Former Political Prisoner Freddy Guevara On Venezuela's Future

0:00Jesús Mesa:Good day from Newsweek's unofficial 1600 Brooklyn Bureau. I'm Carlo Grisano and we're coming on today because we have a very special bonus episode for you guys featuring my colleague, Jesús Mesa. Some of you, if you read the newsletter, probably know him because he does some great reporting every day under my column. Jesús has been all over this Venezuela story. He was in Miami this week talking to many members of the Venezuelan diaspora there. He came back to New York and he sat down with a man named Freddy Guevara. Freddy is a Venezuelan opposition figure. He rose to international prominence as the leader of the National Assembly there during the Maduro years.

0:37Jesús Mesa:The Assembly is basically their Congress. Guevara quickly became a thorn in the side of the Maduro regime. He spent three years holed up in the Chilean embassy in Venezuela before he was then locked up in a very notorious and dangerous prison in Venezuela. He was released after about a month as part of a prisoner and diplomatic agreement. He then went into exile and he lives here in New York City where he serves as a strategic advisor to the opposition movement led by Maria Corina Machado. So here's that conversation between Jesus and Freddy Guevara. This country was stone cold dead. Here we are in Newsweek with Freddy Guevara.

1:12Jesús Mesa:Very happy to have you here. Thank you very much. And the first question that I have for you, obviously, Freddy, is about the recent developments in Venezuela. these past few days have been crazy, not only for the United States, but also for Venezuelans. Latin America, I would say that is the story that made the world pay attention again to our continent. So I just want to ask you your thoughts about it, because I know that you were part of this group that was fighting against Maduro a long time ago. And what are your thoughts about what happened on Saturday and the state of development right now?

1:45Freddy Guevara:It has been a roller coaster of emotions, of course, because first, Venezuelans are happy. We are happy that Maduro is in jail. Of course, there's a lot of uncertainty. The job is far from being done. And we understand a lot of the worries and criticism that can happen. But what we're trying to do now is to ask the world to focus on the way forward. How do we make this transition to actually happen? Because it's not like, you know, this came out of nowhere. Venezuela, we've been fighting for this. For the last 15 years, we tried everything. We won elections. We went to negotiations. We went to the streets.

2:22Freddy Guevara:Then we tried international order. We went to United Nations, vetoed China, Russia all the time. Went to an international criminal court. Nothing happened. Went to Organization of American State. They didn't do anything. And we even tried that the progressive government of Lula and Petro tried to help us with Mexico too, with Claudia Chayman or Manuel López Obrador. And they did nothing. So in this situation, when you have like, this is a reflection that a friend of Venezuelan said the other day, and I think it's very interesting. It was like, if the international order couldn't prevent Maduro, couldn't prevent that Maduro tortured and killed many innocents, but can protect Maduro, then it's just not working.

3:04Freddy Guevara:Then it's working against the people. And I think this is a reflection not to say that rules doesn't matter. What we're saying is like the rules are not working. And that it's very unfair for the Venezuelan population to try to, you know, just because some people don't agree with the American government or with the United States in general, now defend a criminal like Nicolás Maduro. So we are optimistic but cautious. We understand that the job is far from being done. And we are in this delicate situation in which we need to do everything on our hands to get the freedom of all political prisoners and then at the end, free and fair elections so we can have a re-institutionalization of our country.

3:47Freddy Guevara:Meanwhile, from A to B, there's a lot of things that need to happen and, of course, a lot of support from the international community.

3:53Jesús Mesa:Freddie, Secretary Marco Rubio said his plan for Venezuela, I think he did it yesterday, and he spoke about a three-phase plan. And he talked about stabilization of Venezuela, the first one, the second one is recovery, and the third one that I think that everyone wants in Venezuela right now is the transition. But I want to discuss a little bit about the stability part because I think that some people, or some groups on the opposition were caught a little bit off guard about this part of the plan. What are your thoughts about the plans that the United States have for the stabilization of Venezuela, working alongside Delcy Rodriguez and some of the hierarchy of the Chavista government there?

4:37Freddy Guevara:Of course, we would like a different approach, right? That's logical. We have an elected leader, that is María Corina Machado. We have an elected president, that is Edmundo Gonzalez, and we believe that they could have led this transition. However, we don't live in the perfect world, and we have to deal with the cars that we have. And the reality is that the Americans were the only ones who did what was required in order to open this path. So with this reality is the one that we have to deal with. So instead of just trying to fight what happened, what we want is to make the best of it. And this requires that we as a unified opposition keep pushing within Venezuela, of course, to create the conditions for this democratic transition to happen.

5:29Freddy Guevara:We have a role to play there because the Americans will not be there forever. And of course, in the United States, particularly to make sure that there are no, let's say, deviations for this plan. We want, at least as we're speaking, political prisoners are being freed. We hope that all of them get freed. Not all of them are being freed. And we need also that this top of the persecution, because it's not just freedom of political prisoner, because you free 1 ,000 and then you put 2 ,000 in jail, you know, that's a revolving door. So what we need to do now is to keep work, I would say, rebuilding the connections in Venezuela within all the society that has been fragmented by the regime because they didn't allow people to go to the street to talk to each other, persecuting everyone, everyone isolated because of the fear, while at the same time we work with the American administration and with American society, hopefully creating a bipartisan consensus of what needs to be done in Venezuela.

6:26Freddy Guevara:Kind of like we were saying, we need kind of a plan Colombia in terms of military, but like a state approach, a bipartisan approach to Venezuela again. So this doesn't go bad. You know, I believe that some people might feel the temptation to wish that this goes bad just to, you know, to point out of Trump. And this is something that we have to really, really prevent because this is not the failure of Trump or the winning of Trump. This is the destiny of millions of Venezuelans. So that's why we need the support of everyone in order to make this not just a deal about oil, but also a deal about freedom.

7:06Freddy Guevara:That's how Marco Rubio explained his plan.

7:10Jesús Mesa:And you just mentioned the release of the prisoners in Venezuela. We just, hours ago, Jorge Rodriguez announced the release of some of the prisoners that have been there for a long time. He said that it was like a peace sign to the United States. And you were one of them. You were one of them. You were released, I would say, like, 2021. I think you were released. And I just want you to talk to us about, like, your experience being in prison. And I think that you were in the biggest jail in Caracas. So I just want to ask, like, how was being there and why did they take you?

7:52Freddy Guevara:They took, I mean, I was without freedom twice. The first one was in 2017 when I was president of the Congress. We won by two-thirds of the parliament, and Maduro closed the parliament, and they went after me. Luckily, I escaped from my house, but I managed to get to the Chilean embassy, and the Chilean government, the president Bachelet, gave me refugee there. So I stood there, like in a house arrest for three years, surrounded by the police, so I couldn't get out. Then there was a negotiation process, and I was allowed to get out, and they put me in jail. And they put me in jail, and I was there in isolation, like in solitary confinement, I think is how they call it.

8:29Freddy Guevara:and my situation of course was harsh I didn't have any I only saw the light of the sun three times I didn't have any ventilation you know in the room there was no sunlight no windows and I have to say that I was one of the lucky ones it was very harsh but there are other people who haven't who doesn't have the chance to tell this story because they're dead or they are very harmed physically or emotionally. All of us are harmed emotionally. But even if, of course, this was a dark moment in my life, I am grateful because I am one of the few lucky who can tell this.

9:14Jesús Mesa:And another question that I have looking forward for what could happen in Venezuela is President Trump said that maybe the strategy will take more than two or three years, maybe four. and that the United States will be there for running the country, he said. And I have a question for you because obviously while you were working with Maria Corina Machado, you were working with the opposition leaders on this strategy to actually force a transition to win an election. And some people are thinking that maybe this solution is not going to come that fast or as fast as you might want. What are your thoughts about it?

9:53Jesús Mesa:Are you confident that the United States can lead this process in a way that it doesn't take that long? Because people are saying that maybe Delcio Rodriguez can stay as president for six more years.

10:04Freddy Guevara:Yeah, no, no, for sure. Maria Corina Machado earlier said that our goal is to make this transition to be the fastest and shortest as possible. However, we cannot find a particular date. What I can say is that, for me, there's two things that are really urgent, and all the other ones, we can take more time. The two things that are really urgent are the freedom of political prisoners and the humanitarian assistance of Venezuelans. Because as we speak, there's not just political prisoners. You have millions of Venezuelans who doesn't have food, who doesn't have energy, who doesn't have access to education, who doesn't have access to health.

10:44Freddy Guevara:Of course, that will require a lot of reconstruction, right? I'm not saying that all the country needs to be saved or reconstructed in one day. But at least in the humanitarian aspect, that we don't have anyone dying because there's no medicine or dying because there's no electricity in a hospital or dying because there's no food or no energy. At least those things need to be addressed. So I think these are the things that are really, really urgent. At the same time, we understand that given the situation that we have now, all the reconstruction part, the re-institutionalization of the country can take more time.

11:24Freddy Guevara:How much? I don't know. How long? I don't know. I know what Maria Corina said, and we are following that, that we want to make it the shortest as possible. This will require a lot of things because we have to discuss how to call for a new election that is free and fair. how to reconstitute all the powers that are now kidnapped by the regime. We need a new parliament. We need a new Supreme Court. We need a complete justice system, right, because most of it is corrupted. What do we do with the armed forces that are now also, you know, with the participation of the Cubans, the Russians, and the Iranians?

12:02Freddy Guevara:What do we do with the drug trafficking that is inserted in many of the institutions of the state? How do we deal with the people that are still in the state and they want to remain in the country, but they are afraid that if there's a change, they will all be persecuted? So we'll have to have a lot of negotiation, transitional justice. We'll have to rethink the institutionality of the country. We'll have to create social agreements. There's a lot of things to do. So, of course, we don't have to. I don't think this is a thing about years. I really think this should be less, about a month maybe.

12:41Freddy Guevara:Sadly, I am not the one in control, right? However, what we can do, and that's the commitment of Maria Corina, Machado, and Edmundo Gonzalez and all the democratic opposition, is that we're going to do our best to make it as shorter and faster as possible.

12:55Jesús Mesa:And this is my last question, Freddy. Obviously, you spoke about negotiation. This is a key word here. and some reports say that that actually was the one who played against Maria Corina Machado because she was very hesitant to negotiate with the regime back then I don't think that's true

13:16Freddy Guevara:because Edmundo and Maria Corina have been very outspoken about this many times and not only them, all the opposition we have been very outspoken about that I personally have participated in different negotiation process, the last one, the one that got me into exile because I was part of the negotiation in Mexico with Norway mediating and then they was informed that I wasn't allowed to go back to the country. And previous to that, I was in the parliament. I know Delcy Rodriguez and Jorge Rodriguez. I know how they operate. So it's not like the opposition has, you know, been reclocked into this.

13:48Freddy Guevara:And it's not like Maria Corina and Edmundo didn't offer many times a solution. The problem is that the regime thinks that we, I don't know, that they can outsmart us and they are not afraid of us because we haven't used guns. And they are only afraid of people who have guns, like, you know, the criminals they are. So they are afraid of Trump. So they're willing to negotiate with Trump. This is sadly the world that we're living in. It's very sad that they build themselves this path for themselves. This is kind of like a self-fulfilled prophecy because they did everything in their power to get into this position because they have many, many, many ways, many pathways to get out of this.

14:35Freddy Guevara:But now they're intramping in this. We don't trust these guys, the ones that are in control of the country now. I mean, the Venezuelans, the Maduro leftovers. overs. However, we also understand that, you know, history is full of surprises with democratic transitions from dictatorship to democracies. And I hope we're wrong. And I hope that this is one of those cases in which the surprises happen. One good sign is that political prisoners are being freed. But we still need a lot of proof to see if this is really about a democratic transition.

15:10Jesús Mesa:I'm afraid you just mentioned Del C. Rodriguez. You said that you had to deal with her. You said that you had spoken with her. I just want to understand, and maybe our readers would like to understand a little bit on her thinking. How is she like? What does she think? What is the personality of the current president of Venezuela?

15:31Freddy Guevara:I mean, it's not like I was a close person with her. I know more her brother because he was part of the negotiation process. She was in one, and he was in the two, in the next two. And so I don't think they're moderate at all. I think they're very ideological, radical people. They believe they are smarter than everyone else. And I think they believe that they can outsmart Trump. If you ask me, in their plan, there's not a democratization process. I think their plan A is to convince the Trump administration that they can have Saudi Arabia or China, you know. Economic freedom, international investment, but no freedom at all in terms of politics.

16:21Freddy Guevara:Probably their plan B is to buy time to see if, you know, the Senate blocks Trump's ability to do more military actions, if he loses the midterms of if Russia invades now Lithuania or if China invades Taiwan or whatever. You know, they're going to buy time. And their plan C, I think, is trying to postpone the elections as much as possible in order to get them or someone like them or endorsed by them to be able to win. They're going to try to convince maybe that we don't have a full democracy, but kind of what Stephen Levitsky calls a competitive authoritarianism, which is, yeah, there's elections, but not really fair, right?

17:04Freddy Guevara:so I think that's their plan of course our plan is different our plan is to do everything we can to impede that to happen and as I said I hope I'm wrong I hope that these plans that I'm saying are just in their heads and the reality proves me wrong and that the Trump administration and the American society because we really need bipartisan support here makes all the pressure to prevent these people that are there to create a new dictatorship but without Maduro Well, that was it.

17:36Jesús Mesa:Thank you, Freddie. Thank you so much.

17:37Freddy Guevara:Thank you very much.