After four years and three months in the eye of the hurricane, Juan Guaidó (39 years old) has begun his exile in Miami, which has no return date to Venezuela. The controversy over his abrupt departure from Colombia has not ceased, but the former president in charge of Venezuela, who had the support of the previous Colombian government, is clear today: "Petro's agenda is with the regime."
The man who was president of the National Assembly for four years went through 37 police checkpoints until he reached the border with Colombia, which he crossed on foot. Last Sunday he tried to get on a plane at the Cúcuta border, but was prevented. The pressure from Caracas, which included threats against his family, was already at its peak.
Guaidó acknowledges that it is impossible to maintain himself as a presidential candidate in exile and is committed to the union to defeat Maduro, who for the moment has won the game.
Question.- Your arrival at the Miami airport, with a small backpack on your shoulder, with no one around, symbolizes the loneliness of political power as rarely does it do.
Answer.- At the time of that image I was thinking about exactly that, about emigrants and refugees who pass through the Darién (the dangerous jungle that separates Colombia from Panama) and who cannot make this same trip. And of course, also in my family. And in the millions who have escaped. The departure of the leadership has to do with the consequences of facing a dictatorship and resisting four years and three months with persecution and threats. But we are not going to stop.
Q.- Has Nicolás Maduro won?
A.- Somehow he is also resisting in power at a very high cost, accused of crimes against humanity, isolated from the world. Of course in a different way than the resistance of the people of Venezuela, myself persecuted by the dictatorship.
Q.- Did Guaidó feel threatened by the Colombian government?
A.- Yes, I felt threatened with deporting myself to the dictatorship.
Q.- Who sent you the government threat?
A.- Diplomats conveyed to me the words of the Colombian government, which were very harsh. And then it was Foreign Minister Leyva himself who said it publicly, knowing very well what it means to deport a politically persecuted person to a dictatorship.
Q.- Why this mistreatment by the Petro government hours before an international conference on Venezuela in which not a single advance has been achieved?
A.- The only logical explanation is that they were pressures from the Maduro regime. The foreign minister's lies make no sense, the only explanation is that the pressure from the Maduro regime has been stronger.
Q.- What is Petro playing with Maduro today?
A.- Petro today has an internal situation to attend to in a country with institutions, with firm political positions. In Venezuela, the institutions are kidnapped by the dictatorship. Petro has not sided with Venezuelans or the victims or the politically persecuted. It will be up to him if that changes or not. In his visits to Venezuela (there are four) his agenda is simply with the regime, not with the Unitary Platform or with the victims of human rights violations or political prisoners. He even to stop the ecocide that is taking place in Venezuela.
Q.- The Colombian ambassador has discredited the opposition and especially you (with insults such as "huevón" and "asshole").
A.- Ambassador Armando Benedetti, if he can be called that, acts as a political operator of Petro. I have had the opportunity to interact with presidents, foreign ministers and ambassadors and the contrast is huge with the behavior of Leyva and not to mention Benedetti. If they represent Petro, it is not positive for the Venezuela/Colombia relationship, different from the relationship with the dictatorship.
Q.- In the last few weeks you received confidences that the political police were preparing your arrest.
R.- For four years we have suffered very intense, direct persecution, physical threats, even murders like that of Edmundo Rada (Popular Will councilor assassinated in Caracas). You torture people from my work team, surround my family. Miranda (her eldest daughter of hers, six years old) was followed to school. So we had tools to resist at a very high cost. Today there is a greater risk (after the elimination of the presidency in charge and the launch of the anti-corruption purge within Chavismo) and this direct persecution of our environment has become much closer.
Q.- How were the days before the departure? There were rumors that she took refuge in the French Embassy.
A.- I was not at the French embassy. You have to be very careful when facing a dictatorship. They were days of many precautions in the face of the constant siege.
Q.- You traveled by land from Caracas to the border with Cúcuta, a hellish road of almost 900 kilometers full of obstacles.
A.- I counted 37 control points (military and police). Each checkpoint was a moment of tension, which makes you see that we live in a dictatorship and that the entire State apparatus is at its service. I cannot give many details for security reasons, there will be other politically persecuted who need this route.
Q.- You are very well known, how did you go through so many checkpoints? Was he in disguise?
A.- No, let's say, but it does distract attention to other points...
Q.- In 2019, you ran across one of the border bridges, carried away by the euphoria that existed then, when it was thought that the dictatorship was about to fall. How did he experience it last Sunday?
A.- I crossed walking, a quite formal step. And very different from 2019, I felt another moment and another Colombia. Many thoughts accumulated then.
Q.- Your return to Venezuela is impossible today.
A.- Without a doubt. There are many threats and much persecution. We are not going to give a hostage to the dictatorship, I am not going to allow Maduro to silence our voice. Until we're sure.
Q.- Are you still a candidate for the opposition primaries?
A.- Yes, but aware that from exile you cannot lead a candidacy. You have to travel the country from town to town and evaluate each day responsibly. But neither can we fall prey to the threats of the dictatorship. It is another test for electoral conditions.
Q.- Which candidate would you bet on to replace him?
A.- I bet on a coalition, on a team, one person is not enough. We are approaching a scenario like Nicaragua and we still have to participate in the 2024 presidential elections. Why? Because Maduro is defeatable, he does not have an electoral majority. The candidate is still the union, the mixture. And Maduro wants to avoid it, because he knows that the only way to win is to divide us.
Q.- When in 2019 you ran across the bridge that linked you with Colombia, you had 80% popularity. Today, according to different surveys, support for his figure has fallen by around 4%. Is it a punishment for the interim or the failure of regime change?
A.- The first element is frustration. It is frustrating for millions that the exit has not been achieved, that the dictatorship has not been ended and that democracy has not been recovered. And that is our challenge in the short term. Anyone would be frustrated and in pain by not achieving the goal. You have to keep insisting.
Q.- Your wife and two daughters have stayed in Caracas. What is the family plan?
R.- For the moment protect them, they are safe.
Q.- Were you blackmailed with the safety of your family during the pressure last Monday?
A.- They threatened my family and it felt like blackmail. On the one hand, the Mauro dictatorship directly, and on the other, I felt a kind of blackmail from the Colombian government on the issue of security and deportation.
Q.- The solidarity of different opposition leaders with you has been questioned, even bases and middle managers pressured for party support to be transferred. How has Guaidó felt?
R.- A lot of empathy in general, also solidarity. The leadership has different times and will have to respond to its bases and followers. I wish they were quicker in empathy, that it wasn't always a matter of calculation. If there is one thing I could say that politics lacks, it is empathy, not just putting yourself in the other's shoes, but feeling in the other's shoes.
Q.- The US has firmly supported the presidency in charge since day one. Is it maintained today?
A.- Without a doubt. I thank the United States for the entire mediation process for my safety today.
Q.- Are you going to reject the asylum that some congressmen have already requested?
A.- If what I'm looking for is that we all return as soon as possible, that takes more time. More than asylum I have sought security, and today I feel it.
Q.- Washington's support contrasts with that of Europe and Spain, which has been fading since 2019.
A.- We expect more firmness from a government like the Spanish one. Much more. It seems that at this moment he also lacks empathy.
Q.- The EU and Spain have participated in the very watered-down Petro conference last Tuesday. How do you value it? If the return to the table in Mexico is achieved, it is possible that his case will be added to the electoral conditions.
R.- Political persecution, qualifications, the right to elect and be elected must be conditions... The dictatorship cannot be the one that chooses for us, disqualifying even the millions of Venezuelan voters who are abroad. The expectation remains, it is there latent because we cannot fight for half of our rights.
Q.- What did you feel this morning when you woke up so far from Caracas in this new stage?
A.- Expectation, desire to continue, concern for the girls... It is a mixture of feelings. I felt like when I left La Guaira after the natural tragedy of 1999 [when the mountain collapsed on the coast closest to Caracas, with thousands of victims] when we lost our houses. And the certainty that we are going to return and that we are going to rebuild. My family hugged me at that moment and today they do it again. And in a simultaneous process I set out to balance the agenda for this week and next week in Europe and the US with the allies of democracy.
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