Victor Amaya, Director of the Venezuelan newspaper As suchreferred in Fontevecchia modefrom Net TV And Radio profile (AM 1190) on the difficulties of practicing journalism in Venezuela in the face of government blockades. At the same time he claimed that the arrival in Oslo of Maria Corina Machadothe opposition leader winning the Nobel Peace Prize “was an opportunity to see an active Venezuelan diaspora.”
Víctor Amaya is the director of the Venezuelan newspaper TalCual, which is also currently published in Oslo.
So María Corina Machado resurfaced in Oslo after eleven months in hiding
Authoritarians don’t like that
The practice of professional and critical journalism is a mainstay of democracy. That is why it bothers those who believe that they are the owners of the truth.
I remember Tal Cual’s controversial covers. Tell us what it’s like to practice journalism in Venezuela today.
As for envelopes, we stopped printing on paper eight years ago, due to economic suffocation and the monopoly that Chavismo established on access to newsprint. The state decided who to give paper to, but they didn’t give us any. Eight years ago, almost all independent press moved to the digital online space, with the difficulty that almost all of these media are also blocked by government orders. So people have to find us via social networks or via VPN. People have become experts in VPN. And yet, since January this year, after the repression after last year’s elections, For the safety of journalists, the notes are issued without a signature. It is reporting in which the content is given full force and the names of the reporters, of all of us who write, are removed, precisely in order to avoid legal reactions or power actions aimed directly at a person.
I remember VPNs were very popular in China because China blocks certain websites and with a VPN you can enter as if you were from another country. The same thing is happening in Venezuela, right?
Right, like in the United States, in Norway, wherever. This happens to several media outlets and also to the social network X, which is also blocked.
How do you experience what you feel in Oslo when Corina Machado arrives later than expected?
It was interesting reporting with a lot of work, also because of the time difference. Today at the press conference that ended a few hours ago, María Corina Machado confirmed that she received support from the United States government to be able to leave Venezuela a few days ago and finally arrive in Oslo yesterday.in Norway. He was unable to attend the ceremony but has already returned to the activities on the agenda. He was in Parliament in Norway early this morning. She was received by the President of Parliament and the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Then he was at an event with the Prime Minister, then at a press conference, and now he will inaugurate the office later Nobel Peace Center the exhibition on the Venezuelan democratic struggle and the Venezuelan democratic decline, which will be open to the public starting tomorrow. In this exhibition there is a stack of electoral documents confirming the opposition’s victory in the 2024 presidential election.
Oslo is full of Venezuelans this week. We met many travelers who have already been living outside Venezuela for several years, although the majority agree that they left the country between 2016 and 2018, the years in which the Venezuelan economy became very complicated. People came here from Japan, Finland and almost all of Western Europe. People have come here to take part in the largely public activities and to try to see María Corina Machado. So much so that last night when she finally came out in public here at 2 a.m., local time here in Norway, there was a crowd of people who had found out through social media that she was going to be looking out on the balcony of the Grand Hotel, and they waited for her until about 2:20 a.m. when she was finally able to not only look out on the balcony, but then went down, came out and tried to touch almost the entire crowd that was waiting for her outside the hotel.
So it was also an opportunity to see an active Venezuelan diaspora that is crying out for political change and of course feels represented not only by the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the figure María Machado, but also by the words of the President of the Nobel Committee. In his speech he painted a very clear picture of Venezuela’s democratic decline over the last 25 years. And then I heard statements from people who told us: “I felt like I was being heard for the first time. I felt like finally someone who wasn’t Venezuelan or something like that understood and could clearly denounce what was happening.” That is, what Venezuela has denounced about the handling of the situation in the country is gradually being understood by a foreign audience, and the speech of the President of the Nobel Committee obviously exposes this reality to an audience that had probably never heard of it or had no access to complete information in this regard.
The speeches, including that of Corina Machado’s daughter, pointed out that Venezuela was an example of democracy in South America, because while all of South America had military dictatorships, Venezuela was the only country that did not have military dictatorships in the second half of the last century. What happened?
Yesterday’s speech by the President of the Nobel Committee reflected this somewhat, reminding us of how contemporary authoritarianisms exploit the rules of the system to destroy the system from within. They use elections precisely to end democratic systems. And it was mentioned that last year, 2024, was one of the most elections in human history in the same year. However, the past year has also been one in which democratic decline has accelerated at the global level. Recently Only 30% of the world’s population currently lives under openly democratic regimeswhich raises the paradox that elections or multiple elections are not necessarily a symbol of democracy per se. What is missing is what they call, what one would call in English Rule of lawThis means the rule of law, respect for human rights and many other things that are part of a healthy democracy.
This happened in Venezuela, where the system was established Hugo Chavez and went on, much worse Nicolas Madurotook advantage of the electoral scenario to colonize the state’s institutions and break them from within until the electoral situation finally no longer served them. And we saw what happened in 2024 with election fraud openly denounced, documented and recorded even by the US Carter Center. But at the same time it must be said why Hugo Chávez comes to power. And I always remember that there was a very serious economic crisis in Venezuela in the 90s, which had a lot to do with the poor design of public spaces, the finance ministry and the unpredictability of the long-term future of an oil country. And when oil prices fell, the economy became extremely difficult.
As the President once said Rafael Caldera In 1992, before he was elected for his second term as president, a society like Venezuelan cannot be expected to defend democracy if it feels that democracy does not nourish it. And that was very much part of the image of Venezuelan democracy that was tarnished in the 1990s and that he gave. It opened the door for him to look for a kind of savior, for leaders, represented by Hugo Chávez, who eventually, when he came to power, began to dismantle the state that had existed and the institutions that had brought him to power.
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