MIAMI.- “Nicolás Maduro must be overthrown.” This was the blunt statement made by the former president of Ecuador, Osvaldo Hurtado, in an exclusive interview with THE AMERICAS DAILYafter putting into context that dictators “never leave on good terms” and that in Latin America “dictators have been overthrown.”
According to the former president, the military is the one who can depose the Venezuelan dictator, given that two thirds of the members of the armed forces voted against Maduro and in favor of the opposition candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia.
“We can conclude that not only the Venezuelan people hate the dictator and tyrant Maduro, but also the military,” Hurtado emphasized, who consequently asked, why do they not act against the dictatorship?
The former president of Ecuador also questioned the governments of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia for their support for the proposal for new elections in Venezuela and accused them of being “militants of Chavismo,” without openly demonstrating it. Meanwhile, he praised the position taken by the Chilean president, Gabriel Boric. “He is the only socialist president in Latin America who seems to have public morals.”
Hurtado pointed to corruption as a fundamental factor in the continuity of the dictatorship in power, with a high military command “co-opted” by Maduro. “Today Venezuela is the country with the most generals in the world, they have better salaries and manage some state companies.”
He stressed that the July 28 elections were fraudulent and that Maduro has not presented the real results due to the defeat he suffered, a situation that has generated criticism from the international community, without any results so far.
-Regarding the elections in Venezuela, there have been requests for new elections and the governments of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico have expressed their support for this position. What is your opinion on this?
The presidents of the countries you mention seem to be Chavista militants. They are not, but they behave as such. Because only a Chavista militant can ignore the overwhelming victory of candidate González Urrutia and the overwhelming defeat of candidate Maduro. Why has the tyrant Maduro not yet presented the electoral results that confirm his supposed victory? Because the electoral results he has are the same ones exhibited by María Corina Machado. That is why he does not present them. We are faced with a distortion of the truth and this can only be explained because they are presidents who are not thinking about free elections, in respect for the popular will, but rather in defending their fellow Chavista named Nicolás Maduro Moros.
-On many occasions, the free world has believed that Venezuela would emerge from the dictatorship after electoral processes that, in the end, ended up consolidating Maduro in power. Is that possibility cooling off again?
Why have Latin American dictators who have governed for decades remained in power? Because of absolute control of the armed forces, not because they are popular, not because they won elections. They have won all of them through fraud, as Maduro and Chavez have done. In these elections, two-thirds of the military voted against Maduro and voted in favor of the opposition candidate. The electoral records show that. Only a third of the military voted for Maduro. Here we can conclude that not only the Venezuelan people detest the dictator and tyrant Maduro, but also the military. You will tell me, rightly, why don’t they act against the dictatorship? It is a principle of public morality that dictatorships must be overthrown because they never leave on good terms. The dictators in Latin America have been overthrown. And who can overthrow them? Well, these military men who have voted in this way.
– What is your explanation for why this did not happen?
There are two ways to control the armed forces. And both are used by Maduro, with advice from Cuba. One is an intelligence service within the armed forces to pursue all dissidence, advised by the vast experience of Cuba and, previously, of the Soviet Union in Cuba. The other is corruption, allowing them to participate in this illicit enrichment that occurs daily in Venezuela and also in drug trafficking. There is a very well-founded study that concludes that Venezuela is the country with the highest number of generals in the world, more than in the United States, more than in NATO. What does this mean? That Maduro has corrupted hundreds of colonels by offering them the position of general, which means double or triple the salary and all that kind of privileges. In addition, they are then appointed managers of state companies. In Venezuela it is evident that the high military command has been co-opted through corruption by the dictator Maduro. But the majority of the soldiers have not. Where are they? When are they going to say what they think? When are they going to put into practice the way they voted in the elections? That is the big question. Because the Venezuelan people have shown in the streets and in the elections that they hate Maduro.
-The alignment observed between Brazil, Colombia and Mexico with the Maduro regime is not the same as that perceived through the statements of President Gabriel Boric of Chile, also a leftist activist, who does not recognize Maduro’s victory and has even denounced fraud. How can the Chilean president’s position be interpreted?
Boric is the only socialist president in Latin America who seems to have public morals, republican values, who does not have double standards. Latin America needs a left of that style. Like the European one, like the Asian one, a democratic left. Because all these people from the Puebla Group, from the Sao Paulo Forum and from the group of (José Luis) Rodríguez Zapatero (former president of the Spanish government), and all the socialists of the 21st century, are not democratic. They have an authoritarian vocation, a vocation for tyrants. President Boric has done a great service to the Latin American democratic left, presenting himself as the only leader who questions these issues. I do not know how much it cost Maduro’s secret services to have murdered a Venezuelan soldier who was in Chile, sending hitmen to commit this crime. All these complexities explain why Latin America has ceased to be a global interlocutor, an authoritarian, dictatorial, drug-trafficking, corrupt Latin America of the 21st century.
-You have touched on the subject of 21st century socialism. Your country is preparing to elect a president in 2025 and some rumors highlight the possibility that Correísmo (the political movement of former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa) could return to power. Do you think this is viable?
For those who rightly label Correaism as a den of corruption, I would ask: why do a third of Ecuadorians vote for Correa and his followers? Because such a high proportion of Ecuadorians do not care that Correa is corrupt, and that is why democracy in Latin America is in such bad shape. Because they do not have a civically committed society with the essential values of democracy, one of which is honesty and another is the republican practice of government, with separation of powers, rule of law and independence of justice. But fortunately, that is only a third of Ecuadorians. Two thirds of Ecuador are not with him. So I think that in the next elections what has already been happening will be repeated, that it will not be a Correa candidate who wins the presidency.
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