracas. Thank you so much for being back with us.
Thank you so much for having me.
Well, let me just ask you. I know you've been out in the streets today, uh, in Caracas, capital of Venezuela. What is the scene? What, uh, what are you picking up there?
So, yes, uh, well, first of all, we've been up since 2:00 a.m. in the morning, everybody, since we heard the explosion, since we were listening to the planes in the sky, and just trying to figure out what was happening. And of course, the Venezuelan government finally confirmed that we were indeed being attacked by the United States. And at least seven points in Caracas were hit by US strikes, between civilian populations to military assets. It wasn't just military complexes, like the US is saying. There are actually residential areas that were also hit. For example, in Fortuna, Fortuna is not just a military complex, it is also a residential area. So people there were victims of these US bombings. So, yes, we've been up the entire... Then this morning, we went out, we went out, uh, to near the Miraflores Palace. Uh, we were just, uh, there listening to people who gathered outside in the streets. They were taking turns taking the microphone and just talking about what was happening. Uh, denouncing that President Maduro was indeed kidnapped by the United States. He was not captured. He was not seized. He was not arrested because he's not a criminal. He's not a drug trafficker, like the US has been saying all of these months with the excuse to, to try to overthrow Maduro and kill him, or in this case, kidnap him. Uh, so people have been taking turns just speaking in the streets, saying that Maduro has been kidnapped, that we need proof of life, that we need Maduro to come back because he is the elected president of Venezuela, that we need his wife to also return to Venezuela. Uh, and of course, people have been saying that this is the moment to, to show strength. This is the moment to show, uh, support with each other, solidarity, to remain calm, but at the same time, to not let our guard down and to stay on the streets, to continue fighting, to continue denouncing by every means necessary that what is happening in Venezuela, it is regime change. What is happening in Venezuela, it is an illegal US bombing against a civilian population, like a sovereign country. And of course, we know that of this, what's behind this entire military operation, it is what President Trump announced. He wants to take control of the Venezuelan political life. He wants to take control of Venezuela's oil resources. Uh, and that is, that is the entire, uh, reason why this is happening right now. They don't care about democracy. They don't care about drug trafficking. We know that those are lies. We know that they don't have any kind of credible evidence that Maduro or anybody in the Venezuelan government is involved in any kind of illicit activity. We know that those are lies that the US is pushing so they can justify this exact situation that we're facing right now, which is the US bombings, which is an imminent, maybe more attacks against Venezuela, maybe an a full-fledged invasion, and of course, the unfortunate kidnapping of President Maduro. And right now, uh, what people are doing in the streets is that they're just gathering, getting support from each other. Of course, there's also people who are just trying to, uh, get some essentials. You know, people are trying to find water, to find some food, just in case, you know, we don't know what is going to happen exactly in the next few days. The country is mostly calm, where people are also aware that you need to, uh, have, as you need to keep the essentials at home, and you need to keep a clear head, and you need to not fall for these psychological campaigns because there are a lot of lies right now on social media. There are a lot, a lot of lies coming from the US government. They are saying lies that they're negotiating with the rest of the, with the rest of the Venezuelan government. That is not true. We just saw Delcy Rodriguez, the vice president of Venezuela. She gave a press conference only a few minutes ago with the entire government, with the entire military force. She was saying the same thing that the government has been saying since this attack began, that we are the resistance. We are on the streets. President Maduro continues to be the president of Venezuela, and we are demanding that he is returned to Venezuela. And of course, she is saying that this is the moment that, uh, we need to show Latin America, the entire global south needs to come together and show solidarity and fight against it because this is not the end. This is not just an individual operation. This is the beginning of a US, uh, complete domination against Latin America. This is the beginning of another Monroe Doctrine. This is the beginning of this, uh, neoliberal plan that Trump has for Latin America and for the global south. So this is the beginning of a larger, larger scale intervention against all of our people. So this is what is, uh, happening right now in Venezuela.
So I, I want to know, um, I want to kind of zoom in a little bit on on what's happening in the streets because, you know, when you watch US media, uh, they make it seem as though, oh, people are celebrating. In fact, people have gone on US media who are Venezuelan, who live outside of Venezuela, and maybe sometimes inside, and said, "Yes, everyone's so happy this happened. Everyone hates Maduro." And of course, you know, Venezuelans have all kinds of different political opinions. But at the same time, inside the country, there is a huge base of people who are revolutionary, who consider themselves Chavistas, and who certainly won't, you know, go down without some sort of fight if it comes down to it. So, I'm curious if you can, uh, talk a bit about the attitude, uh, of people, uh, in the streets. I mean, I'm glad to hear there's calm, but are people celebrating? Are people happy the US kidnapped Maduro, or is it, or is it a bit more complicated than that?
No, not at all. I mean, even since last night, 2 a.m., 3:00 a.m., 4:00 a.m., when we were listening to all of these bombings and we were receiving all this information, there were no celebrations on the streets. Just people, uh, trying to understand the situation. There were people denouncing the situation, but you never heard any kind of celebration. Venezuela is not a country that is, uh, it doesn't like war. Venezuelans are peaceful people, and beyond that, they do defend sovereignty. Uh, of course, there's always, there's always going to be a group of people who are going to celebrate or support these kinds of interventions, but it's not the majority of the country. It has never been that way. That is the way the mainstream media portrays Venezuela because it is convenient for them to say that the majority of the island people wants US intervention. But that is not the truth. And we have actually proved that throughout these years. Every time there has been calls by the opposition to, uh, do violence, you know, to create this violence, wimbs and protest in the streets, people always respond completely, uh, people reject completely that idea of taking the streets of Venezuela and just, uh, overthrowing the, the Maduro government. No, that doesn't happen. That doesn't happen. It's not happening now. People right now, of course, this is an extraordinary situation. We have never lived through something like that. Even though Venezuela has lived through quite difficult circumstances over the past few years, but this is completely new. So understandably, most people are just, uh, at home. They are taking care of themselves. They're just, uh, looking to make sure that they have all of the essentials. Um, most businesses are closed. Only a few places are open. And like I said, there's this Chavista, this common movement, this grassroots, this popular power that is on the streets that is, uh, showing support for each other. Uh, most of them are getting together in their own community spaces, you know, they're protecting their own territory. They're making sure that they are, uh, giving each other, uh, all the information that is necessary to confront the situation. They're listening to the Venezuelan government. That is something very important because right now there is this, um, this intention to try to create distrust from the Venezuelan authorities. The US is trying to make us feel like we don't have no longer a leadership because Maduro was kidnapped, and that is not true. We still have a leadership. So every communal, every commune, every popular power organization, every household is just listening to what the Venezuelan authorities, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, Defense Minister Padrino López, uh, Interior Minister, they're listening to what they're saying. And what they're saying is that Venezuela needs to remain calm. We need to prepare for what is coming. We need to resist in the streets. We need to show strength. And of course, we need to, uh, continue to denounce globally that we are being attacked in a criminal, illegal, uh, campaign from the United States.
You know, Andrea, I think it's, I just want to say that for people who are outside Venezuela, the work that you're doing on the ground and the work of journalists like yourself, the independent journalists, uh, the journalists from the community radio stations, and all of the kind of community outlets in Venezuela is so important. They have been the backbone, really, of the Bolivarian revolution for two decades, telling the stories that mainstream media essentially tries to manipulate and lie. We know what happened in the 2002 coup. So, first of all, just want to say, like, thanks to your reporting, the truth is getting out, the reality on the ground. So, I think it's so important to recognize that role that popular communicators are playing, that journalists are playing in, in real time, telling the truth of what's happening on the ground because, you know, it's, it's really easy to fall into the traps of mainstream media in the West. Um, and a lot of the reporting that you've been doing, you know, as, as a journalist in these past couple years, has been precisely what you mentioned just now, is is about the communal movement, about the grassroots movements. These have been the movements that have sustained Venezuela through some of the most difficult tests. Uh, you know, this, this attack in 2026 comes after really difficult years in Venezuela. We're talking about 2017, 2018 sanctions regimes when the GDP essentially dropped by 90%. The Venezuelan people were facing a massive crisis. Um, and it was these organizations that really kind of kept the revolution alive in a lot of ways. So, I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about how those years got the people ready for this moment, and if you can talk a bit about your reporting on these, on these different kind of initiatives, because I think for people to understand Venezuela and to understand the Venezuelan process, it's not just about understanding Hugo Chavez or Nicolas Maduro, but it's really these processes, uh, that that make the revolution.
Well, you know, I always said that Venezuelan people are a people who are trained in resistance. We have a decade or more than a decade just resisting, preparing, uh, advancing, making sure that we learn from, uh, not only our mistakes, but that we learn from the situations that we are facing. And for example, when the US imposed sanctions against the Venezuelan oil industry in 2017, and basically they destroyed our oil industry, the oil exports dropped completely, and that is the main source of revenue for Venezuela, and that meant that Venezuela had no money. The economy was completely in shambles. There was a very severe, catastrophic humanitarian situation that we were facing. People faced hunger. People were dying for lack of medicine. And this was, this was all a direct result of US sanctions against Venezuela. But what happened? The Venezuelan people realized that, okay, so they hit us really hard. They cut off our oil revenues. They cut off essential imports, and they managed to create an an economic asphyxiation, and we paid a really high price for that. But we didn't give up. We realized that we needed to come together and create new ways to reclaim our sovereignty. So what happened? Venezuela became more self-sufficient. We now, we used to depend almost entirely on imports. We now produce almost 100% of the food we consume. Which means that we can no longer face an extrication situation like the US tried to has tried to orchestrate again and again and again, because we now have means to provide for ourselves, and we now are people who have a more sovereign production. We have more sovereign distribution systems. We have more solidarity than ever. We there have been so many solidarity, uh, initiatives that have been created because of the US sanctions. One of them, and I've mentioned this a lot, but it is truly one of the best ones. It is the Plan CLAP, CLAP, which is a distribution system that is between rural communes and organized communities in cities, and they come together to make sure that they can distribute food to, to every school, to almost every school in, in Venezuela. And so, yes, we have been, we have been training. We have been changing our, our patterns of consumption. We have been changing the way we, we see sovereignty. So now we have a more, uh, ample concept of what sovereignty really means. And what sovereignty really means is that we need to take control of the means of production. We need to take control of, uh, everything as a people. So, yes, we have resisted US sanctions, and and even though we have never faced a situation like this before, we have never been militarily intervened or attacked like this before, uh, I think we are people who are ready to face, uh, these new circumstances. And more than that, I think we have a strong military-civilian union, and we know that we are not alone, that we also have Latin America. Didn't just spend the last 20 years, uh, rehearsing against US imperialism to now drop the ball. I think Latin America is, is going to play an important role. I think the global south is going to play an important role in denouncing what is happening in Venezuela. So, yes, I think we, we are definitely people who have learned to resist, and we might as well learn to resist this.
Well, we really appreciate you being willing to join us and sort through it all and help report live from what's going on on the ground in Caracas. Andrea Chavez, Venezuelan journalist. We will continue to follow and uplift everything you're doing, and we really appreciate you joining us here.
Thank you.