 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we joined by His Excellency Augusto Montial, the ambassador of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. He's served as India's ambassador and he's also been a former professor and a member of the National Assembly of Venezuela. Ambassador, welcome to the program. To start with, can you give us a sense of the current crisis in Venezuela? On the one hand, you have western media reports that say that this is a popular uprising against a deeply unpopular government. On the other hand, you have government reports as well as media reports in Telusur, for instance, that say that this is a series of manipulated protests, you know, foisted by foreign intervention to oust a democratically elected government. And there's been a lot of reports in the recent past in the media. What is the reality out there in Venezuela? Excellent. Thank you very much for this opportunity to express some ideas about reality in Venezuela, which at the moment is rather difficult to decide for a person to simply say, is the news that I'm getting through corporate news agencies, western news agencies that feed the world around and they only feed one side of the story. The story about Venezuela has been presented on one side only. They only present the opposition in Venezuela. They only present the position of the United States government. They only present the position of oligarchies in the Latin American region. They do not present the facts about people's opinions. And if you're, if anybody wants to make a picture or wants to draw a picture about a country's situation, they must look for information from both sides. And in this case, if you read most Asian news articles, they either come from Reuters, from AP, or from AFP, or from CNN or the BBC. And they only present one side of the problem. Venezuela is like every other country in the world, for example, like any other country in Latin America, where there are journalists being killed, not in Venezuela, in other countries in Latin America, but these news agencies do not mention anything about that. In Venezuela, there's no such thing. In Venezuela, there is 100% literacy. In Venezuela, there is a democratic government that allows, like Constitution says and like the law says, freedom of speech, freedom of information with free Wi-Fi services all the way around, 100% literacy, health services spread around the country, housing, and so on. None of these information items are important to current corporate news. They hide the fact that Venezuela is on top of the class in social indicators, in social development, in human development index. All of these can be found in United Nations figures, statistics, reports. My question is, why don't they show the support for President Maduro in the last month on the streets, where thousands and millions of people go out every time there is a need to express the strength of the Venezuelan political system and the Venezuelan democracy at its best, where everybody can express their views, but what cannot be allowed, and this is the fact, is violence, organized violence, trained gangs going around, burning hospitals, ambulances, burning public buildings, destroying electrical power stations. What is this? Is this war? Well, violent opposition in Venezuela wants war, and the people in Venezuela, 80% of the people want peace. So President Maduro is working to keep peace in Venezuela. How? Using the Constitution, using the law. And one of the assertions that the Maduro government has made is the sort of danger of foreign intervention. Not that it hasn't already happened. There's been evidence that he's sort of put forward in terms of the US intervention. Can you speak a bit of that? And also linked to that a few weeks ago, Venezuela initiated the process of exiting from the organization of American states and citing that the Secretary General Luis Almagro was sort of trying to get together a coalition against Venezuela. So can you speak a bit about the role of the US? As always, it's been the last 50 years in the Western Hemisphere. The organization of American states, as it has been called many times, is the ministry of colonies of the country of the North. That cannot exist anymore. They are applying force. They are financing violent operations in the whole of the continent. Is it true or not that the world over knows about the intervention of the United States in many of the coup d'etats around Latin America, Central, South America, the Caribbean? Venezuela wants to live peacefully. And Venezuela created a constitution based on a very intense public debate. We want them to respect that. And the constitution says that the oil resources, the oil wealth which Venezuela is nowadays believe is there for the whole world to cooperate, grow and develop together. The United States, as Eisenhower called it, the financial industrial complex system and everything there, the multinationals, they want to control the largest oil reserve in the world, which is Venezuela. They want to control the gold in Venezuela. They want to control the diamonds in Venezuela. And now they want to control the existence of a very highly strategic element, a new metal called, a mineral called coltan. So what is happening in Venezuela is simply the ousting by violent means, in constitutionally legal, even on international grounds in Venezuela. To do that, to convince the world over, they then create a war theater. The war theater has as its target the Venezuelan political system that must be overthrown. I just want to expand on this point that you're making about oil. It's the sort of largest export sector in Venezuela up to 95% of your exports are oil. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves. And the recent slump in oil prices has created economic hardships in the country. And there's been analysis even from Venezuelan economists that you should diversify your economy more, look at issues of agriculture, other manufacturing. So clearly there is a problem in terms of excessive reliance on oil. My dear friend, that oil is a resource that you can say helps countries live a better life. So Venezuela was there for 100 years producing oil. And in 1999, Venezuela had 65% poverty numbers. 65% of the people in Venezuela lived under the poverty line in 1999. And President Chávez came to power democratically. And he called for a constitution. And this constitution has allowed Venezuela to become one of the few countries with 100% literacy, one of the few countries with almost the whole population being serviced by health, quality health services. So the drop in the price of oil is one of the reasons, of course, that the budget now cannot be as resourceful to cater for different needs. But there is not a problem. The thing is that we have been there for 17 years trying to diversify the economy under our countries in the American continent that do not like our strength and our independence. And every time we work for diversifying the economy, and I'll tell you after 100 years, when we came to power, when the government of President Chávez and President Maduro came to power, in Venezuela there was no production. Venezuela has never produced anything. What we have in Venezuela are plans by multinational companies that create the Venezuelan branch. And they call it Venezuela, juices or Venezuela, whatever, but they are branches of multinational. And all the money flows out. So President Chávez wanted to have an expansion on agriculture, an expansion on manufacturing and servicing. And in the last 18 years, and I can take you back to 2003, why after the coup d'etat that took away President Chávez for three days in 2002, why did the government of the United States financed and helped the violent opposition in Venezuela to sabotage the oil industry for three months? And Venezuela had to stop production for three months. Because they don't want us to diversify our economy and they don't want us to develop a strong country in Latin America. Even Venezuela doesn't have any international debt right now, but international financial debt raised value, rated agencies, they rate Venezuela the lowest position. Why? This is completely political. So it is politically, it is a politics what they are after, it is power what they are after. Ambassador, my last question is about the role of the international community in keeping the democratic process in Venezuela alive. And like you said. Which international institutions can you tell me? My question was about CELAC and ALBA and non-aligned movement the G77. All of these were forums that Chávez nurtured and was quite active. Are you getting enough support from sort of international forums like this? CELAC, ALBA, the non-aligned movement of which at the moment we are, we hold the presidency. President Maduro was the host of the last non-summit in 2016. In the region of Latin America and the Caribbean our most or closest allies are ALBA and CELAC was created precisely at the time where the majority of countries wanted independent processes to consolidate and decided that Latin America was a region, was an area, a zone that needed peace. And so at that six years ago all presidents signed a pact that we would not allow all presidents, even right-wing presidents in Latin America signed, that Latin America was a region, a zone of peace. And that all states must be respected. These days, as we have seen in the Organization of American States, which is, it exists under the tutelage of the United States, we have seen that many countries in the region are blackmailed and receive aggressions and receive attacks and receive threats if they try to express a certain level of independence. So we do, we receive and we have received from the non-aligned movement, from CELAC countries, from ALBA, words of expressions of support and when the need arises, each one at the different organizational logistic moments, they will continue expressing their support to keep hands of Venezuela constitutional assembly to write new norms, to write a new way. If the opposition in Venezuela wins the majority in the National Assembly, excellent, let's discuss and they will have the majority. So let's write a new constitution and let's write what we want is peace. And President Maduro has endured a great battle, a heroic battle, asking for dialogue and peace and respect for the principles of this constitution and the institutions in Venezuela. Thank you very much, Ambassador, for not just giving us a sense of what is happening in Venezuela, but also pointing to the way forward where Maduro has constituted a constituent assembly sanctioned by the constitution to resolve in a just, peaceful and democratic way the current and that is the main objective to achieve peace in Venezuela.