 Hi, everyone. Welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America. This is Code Pink's weekly webinar, 20 minutes of hot news out of Latin America and the Caribbean. We come to you live via Zoom and Facebook every Wednesday, 9 a.m. Pacific, 12 p.m. Eastern. And today I'm very pleased to welcome for all of you to hear directly from and share comments, questions with Carlos Ron, Venezuelan Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, representing North America, and Carlos has worked in North America for many, many years. He is now working out of Caracas and is coming to us live from Caracas this afternoon. So we are really happy that he has been able to make time for us despite all of the news and projects on your hands, and so much of it coming directly from the United States. This morning and afternoon Eastern time, we're going to give Carlos 20 minutes to talk about the US aggression towards Venezuela and US Venezuelan foreign policy in general, but specifically the maximum pressure campaign that has been overtly discussed in the media from the White House and the State Department, and very clearly yesterday at a public event with Elliott Abrams, the US Special Envoy to Venezuela. So welcome Carlos and thank you so much for giving us this time today and we're really pleased to hear from a representative of the elected Venezuelan government. And why don't you start by telling us what the maximum pressure campaign is and, and then let's go from there. Thank you Terry well it's a pleasure for me to be here and to be able to join your audience. So well, let me start by thanking you and all of co pink for the support and solidarity that you have all not only towards Venezuela but towards the rest of Latin America. Yesterday was a, you had a very excited crowds in Caracas, enjoying what took place. And, you know, having somebody actually stand up and say to Abrams and to the people that were in that room that you know what they're doing against Venezuela is really a crime against humanity. That's what we believe these so called sanctions are. So, what we were talking about the new or a new step in this campaign against Venezuela, which a couple days ago, there was a number seven there was a phone call. And those press calls that they give to press briefings, the high government officials give up and you never know who the who the government official is, you know, they blank out the name. That very dangerous term. No, it's funny because it's hard for me to explain here, you know, because everybody won't who said that I was like, oh, some high governments and nobody who is nobody knows who it is because they don't they hide them. Because, you know, we think they're so ashamed of what they're saying they rather not show their faces. But in any case, this so called high government officials. So speaking about the, you know, how they're stepping up their campaign against Venezuela against the legitimate government person of the world and and they're saying they're calling this the maximum pressure they saying that until now, they have only asserted about 50% of the pressure that they could exert, but that they could. What is that 50%. Well apparently what they mean by this is that you know the economic financial blockade that you know the so called sanctions that they're doing against Venezuela. We say so called sanctions because like remind our listeners these are unilateral coercive measures are not real sanctions because there's no authority by the United States to sanction anyone sanctions real sanctions according to international law can only take place. Once the Security Council has met and has decided that there's a country that needs to be somehow held accountable for something and that's when these are implemented. These are illegal measures taken by generally like one country. So far, and you know there's many reports there's that super report the thoughts about at least 40,000 deaths, we have for the size of the report to human rights in a nation say even calculate even more that's to the effect of these illegal measures. At the end of the day, we're talking about blockade that does not let us make, you know, timely purchases of medicine food, essential goods that we need for consumption production and all these things. And, and also, you know, other measures that are blocking, you know, everyday life for most Venezuelans. One of the recent ones, for example, was an attack on our signature airline, which is state government or state owned airline called a conviasa. And, you know, the workers from conviasa now face, you know, problems because you know these these these measures are now blocking the conviasa ability to travel and to refuel and to some of the basic things that an airline needs to do. These affects not President Maduro doesn't affect me and affects, you know, the whole population that the workers of the airline, the people that use these airlines to to travel. You know, one of the issues that has been going on recently in Latin America and you almost know this is that there was a hike in xenophobia against Venezuelan migrants into many of these countries throughout the region peru Ecuador we saw violent cases people chasing Venezuelans down the streets. And we decided as a government that, you know, there are some of our people that that left the country, you know, seeking like other immigrants still seeking a better, better economic alternative. And when they arrived in these other countries in Latin America, they felt, you know, that they had been trick that it wasn't what they were expecting and now they were facing these type of racist aggressions. So we implemented a program where these people were will be able to come back to Venezuela. We had we chartered the plane and they would come back to the country and be able to come home and try to, you know, work things out here. Now this program is also going to be to affect affected by these economic sanctions on conviasa which is the airline that carried out these travels. So in a general sense, you know, they already are inflicting a strong amount of pain into the, you know, into the people's lives here. This is not an attack on the government. This is an attack on the whole population. This is this is what in international law is seen is known as collective punishment. You cannot, you know, cannot punish a whole group of people whole nation of people, just because you want to promote redeem change or change of government that is favorable to your policies. This is what the violates the violates is it. Now, they're saying that this is only 50%. We've only seen 50% right now. So now they're going to some other extreme. And what our concern is, is that while they say this they are involving our neighboring countries, they're involving Colombia, they're involving Brazil in less than two weeks, both presidents have of those countries have gone to meet with Donald Trump, then they have also gone to me with the Southern American command. And, you know, we know that we've seen this in other cases throughout history, how they, there's always the staging of a false flag operation in order to generate to justify international they even recovered a mechanism called the real treaty, which is something that was assigned in the Cold War as a sort of South American version of NATO. And that was never it was never productive was never activated. And now these countries, you know, the United States, followed by Canada and by all the right wing governments in the region are trying to activate this. treaty in order to justify intervention in Venezuela that could be a military intervention. This is something that we're scared of because I mean even Trump in 2017 said himself, we haven't ruled out the we have all options on the table, including the military option. So we have been threatened, even though we're called that you know the threat of the national security threat. Yeah, but the we're the only ones that have actually, you know, President Madura has never planned Trump with an invitation but you know we have been threatened with a military action. So it is, it is definitely concerned, you know, a lot of concern, because when you see what's going on inside of Venezuela, during the last few months, you know, they tried to prop up this, this regime of one white though as a, they call them interim president, you know, this is a person has never been elected to any, any position near the presidency. He, he is then has been using this so called the interim presidency to all these months to gain tax US taxpayers money because you know they're either gaining millions and millions of dollars from USAID from other things that they put on the, on the budget. And, and then even there's questions as to what's going on with this money if it disappeared if it was stolen. In any case, they have, they really don't have any, any true support in the Minnesota streets they had even yesterday a demonstration you saw that it was some people yes because there are people in the opposition that's that is true. But they don't have the support of all of the opposition there's actually a very important part of the opposition that is sitting down now with the government, trying to work the composition of a new electoral council, because this year according to our constitution we need to have new elections for the National Assembly. When you see is this small group of opposition leaders who are in key, you know, right to mean with Trump, and they're they're trying to be, you know, to not allow elections take place that they're blocking the approval of a new electoral council. They're blocking diplomacy with the United States and we could have always solved this through diplomacy, sitting down, figuring things out, you know, we don't have to agree on everything but we can have a relationship with respect if that was the case. But this is a small group of opposition leaders were trying to maintain this disruption and the US is packing them, because they're they're going to, they're wanting to promote the policies that the United States seeks in their interest. I wonder if I can ask you something at this point about that internal dialogue because that is something that is heard very very little of here in the states that there actually is dialogue between the government. And I guess I would use the word the more reasonable opposition of people who want to find a Venezuelan solution for Venezuela we hear very little about that. And presumably because that's not the solution the United States wants the United States wants its own solution. But in regard to making progress in those conversations is there a connection between that progress and the burning of the voting machines the other other day. I mean it seems to me that there's some progress being paid. And now it's been now there's this attempt to sabotage the ability to actually hold elections. The technology being destroyed. Well, that is exactly part of the concern and that's why none of these things are going on in recent days are, you know, can be just a coincidence. That's why we're concerned about this maximum pressure and what they mean by upping it, you know, the next 50%. Because when we saw when we saw that white dogs popularity is waning in the Venezuelan people, and then he took this tour throughout the United States and went to the state of the Union and they try to sort of prop it up. You saw that there was an attempt on the delivery attempt by the Trump administration to say, Okay, this is our guy. We are only doing what, you know, we're only agreeing with what he says, we're not going through elections. And we're going to keep our pressure because what we really want is not Venezuelans to decide the future is going to start to kick Maduro out to kick Travis more out of the game. And, and you know, this is, this is something that is not acceptable for, for, you know, an independent country is something that that is, it can't be acceptable in a real democracy. You can impose, you know, or you can say from outside that someone can or cannot be president. And now we see so so our concern is that you see these military actions but you see also terrorist actions because that's really what it is. I mean, what, what's just when white dogs trying to, you know, move people again and you know and have like a new campaign and to rally his supporters. Then, and, and when they're all posting elections. How much of a coincidence is this that you see the these machines are all of a sudden, the peer, you know, explosion that burns, you know, thousands of voting machine, which by the way we're known as as you know, a country that is, you know, whose voting system is is one of the best in the world and you know, you have the famous by we have here in the States when you look at the, the closing of polls and the lines. You know, so we're not making accusations directly because we obviously there's gotta be an investigation that's going on right now and inside the center from the National Council, your press conference, you know, saying what had happened and that they're also looking into investigations, but we know there's a pattern of operations in Latin America's history. And we know that when, you know, the United States says they're putting up more pressure for, you know, explicit change of government. We know that all these things, you know, it opens the door for many things for many interpretation for many people to get involved, many criminal organizations to get involved for many actors to get involved. So it's not, it's no coincidence. Again, we're, we in depth that press briefing was very interesting. And I invite your, your listeners to go look, look at all the things on the was on the 7th of March, the press briefing on Venezuela. And, and it was interesting. The Monroe Doctrine 2.0 press conference. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. The Monroe Doctrine 2.0. I guess, yeah, well, I guess, I guess Kerry never told the Trump that he had canceled the manual document when he was there because I remember, I remember quite clearly, you know, Kerry canceling the doctrine and now apparently it came back. And now it's this 2.0 version. But the interesting thing is that they say, why is it, why is this a Monroe Doctrine again, because they want to make this hemisphere. The first free hemisphere. This is language from the Cold War that they're bringing back up and the first democratic hemisphere whatsoever. And they want the exclusion of China and Russia of the hemisphere. This is real, you know, this is the real purpose of this. And this is a multilateral desire versus a multilateral. Well not only not only multilateral but this is the imposition of the United States policies and interests over the national interest of our country. If it is to the National interest of Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, whichever country you want this region to have a relationship with other countries, the United States can't be the one to determine who's really you know who we have And we have a relationship, a strong relationship of cooperation with Russia, with China, with other countries, and we are the ones, Venezuelans, again, this is an issue of what the Venezuelan people need and what the Venezuelan people want and what the Venezuelans people work for. I mean, what we need to decide who is in our interest to have relations with, it can be imposed from outside. What the United States is doing is something very dangerous, telling the rest of the continent you have no right to decide who you relate with, you can only relate to us in our terms. Otherwise, we are going to impose our 2.0 monorail doctrine. So, and then this is very dangerous precedent, and it shows this is an aggression not only to Venezuelans, I mean, we're the ones speaking out, we're the ones resisting, but there's a group of countries that are going to suffer for this. I want to just share with our listeners something I shared this with you before we went on the air yesterday. I was taking the ride home I was in a lift, and the driver asked me about code pink radio which airs Thursdays at 11am on WPF Devon going to plug this for a moment WBAI live, and I said yes we do a live radio show every week but we also do these webinars on Wednesday. And I said, and he wanted to talk a little bit about that and I mentioned that, you know, we were having somebody on Wednesday from the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry talked was from Caracas and he said and you'll be happy to know this listeners and Carlos to that not everyone in the United States is fooled by the mainstream media. My driver's response was, you'll be hearing from the government, the people recognize. And I said, the people of the government the people of Venezuela recognize versus the government that the United States wants and he said yes, exactly. So, there are people here in the United States who clearly understand the importance of national sovereignty, and that it is not the United States job to be imposing, you know, a hemispheric vision on other countries so I just want people to know, just, there is some belief in national sovereignty, even you know we know this, and that's why, and we have relations with, you know, that's what we always made an important point of maintaining our relationship with the people of the United States. I mean, we have, we have people in this administration, which unfortunately we can't deal with I mean you have the National Security Council you have Mauricio Claver Carón who's from a Cuban American origin and who's who has set you know as part of his personal agenda with the Vendetta against Venezuela against Cuba against all progressive forces in Latin America. And this is the person that repeats what Trump said in the State of the Union that, you know, Venezuela have to be crushed and destroyed and, you know, and, you know, a few days ago and also on TV when in one of the and CNN in Spanish to give an interview, and he said that you know this, the purpose was to destroy Venezuela's government. And, you know, these are the people in the administration that, you know, we obviously have an issue with what we have a wonderful relationship with the people of the United States a relation to solidarity, you know, we have a lot of people here, you know, coming to Venezuela to talk to us and to engage with the Venezuelan people and to engage with, you know, what really it's going on. So I think it's important to keep in mind that this height, this new maximum pressure, you know, we are afraid because we know the history of this region we know the history of, you know, paramilitary activities in Colombia. And most and some of them linked to, to the current Colombian government. We see also Brazil stamping up the pressure. So we called it's, it's a diplomats just a couple days ago in order to exert some more pressure on Venezuela. And we see that something may be developing where the participation of these countries can be considerable, and can be, again, dangerous to stability and to the peace in the region. They talked to the, again, the high government official that we don't know his name or her name. We talked about an alliance of those three countries, in particular, alliance of Colombia, the United States and Brazil against Venezuela and I guess it was government. So it's definitely something that we, you know, the we are concerned. Yeah, I have one thing. Well, let's have Margaret ask her question and I have a follow up question from something you talked about earlier. But I mean just for our viewers to understand that Venezuela is now looking at a US Brazil relationship which is the eastern and southern border of Venezuela, and then Colombia, the western border, and the southern command on the coast, North coast of Venezuela so there's a real that's, you see the, you know how you're buckled, basically, now surrounded. Yeah, completely surrounded by US interests and foreign policy interests and now military interests. And as you mentioned earlier and then Margaret I'll get to your question. Because it's, it's in addition to the conversation. You mentioned the sanctions being collective punishment on an entire population of people which is a human rights violation. Can you talk about the foreign ministers visit to the International Criminal Court and presenting the human rights violations to the world. So this is one of the issues that we decided to take up because we know that this is a violation of human rights like you said is it could also be considered a crime against humanity. So, there is the International Criminal Court that see that seeks to stop or condemn people that have been that have perpetrated these crimes against humanity. And we took a case where we are, we're going to be presenting for the next couple months. All the evidence that we have of how these so called sanctions are affecting everyday life for Venezuelans and how they have, you know they haven't had a specifically damages or to you know to the health of Venezuelans how they have damaged the economy in a way that is preventing Venezuelans to access basic goods and how this has collectively been inflicted on all the population. The statue of Rome, which is what what creates the International Criminal Court. In Venezuela as part of the statute, the United States is not. However, there is, there is some precedent, jurisprudence that states that if a country is affected, then then it does involve, you know, the court. What we're trying to what we're hoping is that the court sees the case. It's already is already has already taken the case, and it's proceeding to analyzing and we hope that with the evidence that we present. There could be a statement saying decision saying that United States has indeed violated Venezuelan the rights of Venezuelan people and constituting this sacrament against humanity. It is important because I think we must start once again, returning to multilateral institutions, we must start returning to diplomacy. The world cannot continue in this, you know constant aggression of, you know, one country against the other just because one country feels more powerful has a weapons to do so. We need to start, you know, go back to civilization, basically. And it's important that international law is respected and, you know, we're doing this with the support of international law would be that we have a case. And in the past, you know, other other courts have seen issues that are similar, for example, in the case is the case of Argentina. With the vulture funds, it was a, you know, violation of Argentinian rights. In the case of the car, they also want a lawsuit in another international court for the aggression the United States had against them. So we think that there is, there's a true case here that was sent a precedent for humanity to try to, you know, act against these measures, because again these are illegal this go against all the all the spirit that we have. When we created United Nations when we, you know, try to have a civilized relationship amongst nations. So we need we need to go back to defending those principles and you and charter and international law and defense of peace. So let's go. I think you saw that we have a question from one of our viewers Margaret flowers. Question is, can you talk about the new counter terrorist unit and what Venezuela is doing to prepare for greater US aggression. Well, we're starting things, you know, measures to, to avoid these news actions, part of the unit against terrorism's also, you know, to prevent this type of crimes, you know, some sort of what happened, you know, not only attacks on public institutions, but also on the people, because we see, I mean, we have, we've had here a history in Venezuela, in not not so long ago, how people were affected by the so called protest warimbas. There were supposed to be demonstrations for the opposition, but you had, you know, snipers shooting at people, you know, people often think, because if you only read mainstream media, and the report of the NGOs paid by US ID or national number for the protest, they're only the only confrontation between protesters and government and officials or, you know, police officials, and, and that the people the only people that got hurt were protested but actually, you know, when you look at, you know, the, what took place in 2017, about a third of the people that actually lost their lives were law enforcement officers trying to contain violent demonstrations. And they did so with attacks promoted by some of these more extremist groups in the opposition. So this is kind of the, I think, all these comes together, you know, the violence from outside, the violence that has entered Venezuela, you know, for a long period of time, in our border, you know, from the Civil War conflict in Colombia. So there's always all these issues that we're trying to address and to prevent so that we can make sure that the Venezuelan people can live in peace. And what we're trying to do to, you know, to circumvent the sanctions I think is to, you know, hold a strong position for multilateral organizations and for multilateral law and national law. You know, there's a group of countries that have already made a statement last year, they have made a statement again, you know, it's last year on February, then again, and summer during the meaning of non-aligned movements and they stated that, you know, they're against unilateral measures there in for defending the principle of the UN Charter. These countries are trying to seek alternatives to, you know, to promote admiral to our levels, where we can, for sure, defend these principles and try to avoid complying with these sanctions. Because one of the, you know, and friends from Iran had a very interesting perception that they discussed that there's also, there's a thing called passive unilateralism, where you have countries that are not, you know, applying sanctions, but they take them. You know, they sort of, they comply with sanctions that the U.S. is promoting against third country. So this is something that we have to revise also in the international community. If we know that these sanctions are not legal because they didn't go to the U.S. Security Council, you know, we have to also do an effort to not allow countries like United States or the European Union or whoever is implementing the sanctions to get away with them because we created a system of law in the United Nations that we must abide by. And I think this principle is, you know, we have to fight unilateralism, we have to fight a coercive measure, but we also have to have to fight its passive form, where people just simply comply out of fear, companies comply out of fear. You know, we have to start giving room for people, for companies, for different international actors to be able to act against unilateralism. I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think Michelle Bachelet said a day or two ago, she addressed what you're referring to over compliance or institutions, people are not directly sanctioned by the United States or other entities, but she specifically mentioned that the Venezuelan people are suffering the greatest because of over compliance by international financial institutions. And so what happens is that people, institutions are afraid of being fined by the United States or afraid of losing trade with the United States. So they just, you know, decide not to trade with Venezuela or any other sanctioned countries that they in Iran specifically is seeing a loss with its with European businesses that are invested in that country. Yes, it's clearly a type of extortion. And you have banks that are not going to accept the transactions, not anything wrong, but because afraid that if they do a money transfer. And, you know, we try for as simple as, as, you know, us paying the salaries of our staff in our embassy. If we try to make, you know, this is this on the issue that we have dealt with, you know, making an ideal with this when I was in Washington as part of the embassy, you know, we are, I couldn't pay some of our local employees or we had delays in the payment of our local employees, because the banks wouldn't make the transaction, a simple transaction will take, you know, a couple hours couple days to, you know, just to come in. The banks don't want to do it because they're afraid that if they move any sort of amount of money for Venezuela for the Venezuelan government, they could be accused of, you know, aiding terrorism or aiding market traffic or whatever, you know, these accusations that they make, and these institutions don't have the strength to face the consequences that, you know, old fact, treasury are going to put against them. So they decide that, you know, they are going to be extra careful. They're going to take measures that are not, they're not anywhere. I mean, they're not written down anywhere. But they're taking this as a form of, you know, guaranteeing that they don't get in trouble. This is extortion. This is something that you're really doing, extorting not only the banks, but you're making people suffer. And in some cases, I mean, when I was there, it was making U.S. citizens suffer. I mean, the local employees that we had, we had delays in paying them, delays in getting their rent paid. And you know what that means in the United States when you don't have a system that supports you and when you need to pay your rent. And these people were taking this aggression from their own government just because they wanted to make a point, and they were starting the banks to make a point and to somehow hurt the Venezuelan people, the Venezuelan government. So again, this is something that we need to fight against. I can just share with you and our viewers one thing specifically that I witnessed when I was still living in the San Francisco Bay Area with the consulate there at the time and you were still in Washington D.C. And the difficulty in getting your foreign diplomats paid as well as their local staff when the money was sitting in the bank in San Francisco and the bank, I always say, I believe it was Bank of America. And could not would not disperse the money to the consulate account to pay the rent to the consulate's landlord or to pay for the Venezuelan staff and the U.S. staff that was working. Right. So, so that's where you know it just ripples out to all parts of society and everyone suffered, not just what the U.S. claims it's targeting. So I was an enormous measures. Yeah, yeah. So we have a question. Oh gosh, let me see. Okay, I have a question from Michelle Elmer here. She says, who just called the Coronavirus a pandemic. What is Venezuela doing to control the situation. Do you have cases in Venezuela. How do the sanctions affect Venezuela's ability to respond. Well, we don't have any currently we have they don't have any cases in Venezuela. Yesterday, President Maduro was doing an interview again, you know, not an interview sorry, a public event where he spoke about the issue of Coronavirus. We're taking all the possible measures that we can take you know the people being screened when when they're coming into the country and asked if how they're feeling but I think above all things. We're resorting to multilateralism, again, because it's difficult for us it has been difficult for us to get access to some, to some medicines throughout all these, you know, last couple years. But we directly went to the World Health Organization. And we already have gotten medicine to deal with this and as well as the kits the test kits, so that we can test patients and make sure you know that that we do the right tests and and we can diagnose if they have or not. And meanwhile we're preparing our, our, our hospitals so that they are able once it seems likely that, you know, one point in time, we might get hit with these cases, you know, apparently something that is going to happen to every country around the world. Once that comes, you know, we are in a prepared position. Let me tell you also something as well that despite all the aggressions against our public health system. The fact that we do have a public health, they have the fact that it has, you know, that it also has a large distribution throughout the country because when the barrio adentro project which was something that created a president service. And so they're with the Cubans, you know, the Cuban doctors that came in and we create a network of, of, of the primary care and prevention care throughout the inner city communities and the rural communities. I think that the United States has not achieved yet. Well, and, and, and, and doesn't seem there's, well, there is, I'm not going to get into internal US issues, but there is some, there is some candidate speaking about this and some disqualifying. But I think it is important and you can see with the exams in China, how having a state healthcare system was very helpful to dealing with this crisis. And I think, you know, we want to rely on our, on our system, we want to rely on, on the, and I see this because the prevention is key. Right. Because it's not only, it's not only the virus, but you know, the making sure that the community has acts, you know, has access to the right information, the community takes some precautions. The necessary precautions not to express the seas to, to understand what the disease is about really and not to freak out because of a, of a media campaign or, you know, the no, no, no, not many rumors. That is a key element in preventing this crisis. And that is something that we have a big network for because we have a public health system. So I think, I think it's key. So wonderful question Michelle, thank you. I think it's, it's a good point. We have, we're trying to take care of this as best we can. And we're getting prepared so that whenever, if this comes to Venezuela, we have our people can have the confidence that we're dealing with we, we also kind of a solidarity of China and Cuba, which we already made contact with regards to treatment medicine and all other aspects of facing this. Well, I think it's, I mean, it's an amazing comparison with the United States that you know you and your country are out in front of this versus still waiting to respond to it as I mean we're basically self regulating here in the United States cancelling and for fear of having large crowds cross contaminating one another where you're pretty much regulating ourselves as individuals there doesn't seem to be any government leadership on this and I do not blame that for this specific government it's just how our healthcare system being privatized in this country is just not capable of responding in the way that your system is. No, no for sure I think this is this an issue of larger, the biological debate on the, you know, the necessity of a strong state and public and a strong public health system, you know, beyond the government that you have the at this moment is something about how we deal with human problems in large scale when you don't have a strong state system, you know the neoliberal models has destroyed basically public health public education, and this is the result and when you have a crisis of this sort, you have you don't have the tools to deal with. So let me ask you, you know, I know I had committed you to 20 minutes, and we're like well into almost an hour of conversation with you and I'm so pleased, despite everything that you are dealing with right now that you've had time for us is I've got another question here if you have time. Yeah. Okay. So this is from Matthew bridges. So we have people watching us on zoom and we have a significantly large audience on Facebook live as well. So Matthew's question is, can you speak more to how you see diplomacy as a solution to confronting us imperialism. What do these talks actually look like between non Guaido opposition and other countries in the region. What are the main points of misinformation that have been spread about Venezuela in the international community. Okay. Oh, we're finding an hour for. So all are part of that I guess it's yeah. So, look, I think diplomacy is key. And, you know, as sort of a foreign foreign affairs ministry, you know, we have to say diplomacy is the way that nations, you know, have civilized nations have to deal with their issues. Again, we're not saying that we're not going to have differences. But what we will we, we are opposing is actions that, you know, her large populations. The United States is doing not sitting down with us and having, you know, a conversation on our differences, not working with differences is putting, you know, all of our country all of our population at risk. It's being heard by the effects of their measures. We believe that all issues can be discussed. We are doing this with our internal office of this opposition. Again, there's large differences between us and, you know, the people that they have backed President Trump for all these years. And, you know, the people are now heading the National Assembly. There was an election on January 5, where why though did not get elected but a new leadership was elected in the National Assembly, which we have, we don't share any ideological stance with. These are, again, right wing conservative, conservative Venezuelans. But the one, the one issue where we do, I think we do understand each other is in the sense that they don't want to see our country invaded. They don't want to see a military action. They don't want to see violence. They want to find a way of, you know, the political dialogue, the dynamics, and doing that. We need to comply with our constitution. We have elections that are being called for this year, and we have to have those elections. And we need to sit down with our, you know, our opposition and figure out, you know, the new authorities to conduct those elections and tools. And, you know, and again, see what the result is. The thing is, Venezuelan has never been afraid, at least this revolution has never been afraid of elections. This has actually been what supported this political process since the beginning. And actually, look, even myself, I mean, this is the one I'm kind of excited about this process. We're precisely having elections. I miss having elections. I miss having elections every year, you know, because then, you know, the periods are coming in, and now they're distancing itself a little more. But, you know, we had over 25 elections in less than 20 years. And I think it's important that we, you know, we understand that Venezuelan and the Venezuelan leadership is not afraid of elections. And the only ones that are really blocking elections are the United States and Trump's allies here in Venezuela, who are the ones blocking the new electoral council, you know, blocking the opportunity of having these elections take place. And you have to ask yourself why? Is it because they know at the end of the day that they can't get elected, that they don't mobilize people out in the streets, and that's why they want to force change the government? Maybe. Where a government was imposed after, you know, against President Evo Morales. And now the person that's supposed to be the president, you know, the interim president, same plan, same, same. Because they do this, they do this by the textbook. Yeah, it's the same template. Same plan. It's the same game plan. It's a template, you know, it's like, yeah. So they just change the names, and there's Guaidó, they took Guaidó out, and they put Agnes, it's the same thing. And basically, this person is from a political party that I think only had like about three members in the whole National Assembly in Bolivia. And now it's decided that this is a foreign policy that's going to affect Bolivia for many years to come without being elected for that position. So, you know, so they do this because that's the only way they can do it. And the United States has no problem whatsoever with that. But it does have a problem when we call for elections and when we want to, you know, to exercise our right with millions of people on streets voting. So I think it's important. Again, we have, you know, we need to have more debates. Of course, we want to have the debates and we're having debates with the opposition that believes in an independent Venezuela in a country that needs to forge its own way out. I mean, the idea, what we asked, what we asked for the United States all this time is not even to support the Bolivarian Revolution, but to let us be, let us make our own decisions. We have the right to make a right or wrong left or right. That's our, that's our issue. But what we need to do is, you know, what they, what they need to do is to stay away and respect what the surrounding decisions from the Venezuelan people are. And I think, I think this is achievable. I think, and again, we're almost, we're almost done with the process with a large part of the opposition, we're almost done with the process of finding a new electoral council. You had some very interesting messages just from some of the political parties that were more, you know, linked to Guaido and so how not wanting to go to elections where now they're trying to say, well, we have to address this issue of elections this year. So because everybody understands that the only solution to Venezuela's problems is through politics. We don't want to have a civil war. We don't have to have confrontations on the street. Nobody wants that. The people, there are a lot of people in the opposition here. That is a fact. But the people in the opposition don't go out on the streets and follow Guaido in the numbers that they could because they know that it's a trick because they know that what that's trying to do is trying to have a show, you know, a TV image where you have people trying to bring it to the streets and then justify it some more. And people don't want violence. So I think people are very, people understand that the way to move forward is working on our problems, voting, you know, electing our officials for the new electoral councils that we can vote, we can have a new national assembly that looks more, reflects more the country that we have today and the political positions that we have today. And then we move forward from there. Well, I, you know, I would share with you and with our viewers that so important to understand at least my perspective from being on the ground in your country, one, how resilient the Venezuelan people are of all political affiliations with maybe except, you know, the very far right. That's affiliated with the United States, but the resiliency of the people. And I would also argue that this intensified US aggression is creating a greater sense of national pride and sovereignty within Venezuela that people are big are seeing themselves as the Venezuelans first, and political parties. Second, in other words, they're, you know, they want the sovereignty of the nation. And it's very, you know, it's a, you can feel it when you're on the streets, you can feel it in Caracas and outside of Caracas and it's not that there are not some significant difficulties because of the sanctions imposed on the country, but people are working around them and are very much and very proudly Venezuelans and it's a, it's a very powerful thing to be around and that is something that the US in general just does not understand I mean, if our government understands that they don't want to believe it and mainstream media certainly doesn't understand that, that sentiment to the American people as a, as a whole is, but it's very powerful. I would also, since we have Elaine here from Alliance for Global Justice I think she's listening as well I just want to mention that for those of you watching. I really, really encourage you to go to Venezuela and, and visit, and, and come to a better understanding as to who the Venezuelan people are and what they are have achieved over the last 20 years and what they are still working towards Alliance for Global Justice has a delegation going to Venezuela, I believe the departure date is April 12, and you can find more information about that delegation at AFGJ.org Alliance for Global Justice. If that's, I would really encourage those of you who have never been or haven't been for a while to go and, and experience the country for yourself. It's, it's fantastic as I continue to go back year after year and so I would encourage all of you to do that. Well they're really welcome Alliance for Global Justice we're, we're working on a lot of things too, you know hopefully to move forward with them. It's a, it's a group that has shown like a pink and like others a strong solidarity with Venezuela and we want to know our deep gratitude towards that and we hope that we continue to work on a lot of things together. Again this people-to-people diplomacy which is, which is so important, so key to really strengthening the relationship between our two countries. So maybe we should close with that, people-to-people and continuing, you know, grassroots diplomacy and sharing each other's stories in both countries. Is there anything, you know, we've been talking for an hour I can keep talking to you all afternoon. It's like wonderful to have your time. Is there anything else we should talk about before I let you go? Anything that we- No, I would just say, no, I would just ask people to, you know, listen, first of all thank me for, you know, for the patience and for the continuous concern about Venezuela. I think it is very important for us to have that constant communication and we really appreciate that, again, that they are out there trying to, you know, to support us and, you know, there have been large displays of solidarity towards Venezuela. And, you know, we can never thank you enough for all that you've done. I mean, not only, you know, like the delegations, the press and, you know, the actions that when people take the streets of, you know, the actions like the one thing just did yesterday, I mean, all these shows of displays of solidarity are very important for us and they stimulate us to continue. And the people on the streets, I'm not going to speak just as an official, but I'm saying the people on the streets, you know, have a lot of love for US people and the activists and the people that go out and defend the right of Venezuela to make its own choices. We have the, even the Embassy Protection Collective which also took that very courageous action to call people's attention on the issue of international law and how international law should be respected. All those displays of solidarity are very highly appreciated by the Venezuelan people as a whole and we thank them. We can never thank them enough for that. And we want you to know as well that we know of your struggles in the United States. I mean, there's a lot of things that you deal with and you need to know that you have, you know, the Bolivarian government, the Bolivarian Revolution and the people of Venezuela also in solidarity with all those just courses. You know, again, what we always believe that this relationship between the US and Venezuela should be about is, you know, to exclude all these aggressions, you know, to say no to intervention, to merge intervention, to say no to these sanctions and to just say, you know, let the Venezuelan people choose their own destiny. That's all we need. That's all we want. That's the respect we expect from the people in the United States, from the government in the United States. We know we haven't from the people. We expect that from the government as well. Well, we'll keep doing the best on our end. As you know, a good percentage of US citizens do not approve of US foreign policy. And it's really important for US citizens to educate, you know, among ourselves as to what's going on inside and outside of the country. And that's the best action that we can take trying to influence what our own government does with our taxpayer dollars. So, and let other nations in respect to, you know, other countries national sovereignty. So, you know, don't that way they'll steal your money. We've got a couple articles about that what's happened with that USA ID money you can see that at code pink dot org if for for viewers who are interested in reading more. I'm going to let you go because I know you've got a lot to do with thank you so much for an hour of your time and we look forward to talking with you again. Thank you very much. Okay. All right, thank you. Bye bye.