Delcy Rodríguez’s speech before the 81st United Nations General Assembly deserves to be examined closely, not only for what she said, but for everything she left unsaid.
Rodríguez avoided any direct reference to the US military intervention of January 3, which culminated in the abduction of Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores, presenting those events instead as “a painful ordeal” for Venezuela.
And when she speaks of the “intensified confrontation” with the United States, what exactly is she talking about? Those televised spectacles in which the very same leaders who now smile at the aggressors used to tear their hair out, insisting that if the gringos entered Venezuela, our country would become another Vietnam?
Well, the gringos came in, and now Rodríguez is thanking them for their magnanimity. To make matters worse, she presented her subordination to Washington as a “political transformation.”
The spectacle becomes even more shameful when one recalls that, just one day earlier, at the very same General Assembly, Trump boasted of having directed the military operation against Caracas. Referring to Venezuela’s wealth, he even declared that after a war “to the victor belong the spoils.” Faced with such a statement, the Venezuelan delegation remained silent.
There was no response to this humiliation, no forceful denunciation of the military intervention, no public defense of Venezuelan sovereignty. Clearly, those who truly mourn for the country do not reside in Miraflores.
In a speech riddled with euphemisms, Delcy Rodríguez described the process of handing over the country’s resources to transnational capital as “economic cooperation.”
Venezuelans have yet to see even the first contract from the parade of agreements signed over the past several months. In this respect, Rodríguez is a worthy heir to Nicolás Maduro, who institutionalized opacity as a mechanism for managing the country’s resources behind the people’s backs and ensuring the conditions necessary to entrench himself in power.
The acting president also announced before the United Nations a “process of democratic transformation,” yet hundreds of workers in Venezuela are still facing judicial proceedings for the crime of demanding their rights. This should hardly surprise anyone. Rodríguez belongs to the same political leadership that for years helped dismantle the rule of law and reduce the Constitution to little more than a stage prop.
Her speech follows the same script as Marco Rubio’s, and it is quite simple: there will be no genuine political opening until the conditions for the plunder of Venezuela’s resources have been institutionalized. Business comes first; once everything has been sufficiently tied down, then we will see what happens with democracy.
To put the finishing touch on this farce, Delcy Rodríguez invoked Bolívar to remind everyone that sovereignty resides with the people. Of course it does. And that is precisely why it is obscene to invoke Bolívar while auctioning off the country to the highest bidder.
The Venezuelan people have the right to reclaim their institutions, to decide over their own resources, to organize and fight for their rights, and to demand accountability from those who have turned Venezuela into an object of negotiation between ruling elites. The legitimate aspirations of the Venezuelan people cannot continue to be sacrificed in order to guarantee the survival of a corrupt and cowardly elite.
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