Transcription
We knew this would happen and now we want President Maduro back and now we want to affirm that uh even though you kidnapped President Maduro, it doesn't mean that the Bolivarian revolution is over.
[music] Tell us about what is happening because obviously as I just mentioned earlier, you know, Western media is not very reliable in general. It certainly isn't reliable when it comes to uh Venezuela. So uh what is happening like uh what happened during the uh attack? How did you experience it? Did you wake up to it?
>> So, yes. So, just to give you like a timeline of the things that happened. Basically, at around 2:00 a.m. in the morning, uh I woke up with the sound with this tremendous loud explosion sound. Uh, of course, I have no idea what was happening. I It felt like an earth girl, like maybe the sky was falling down. I immediately got up. Uh, immediately went to the window. I could hear the explosions. I could hear the planes flying, but I couldn't actually see them. Uh, but I knew they were closed and I knew that something bad was happening because the sound was like something like I've never heard before. Uh, immediately friends and family began calling me. We began exchanging messages and phone calls just trying to understand what was happening. We all knew that this was something bad. Uh, there was a part of me that already knew that this was most likely a US military aggression, but of course we needed to remain calm. So I just tried to wait until there was absolute confirmation. In the meanwhile, I was seeing videos and photos on social media of people like me who woke up to these loud sounds and they looked out the window and they saw that there were explosions around where they lived. And so in total there were like six places in Karakas that were hit by US strikes. Uh not only military complex places because the US is saying that they only hit these military sites and that's not true. They they actually also hit civilian areas, urban areas, civilian populations. Uh for example, they mentioned Fortuna, which is a military complex, but Fortuna is not just a military complex. It has a lot of residential areas around it. So uh the strikes were actually u quite uh tremendous and they are actually they actually cause some civilian casualties which we will have a balance about it uh soon enough from the Venezuelan government.
So that's what happened around 3:00 a.m. in the morning. We got like the first confirmation from the Venezuelan government that indeed we were under military attack. Uh the mil the community said that it called the people to just remain calm but at the same time was saying this is the moment to resist. This is the moment to fight. Everybody has to be in high alert. Everybody has to be ready to defend the the patriot to defend the sovereignty. So we waited. We was just like, "Okay, so we're just going to continue to wait for more confirmation from the government."
So after the defense minister, Vladimir Parino Lopez, he went on television. And he said the same thing. He said, "Yes, we are being attacked by the United States. This is a criminal imperialist aggression. This is illegal. This is of course something that the Venezuelan army is going to face with our heads holding high." He said that the military was already in the streets. they were already trying to take uh control of the situation and he called the Venezuelan people to of course trust in the military, trust in the militia, trust in this civilian military union and to remain calm inside their houses. Uh soon after that we got the most uh devastated statement from the Venezuelan government which was Vice President Del Rodriguez saying that indeed President Maduro had been kidnapped alongside his wife Silia Flores and I think it's very important that we emphasize this part. President Nicolas Maduro an elected constitutional president was kidnapped by US forces. He was not captured. He was not arrested. No he was moved.
>> Exactly. None of that. None of that. We all know that the United States has built this fantasy narrative that the Venezuelan government is somehow behind this huge narot trafficking uh organization with absolutely no proof about that, no evidence about that. They have been using that narrative to kill civilian people on small boats in the Caribbea for four months. And now they're using the same narrative to kidnap a elected president and to bomb civilia populations in Venezuela. Karagas wasn't the only place that was attacked. There were also strikes in different states. Miranda, Ara, Laara. We have been seeing videos and images on social media of people who witnessed these attacks. So we know that there were actually some really uh harm to the civilian population. Uh after all of that, when we had confirmation that we were on the US military attack, when we had confirmation that President Maduro had been kidnapped, uh of course the next stage was we need to go to the streets. So that's what we did right in the morning when around 9:00 a.m. we started sort of exchanging messages. Okay, so where do we go? Of course, we have to go to Mira Flores. We have to go to the presidential palace. And that's what we did. We went there. Of course, the city was very militarized. Um there was a lot of people who were just kind of uh looking for essentials, people looking for water, looking for food, trying to you know say find all of the supplies because we don't know what's going to happen in the next following days. But there were also people near Miraaf Flores who were just gathering there in solidarity who were just uh taking turns to speak on the microphone and speak their mind denounce that the US had violated Venezuela. sovereignty that the US had uh engaged in this criminal bombing against Venezuela. Uh demanding that President Maduro is return to Venezuela, demanding proof of life of President Maduro and his wife Flores and of course denouncing that behind this whole military operation was change which is what Venezuela has been denouncing forever. We have we've been saying that everything that the US has been doing, the narrative of drug trafficking, the militarization of the Caribbean, these accusations against President Maduro of narco terrorism. We know that all of behind all of that is just the intention to take control of Venezuela, to take control of Venezuelan resources. And that's exactly what Trump admitted when he gave that press conference saying that Maduro had been captured, which is actually kidnapped.
>> He said that from now on the US is going to run Venezuela. he's going to take control of Venezuela and they're going to take control of Venezuelan oil. So that's exactly what they wanted and they say they just they use the narrative but they also make the truth at some point.
>> Right?
>> So that's basically what has been going on here. So these are two people that were they were in the streets. They were just uh these signs were something that happened very sporadically in the moment. People decided okay we need to make signs. We need to write something down. So people were handing around these cartelas. Yeah. spons and they were just making these messages basically saying uh we want President Madro back. President Maduro is continues to be our president. The revolution hasn't died. The revolution continues. Uh just affirming this uh sending these messages out there saying that we we're not giving up. We're not giving up.
Moments like this, we have to understand that this is such a uh new experience. We have never been through something like this. Venezuela has been through so many terrible circumstances. We have been under US sanctions for a decade. We have uh been through devastating con humanitarian consequences because of US sanctions. We have persisted so much. We have faced so many coups so many coupens attempts of mercenary invasions. But this is something that of course we haven't experienced so far. We have been denouncing that this was going to happen. There was a a UN emergency meeting that Venezuela called and not so recently in which the Venezuelan ambassador Samuel Monada, he said it like that in front of all of these countries. He said the US is preparing to invade Venezuela. The United States is preparing to do something against President Maduro, a decapitation strike, something. And we have been announcing this and nobody did anything. Nobody did anything. So that this is why right now when you go to the streets and you see Venezuelans protesting, it is basically people saying we've been saying this and we've been saying that we are we were going to be attacked. We knew this would happen and now we want President Maduro back and now we want to affirm that uh even though you kidnapped President Maduro, it doesn't mean that the Bolivarian revolution is over. It doesn't mean that this is that we and and are going to continue fighting. Of course not.
So these are all people who just spontaneously got there. They just gathered there and there was a stage and a microphone and anybody who wanted to speak they could do it. So everybody would just go up to the stage and they will just start speaking about their own experiences with the Venezuelan revolution. There was a man who was saying, "Oh, I am Colombian and I came to Venezuela and I immediately fell in love with the body revolution because it was a a process that made me feel like human dignity was actually something that was achievable, you know, like this is a government that cares about its people, about education, about healthcare, about uh and the dignity of just being a people with sovereignty and self-determination, not being the back of the United States, not being just is not having puppet governments that just do anything that the United States wants." So he was talking about their experience and like him many people will do the same and like they will say I am a worker. I support President Maduro the same way I support President Chavez. I and there were people who had like this absolute clarity which is something that I admire so much about the Venezuelan people in general. There there's so much political consciousness. There was someone explaining Venezuela nationalizes because it is our natural resources and we needed those those we needed to nationalizes so we could actually provide for our people so we could give free healthcare and free education to our people. So the oil belongs to Venezuelan not to President Donald Trump.
I want to to read uh or to ask you to respond to some comments that in in the chat and that you know this is such a common talking point which is that people will say no my family is in Venezuela and they're so happy about what's happening or no I have a friend who's in Venezuela and they're happy and you're bring on Andreina and she's biased and Katie you're biased and you just love Maduro and you're not showing the real uh truth. So what is your response to that argument?
So listen, since the whole bombing happened, there hasn't been any single people in the streets, any single kind of celebration protest in the streets. That is not the Venezuelan people in general. The Venezuelan people, they do not want war. They don't want military intervention. So no, that that is not happening. There is no such thing as the country is just calm. the country is just quietly waiting to uh trusting that the Venezuelan authorities are handling the situation, trusting that uh we are going to resist the situation. We're going to fight back. We're going to somehow overcome what is happening right now. I also have friends and family from all the the political spectrum that we have in Venezuela. So I also have this perspective that I know that many people who may not support uh the Venezuelan government, they also do not support the intervention of the US military. They do not support this colonialist kind of mentality. Uh I think people confuse this with the the small sector that represents Maria Korina Machado who we all know is a is someone who openly welcomes US military intervention. Someone who has been asking for in an invasion someone who has been selling Venezuela like Venezuela is just something that she can sell. She has been saying that Venezuela is a sexy woman that you can just give her up. You know we have all this oil. We're so so attractive. you can come and and take anything you want once we get rid of Maduro and everybody else. So there's a small section, a small radical section like Marado that supports this, but that's not the majority of the Venezuelan people. And you we're not seeing any I mean I've been I've been in the streets. I've been walking around.
>> I've seen people so I know for a fact that that is not happening.
>> Yeah. And also um of course poor Oina Machado. She's uh Trump does not have a lot of confidence in her. So that that must have been awkward for her to watch that uh press conference.
>> We still have a Venezuelan government. Vice President Deli Rodriguez is in power right now. She gave a press conference earlier today. She was alongside the entire military uh officers and other Venezuelan officials. And she was saying that uh we are still here. We are resisting. We are maintaining operations. We are declaring a a state of commotion in Venezuela. we are going to give a balance very soon about the casualties of the US bombings. So there's no uh vacuum of power. There's no such thing. The US has been claiming that they are negotiating with Rodriguez. They they first said that she had already fled to Russia. Then they said that they were negotiating with her and she very clearly stated and negotiated with anybody. I am here. I am >> with the Venezuelan people. We are calling the Venezuelan people to resist and we are asking demanding that President Maduro is returned back safe and safe.