SU_A_11

[i] Hello [name], how are you? I asked you to bring something personal and you brought the Venezuelan flag.
[r] Well, the flag of Venezuela means many things. For us, it means our love for our country, for Venezuela. It means our memories. And well, it’s something we carry in our hearts.
[i] Were you born in Venezuela?
[r] No, I wasn’t born in Venezuela. I was born in Nicaragua because of my father’s work. He worked all over Latin America. He was Belgian. And the country he liked best in all of Latin America was Venezuela. He decided to go and live there. And well, he was one of the people who taught us the most about loving Venezuela. He taught us that this was a country, paradise on earth. The best country in the world for him. And well…
[i] How old were you when you arrived?
[r] I was about to turn 7 when I arrived in Venezuela. And the truth is that I have very few memories of my childhood in Nicaragua. A few friends, school, maybe school, first or second grade. But my real memories and friends and loved ones are in Venezuela. From the first, second or third grade that I arrived in Venezuela, my country, the one I consider my country, my whole life truly began.
[i] And what did your parents do there?
[r] My dad was an agricultural engineer. He was dedicated to his work, he studied here in Belgium. At the University of Lobaina. And he first worked in Venezuela growing corn to obtain classified seeds. He also grew peanuts for chocolate manufacturers and bonbon makers in Venezuela. And he did a little research. He really liked discovering things. For example, some unusual fruits that weren’t very well known, like passion fruit. And sending them to universities so that they could be distributed throughout the country. That was the work that he was truly passionate about.
[i] And how was your childhood?
[r] Well, my childhood was very turbulent because I was born in Nicaragua, as I told you. And in Nicaragua too. What I saw from a very young age was war. Also, the same Cuban regime trying to invade Nicaragua. Creating revolutions and doing the same thing they did in Venezuela. So, from my early childhood, that was simply what I saw: war. First with the revolution in Nicaragua and then big, as an adult, with the same revolution repeated in Venezuela. Well, I think that when I arrived in Venezuela it was also like feeling an oasis of peace. A country that was in the 1980s, we arrived in 1979, at the beginning of the 1980s. And it was a very prosperous at the time. It was the country where everyone wanted to go, everyone wanted to emigrate. Apart from us as a Belgian family. Nicaraguan. There were immigrants from all over the world. There were many Portuguese, many Spanish, many Italians. Some had emigrated in the 1950s and 1960s. And many more continued to arrive in the 1980s. And well, it was a country that welcomed all immigrants with great affection and love. There was practically no xenophobia. Nor was there any discrimination. Because 70% of the population was immigrant. Or children of immigrants. So, well, that created an environment, I think, that was very conducive, very nice. For all cultures to develop. And well, to learn to love and appreciate each other without pointing fingers.
[i] And what was the main source of wealth, economically speaking, of the country?
[r] Venezuela’s main wealth… For many years, since the beginning of the 20th century, it was oil. And well, many analysts think that it is its main source of wealth and its main misfortune. Because oil, despite bringing great development in the 1950s with Pérez Jiménez. He began to develop the country with major motorways and hospitals. Developing the city. Then, with the advent of democracy, that money continued to be invested in infrastructure in the country. Beautiful universities were built. Very large hospitals were built. Free education began to be provided at all levels. To Venezuelans and anyone who lived there. And well, it wasn’t just oil. There was also, there is a great wealth. Venezuela is also rich in gold, iron, diamonds, many precious minerals. In water, fresh water, which many countries lack. And Venezuela has the largest reserves of fresh water on the planet.
[i] And where do they come from?
[r] We have rivers, the main rivers of Venezuela are the Orinoco and Caroní rivers. In Ciudad Guayana, precisely where we lived, these two rivers meet. And they flow into the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the Orinoco River. That is a very important resource . The Orinoco River is navigable, which led to… One of the reasons why Ciudad Guayana, where we lived, was founded. Because, being close to all the iron and bauxite mines, the Caroní River, which is another of the main rivers, was used as a source of hydroelectric power to power the basic industries of nation, to exploit and transform these minerals, and then the Orinoco River as a navigable river to export these minerals. There were many sources of wealth in Venezuela, many, and there still are. And that has been, of course, a focus of attention for corruption, so that many foreign forces want to take over the country as they have done, to appropriate this wealth.
[i] And your years? What was life like while you were at university? And what did you study?
[r] Well, I spent my school years in Caracas. We lived in Caracas at first, when we emigrated to Venezuela. Then my wife and I emigrated to Puerto Ordaz, because Caracas was a large metropolis with approximately 6 or 7 million inhabitants, with all the problems that entails, a lot of traffic, quite a lot of crime. And my father-in-law was living in Ciudad Guayana, in Puerto Ordaz at the time. We got to know the city and loved it because it was a very modern, developed city, there was practically no crime, no traffic, there were many well-paid jobs, and we decided to move there. I studied there for a while, after… I worked in many areas, and eventually I ended up fulfilling my dream of studying law. I am a lawyer, and well, once I had fulfilled this dream, the times we were living in were crazy, the times of the Chavista Revolution, and…
[i] When did it start?
[r] Well, the Revolution… Chávez came to power in 1999, and from that moment on, it marked a difference for the entire population. He came to power with a huge propaganda machine.
[i] Through elections?
[r] By elections, he won the elections, but he was supported by many media outlets, who at the time did not suspect what they were doing. He always had communism in his ideals, he was always a coup leader, he gave. before winning the elections in 1999, in 1998, sorry, at the end of 1998, he staged two very bloody coups. Many, many innocent people were killed in those coups. Afterwards, he was imprisoned, tried, and imprisoned again. At that time, President Rafael Caldera decided to grant him a presidential pardon, release him and restore all his civil and political rights. Well, that was a great, very serious mistake, because from that moment on, as I say, with the support of a lot of foreign funding and a lot of propaganda in the media, he rose in the polls and finally won the polls, which brought him to power in the year… the December elections of ’98, rising in ’99. And well, from that moment on, he never left power, despite the fact that one of his election promises was that he would not seek re-election, that he would not change the Constitution, in the sense of indefinite re-election. It was one of the first things he did when the National Constituent Assembly was established National Constituent Assembly was established. To be able to amend the Constitution to include indefinite re-election. At first it wasn’t indefinite, but it was re-election. And well, since then we have been living this misfortune. Because, as a lawyer, I know that one of the general principles of democracy, basic and fundamental, is alternation. Power must be alternated. A person should not remain in power simply because they become ill. And well, that leads to so many vices that we are seeing right now. A person who knows that they will never leave power, will never be punished for the crimes they commit, they are not concerned about continuing to commit them.
[i] And was that obvious from the beginning? Or at first you couldn’t see what was going to happen later? Or was it something [name]?
[r] It was something [name]. My father told me from that moment on, he said, look [name], it’s very clear, this man is a charlatan, he’s a loudmouth, he’s a communist. And what these kinds of people want is total power and to crush the population. He told me, he said, I’ve seen this before in Europe, this happened in Eastern Europe, this isn’t the first time it’s happened. And this gentleman, he told me before that if they won the 1998 elections, this gentleman would never ever leave power. This man came to stay because he is a communist. He is going to install a dictatorship here. Not everyone saw it. Thank God, I, because of my upbringing from my father and what I already knew, from what I had experienced in Nicaragua, I never voted for him in any of the elections. And well, at least it gave me peace of mind that I didn’t contribute and I was always against this being established. Was it a gradual process? It was a gradual process. He gradually paved the way in all public institutions, all public bodies, taking over what he knew was most important, which was the judiciary, the ombudsman’s office, which was an institution that he created that did not exist. Taking over all the institutions to obtain complete power over the State, so that there was no balance of powers, in order to be able to act with total impunity, which is what he says at the end.
[i] And how were the early years of Chavismo reflected in your daily life, in the daily life of your family? Apart from what was happening at the government level, how was the population aware of what was happening?
[r] The population was aware, but it varied depending on the social class. The poorest social classes adored Chávez because he used the resources of the State, which at that time were immense. Venezuela had oil prices of over 100 dollars a barrel for a very long time, and with a production of close to 4 million barrels a day. This is a communist process that came to receive more than 1. 000 billion dollars in revenue. That’s a number that’s hard to digest. 1 billion billion dollars in revenue. Unheard of. He used a good part of those resources to give to the poorest sectors. On the advice of Fidel Castro in 2002, after he survived an attempted coup, which I believe was more of a civil process, where, due to pressure from society, he decided to resign from government in 2002. But due to inexplicable or very difficult to explain, in a short time, he returned to power in the same year, 2002, three days later. At this point, something happened that he realised he needed to buy with more social benefits, with more economic benefits economic benefits, for the poorest sectors and the armed forces. He invented the missions, for example, where medicine has always been free in Venezuela, medical care. But he increased these benefits. He started, for example, a kind of mission called Mission Miracle, if I’m not mistaken, which was to operate on people who had vision problems. And, of course, we have to accept that. It was very good work that was done with that money in that sense. Finding people from the poorest strata of society, from the countryside, from the poorest neighbourhoods, and taking them to hospitals in Venezuela and Cuba too, to have cataracts and many eye diseases operated on so that they could see. With that, he won the appreciation of many people. And, in the same way, he also provided benefits in housing, he gave away houses, he gave away appliances, you name it. Squandering money in a completely irresponsible way. Because not a single penny was invested in the country’s development. It was simply giving away money to gain the support of the population. On the other hand, there was the government. And there were the lower middle class, middle class and upper middle class sectors that were were beginning to realise what was happening in this communist process in Venezuela. Because it is not socialism. It is simply communism reinvented what is happening in Venezuela. The protests began, growing stronger and stronger. The middle class, the social sectors were beginning to realise …what was happening, and then we reached a point in 2014 when people were faced with rising prices and inflation that was excessive, we considered it excessive at that time, it was around 100-150% per year, nothing comparable to what is happening now, which is thousands, two thousand, three thousand per cent, four thousand per cent a year or more. I don’t have the exact figures. But that triggered a series of protests. Protests not only because of inflation, but also because of insecurity. They had already been formed many years ago, and they went forming paramilitary groups called colectivos, the famous Chavista colectivos, which were armed by the government, financed and armed by the government, with the simple aim of receiving support. Support in exchange for… support and protection from this armed group towards the government. The population was aware of everything that was happening and protests were always organised. Protests also took place over the the situation of political prisoners, political leaders who were very well known, who were very troublesome for the government, were arrested and remained in prison with virtually no trial, their trial hearings were always postponed . Or any excuse was used to keep them imprisoned without completing… their judicial process. In February 2014, there was a large march called by… mainly all the political parties, but mainly by Leopoldo López, leader of Voluntad Popular, where several people were killed by the government.
[i] Was it the opposition party?
[r] It was a coalition of opposition parties, they have changed their name which was the unity table, they have changed their name several times, but the main figure who was most followed at the time was Leopoldo López, from one of those parties.
[i] What was…? Where did you work then? In what…? What was your role?
[r] I worked in many places, I worked in that… from 2008, until 2008 I was working… at an American bank. I worked at Stanford Bank. It was a financial group, wasn’t it? It was… what was it called? Stanford Investment Advisors Venezuela. It was an American bank that ended up going bankrupt because it was involved in a pyramid scheme and collapsed with the banking crisis of 2008. Yes, then I worked on my own, freelancing with the same clients from the bank. I worked more or less until 2013 or 2014, when we came here.
[i] And what about that job you had, what did you do?
[r] Ah, but that wasn’t paid work.
[i] It was…
[r] I never received a penny and most of us never received a penny because I wasn’t… I didn’t belong to any political party.
[i] You were like a watchdog to make sure the elections were conducted in a…
[r] Yes. They simply called on the political parties as… They called on people from civil society who wanted to collaborate, who were willing to put their lives on the line. And well, I worked with my daughter, with [name]. She also went with me and my colleagues from. my colleagues from the university, I brought them in, the lawyers. But really, the one who fought with the soldiers and the one who fought face to face and threatened them was me.
[i] Under what circumstances? And you, as part of an opposition political party or simply as a citizen…
[r] No, they simply called for volunteers, I offered myself and they accredited me, they accredited me as… We voted on that in Ecuador, all the cards I had accrediting me as the main witness at a polling station. Yes. And well, I couldn’t cover more than one polling station. And well, that was precisely our job, to ensure that the regulations of the electoral law were strictly complied with… the electoral law. If the regulations stated that the polling stations had to be closed if there was no queue of voters at six o’clock in the evening, they had to be closed. So the job of the Chavista soldiers of Plan República and the staff of the CNE, the National Electoral Council, was to prevent them from closing… in order to wait for the buses of Chavistas that had been printed… the fake ID cards with the names of people who had not gone to vote at that time. So, well, they padded the vote that way.
[i] Do you remember what the Plan República was?
[r] The Armed Forces had a role there in Venezuela since the fall of the Pérez Jiménez dictatorship in 1958. It was to safeguard electoral material and protect it. That is their reason and their main function in Venezuela. But they, of course, have gone and assigned themselves functions on their own. They ended up becoming a kind of head of the electoral process when they are not, to order and threaten all the real actors in an electoral process in Venezuela, which is civil society. The real body that should be in charge of these elections in Venezuela is the National Electoral Council. But, as I said, the soldiers of Plan República even stormed into the classrooms of the schools that were serving as polling stations. And, well, they destroyed the election materials and threatened the polling station officials. When the polling station presidents wanted to comply only with the electoral law regulations, which was to close, for example, the centre or the polling station when there were no more voters in line, And, well, of course, most people gave in to the threat of a rifle, of a FAL, a military rifle, pressed against their chest. Well, people started crying and often let the soldier do what he wanted, what the government wanted done. soldier wanted them to do, what the government wanted them to do, the dictatorship. Well, that was simply the way Chávez managed to win the elections that he could no longer win fairly. And, as I told you, he realised that when he lost the first referendum in 2008. That he couldn’t simply depend on the popular vote and abide by it fairly. He had to cheat, but not in a way that was obvious at first glance. And that was the way he found. to make them vote for people who were no longer in the country, or people who had already died, or people who were simply in Venezuela but hadn’t gone to vote. With that, he obtained more or less a cushion of one million, one million two hundred, one million five hundred thousand additional votes to what he had obtained. That was back then. Now, with Nicolás Maduro, the thing… the rigging is completely out in the open and blatant. And he puts whatever figures Nicolás Maduro wants at the moment. There is no longer the shame that the late Chávez had, of at least adjusting the figures a little, covering them up a little.
[i] And what situations did you have to face in that role you had in that electoral process?
[r] Look, as the main witness at my polling station, there was one occasion when… if I’m not mistaken it was the lawyer. In the last presidential election. There was precisely… already our table was closed. The voting book from our table. And practically all the tables in the centre were almost full. Eighty, seventy and five percent. But because it was a centre with a vote of… it was a fairly uniform population in terms of opposition. But they still had to… fill the remaining twenty, twenty-five per cent of blank votes with their votes. And they were waiting for the buses with Chavistas to arrive, with fake ID cards to vote. It was around quarter past six or half past six in the evening. I don’t remember the name of the lieutenant who was in charge at the time. I know he was a young lieutenant. And I said, well, we’re closing now because, as I said, they were taking it upon themselves the role of authorising the polling station president when that should not have been the case. The closing of the records and the manual and electronic closing of the voting records. And he threatened the polling station presidents by telling them they couldn’t close. And as a lawyer and polling station witness, I told them. But the electoral regulations do not give you any authority to tell the polling station president whether or not he can close the polls. The only thing the electoral law regulations say is that if there are no voters in line, the polls close at six o’clock. But of course, as I said, he threatened, shouted, insulted, threatened to have the polling station presidents , threatening to kill them. And there came a point when I said, let’s gather all the polling station presidents in the courtyard of the polling station. There were about two or three thousand people outside angrily waiting for the results of the vote. Most of them were opponents, but people at that point were very upset. Maybe half past six, almost seven in the evening.
[i] What year was that, sorry?
[r] That was in 2013. In 2013, yes. And… we put it to a vote among all the polling station presidents and witnesses, the main witnesses and the witnesses at each table. What should be done? I took out the electoral law regulations and read them aloud to them, and I said, ‘Gentlemen, as polling station presidents, you are in charge of your polling stations, you have the power and the duty to close them. There was a vote, and of course we won, and at that moment the lieutenant pointed with his rifle and told me he was going to kill me. I didn’t have… because I was disturbing their polling station. So I said to him, “Well, brother, kill me, there are two thousand people here as witnesses, and you’ll go to prison. You can kill me. But if you don’t open right now, you won’t let, excuse me, the polling station presidents close their tables right now, I’m going to go outside the polling station, there are two thousand, three thousand people, and I’m going to tell them what you are doing, simply as head of the Plan República at this polling station. So you decide, you kill me, you face the whole world, there are a lot of cameras here as witnesses, or you let it close, or I’ll go and announce to the people so they can go into the polling station and get it closed, the tables. At that point, he agreed to let the presidents close the tables and… Well, later, that was, as I said, almost at seven in the evening. They lost that vote, that was the vote where Nicolás Maduro supposedly won. It was a total fraud. Look, around seven, seven-thirty in the , the same lieutenant who had threatened me with death, and the head of the centre’s plan, from the National Electoral Council, were crying. They were sitting on the stairs crying, crying, because they had already received the reports that they had lost the elections. And that, well, the opposition candidate had won. We, of course, were happy, celebrating, receiving calls from all over, from friends, from political parties…
[i] What was the name of the opposition candidate?
[r] Capriles. Capriles, yes, Capriles. There have been so many candidates who have. It was a celebration, a national holiday. At that moment, all of Venezuela was celebrating that we had won the elections. And that it was the end, the end of the Chavista nightmare, of the communist nightmare. Approximately, we still had to collect, do the accounting, there was a draw to be made to do… an audit of certain polling stations, there had to be a manual count, which is also established in the electoral regulations. And that always took us until at least midnight, one o’clock in the morning. It was very hard work. At around 8:30 p.m., we started to receive calls and reports that the numbers had been reversed. And that there were voting centres in very poor neighbourhoods with strong support for Chávez, which had not managed to withstand the pressure from the regional leaders of the Plan República and the armed Chávez supporters. And they had allowed many buses to enter after closing time, when the polling stations should have been closed. And with that number of votes coming in… they reversed the results and I believe that he won by 800,000 fraudulent votes this man, the dictator who is in power today, Nicolás Maduro. At that moment, we realised what was coming, that it was no longer possible to win an election, it was not possible to get out of this dictatorship with votes. It was technically and humanly impossible for the Venezuelan people to get out of all this through democracy. We tried, we tried many times, we fought for it, but It is impossible to do so with votes. We tried, we tried many times, we fought for it, but unfortunately, without international intervention, international aid, it is not possible to get rid of these people.
[i] And those strong protests you told me about a while ago, were they after? Once Maduro was already…
[r] Yes, yes. The protests went on throughout Chávez’s government and during his illness they calmed down quite a bit, there was empathy from the people, from the poor, towards what his illness and death meant, right? At that time, he rose in the polls after Chávez died. Of course, there is always empathy towards the person who is suffering, the weakest person, isn’t there?
[i] What did you have?
[r] Cancer. He died of cancer, he died in Cuba. He didn’t trust the Venezuelan doctors, he didn’t trust anyone, he went to Cuba and in Cuba, according to many analysts and a lot of information, he was practically eliminated because he was a nuisance to the Cubans’ plan, the Castros’ plan to take complete power in Venezuela, right?
[i] And why did he become a nuisance?
[r] Because Chávez was a person who, despite being egocentric and had many flaws, he always held on to power. Chávez was the one in charge in Venezuela. The military obeyed Chávez. And that was a stumbling block for the Cubans to be able to take all the wealth freely, to be able to invade as they pleased and take everything as they pleased. He had opened the door for them there, he had put them inside the institutions, he had put them inside, for example, military intelligence, the DIN, the old DIN, the Military Intelligence Directorate, he put them there to spy on those who were spying on the military and the military, for example.
[i] And that’s confirmed?
[r] Yes, yes, yes, of course. That’s public knowledge. There are many, many records and many people who are abroad at the moment who… worked in the former Military Intelligence Directorate who have confirmed this, have given their reports and interviews about it. But anyway, that was one of the reasons… the start of the protests. The protests, as I said, were always there. There were a series of protests in early 2014 due to the same insecurity that was prevalent in the country, Because of the armed groups, as I already told you, because of the extremely high inflation, much higher than any other country in Latin America and one of the highest in the world. And a large march was organised by this political party, a coalition of political parties, the Democratic Unity Roundtable, the MUT, where there were thousands and thousands… In Caracas, it was estimated that more than a million people gathered and they were replicated in all the cities of Venezuela. This march was attacked, as was customary, both by the National Guard and by armed groups, paramilitaries loyal to the government. And there were a number of deaths, I don’t remember how many. Leopoldo López, the leader of one of the main opposition parties. Opposition parties in Venezuela. He decided, a few days later, a few weeks later, to turn himself in, trusting that he would receive a fair trial and that nothing could be proven against him. He is also a lawyer, Leopoldo López. And well, this generated a lot of much, much stronger protests throughout the country. They began… protests that led to roadblocks in all cities for months, several months. These protests lasted from February to approximately July 2014. Several months, during which several cities were completely closed off by the civilian population, protesting against the whole situation. In the end, the government decided, the dictatorship decided to crush these protests with bullets, with fire and killing people if necessary, eliminating anyone who stood in their way. And at that moment, in 2014, our eldest daughter left us, after several events that put her life in danger and several threats, defending friends and classmates from the Catholic University where she studied. Her life was threatened and she was also threatened with having her passport taken away, her identity document so that she could not leave the country. She decided to leave before receiving her degree. She had already graduated and had submitted all the necessary documents to graduate, but she had not received her degree yet. She decided to emigrate, she came here first, to Belgium, if I’m not mistaken, in July 2014. And well, we also participated in that protest, in all the marches that took place in our city, we participated. We often went to Caracas too to participate in the marches, to show our support.
[i] So your eldest daughter, [name], was the first in the family to leave.
[r] Yes, yes, she said she wasn’t willing to risk her future. She wasn’t willing to have her passport taken away and her freedom taken away. And that she, well, made the decision to come to Belgium to try to get a better future here.
[i] And she had been supporting her colleagues in the…
[r] Yes, like most university students in Venezuela and in any country, they always come out to defend their rights. She and her classmates were part, just like us, of the protests that were taking place throughout the country and also in our city, in Portordaz. Many of their colleagues took turns sleeping in the camps where the protests were taking place, in the city centre, in the most important part of the city, in Alta Vista. There was the CBG square and the Orinoquia shopping centre, where the main protests were taking place and the main roadblock in the city, where the streets were blocked. After… in the days leading up to this, there was a visit by several generals from the Army and the National Guard and police chiefs to negotiate with the student leaders. And among the promises made by the Army, the objective of those negotiations was that the students would not stop traffic, for example, they would not set up barricades to cause any hostility. And they promised that the students would not be attacked. They would not be attacked again, because they had already been attacked on many occasions. But well, like good military liars, Chavistas, communists and murderers, a couple of days after these negotiations, and all these promises from the generals and police leaders themselves, in the early hours of that day, I don’t remember exactly which day, they were attacked. They began the attacks at around three or four in the morning. As is the custom of the Chavistas, that is always their chosen time, when everyone the world is fast asleep in their homes, and everyone is trying to rest. And the people in the areas where they were concentrated, in the camps too, were asleep or careless. They launched a general attack to evict them by force. Several of my daughter’s friends called her in the early hours of the morning, I don’t know, it was maybe four in the morning, or something like that, five in the morning. And my daughter, so as not to scare us us, she went alone. Alone to the Altavista area in Portordaz, maybe two or three kilometres from our house. And well, when she saw that her friends were being attacked, they were being beaten, they were being shot at, they were being taken away, they were being dragged away, well, she intervened, a girl, a young woman, barely 22 years old, began to defend her comrades, also to intervene in… at that moment the bodyguards of the mayor of the city, whose name was José Ramón, still called José Ramón López, ordered them to attack her, and well, they attacked my daughter, took her mobile phone, there’s still a video, you can find it on YouTube, she posted it, the mayor of Portordaz attacking me, that’s what the video is called. She threw the mobile phone after she recorded until the moment they were about to attack her. And well, it was left there… the voices were recorded from the fight and what they did to her. This, well, was one… the final trigger for her to decide to leave, right? And also, from that moment on, we started planning our departure from there. We stayed longer in Venezuela, but… Also that same day, that same day, two, three consecutive days, were… very bloody in Portordaz and in many cities in Venezuela. They were going… they arrived in a Hercules aircraft and several other military aircraft in the city and unloaded military vehicles, Toyotas and many motorcycles and armoured vehicles, which were presumed to be an elite group to crush all the people protesting in different cities of Venezuela, right? And these people, well, they acted in cold blood. They were rampaging, shooting at everyone. Even the boys who were fleeing tried to escape through the mountains… It’s a very large city and there are still wooded areas within the city, within the city itself. And the boys who were fleeing were hunted like animals, hunted so that none of them would escape. And there were cases of boys who were… wounded by bullets, crossing the mountains, taking two or three hours to reach another part of the city through mountainous areas and when they arrived, they were spotted elsewhere, hours later they were killed by these murderous thugs. One case in which we intervened, directly that day we were helping to distribute food, as we often did. We participated in the day, in several of the protests, supporting. And in the afternoons, in the evenings we went to distribute… there was a support network for the kids. There was an elderly Spanish lady who said, well, I can’t go and take part in the marches directly, I’m too old. She was a lady of about 80 years old, who had lived her whole life in Venezuela, like many European immigrants. So, I’m going to… what I can do is cook for the boys. And she would prepare 50, 100 meals a day, put them in containers, in little trays. She would prepare two 50-litre thermos flasks of some kind of drink, with sugar, something to give the boys energy and lots of ice, because it’s a very hot city. To give you an idea, the average temperature is 45 degrees Celsius. Well, we were delivering that day, and we finished very well. And many other days, we had already seen in the morning what had happened to the boys, to the students. The hunt was still going on. And at night, we were looking for people we could help by giving them food, some pockets of resistance or something, I received a call from a priest friend of mine. He had studied with me at university many years before becoming a priest. And, well, he told me that he had been hearing gunshots next to the church that is next to the Ullapar hospital. And, well, some screams from some boys. And he looked out and saw how they were shooting what he thought he could see. It was quite far away, 40 or 50 metres, he thought he could see them shooting, firing at some boys there. He couldn’t believe it. Then he asked if we could go and help, to see, to help, although he didn’t dare go alone. And we approached the area. We started looking for bloodstains on the floor. At that moment, one of these demons’ patrol cars in a Toyota vehicle passed by and stopped next to us. And we stayed where they had massacred them; we couldn’t leave. We turned down several side streets. And we saw some boys, a bunch of little eyes, in a house with bars, which was dark. We rolled down the windows and asked the boys if they needed anything, if they needed food or drink. We had it there because we hadn’t been able to distribute it to anyone that day because everyone was fleeing. And they told us no, that they didn’t need food, that they needed us to get them out of there. They wanted to flee, but they didn’t dare walk outside the house because they would kill them. So, well, we were in a small car, an Aterios, my wife and I. We were with a friend and her daughter, who were studying with our son [name]. They always helped us distribute things and assist with all the logistics of these protest centres. Well, we said, of course, come along. And we squeezed in four young people as best we could in there, two in the back in the boot. And two in the front, perched on top of our female friends. And well, we closed the windows, because there it’s customary to have tinted windows in cars. Because of crime and the sun, lots of things, so they couldn’t see inside. And well, we took the boys out of the area, thank God. On the way, we were stopped by some military patrols that were there. I rolled down the window a little and they saw my face. And they didn’t stop us, thank God, because if they had, I think I’d be in prison right now, or maybe dead. Because we were rescuing young people. Well, that was a crime punishable by death or imprisonment. We managed to take these young people very close to their homes. One lived in the Unares neighbourhood. He was in areas that were completely blocked by protests from civilians. There were barricades all along the road with barbed wire. It was total war. A war… that was… even though the rest of the world didn’t know about it, we were in a civil war against the dictatorship. And they told us while we told them what had happened to them. And they told us that they had been coming down from Altavista, where the main protests were taking place. Because they were being chased by the military, who were shooting at them, and they were fleeing desperately. One of the patrol cars caught up with them and ordered them to stop. They shouted at them to stop or they would shoot, and two of them stopped. Well, those who were a little further away also stopped and saw how the soldiers got out and shot the boys. They shot them in cold blood. And well, the boys were crying inside the car, desperate. Because of what they had seen. And that was what my friend the priest had seen too. How these murderous criminals had shot a couple of student boys there in cold blood without doing absolutely nothing. Just trying to run for their lives. Well, I called some friends. I knew a lot of people in Puerto Ordaz, I had lived there for many years. I called some journalist friends. One of them is called Alicia Estaba, who is a journalist with a lot of experience in the city. And several others. I can’t remember any names right now. Carlos Mora. And they started to leave. They worked at several different radio stations and newspapers. They took one of the newspapers and went there. When they got to the area, the military stopped them, got them out of the car, took all their clothes, shoes, even their underwear. And they told them they had to run away from there. Otherwise, they would shoot them right there and then. They had no right to film anything, they had no right to report anything that was happening, or anything they had seen. Because they were known and they would have come looking for them at their homes and killed them. Well, that was one of the things that happened that day. We managed to save those four boys. Then we went back, about about an hour and a half later, because it was very difficult to get around all the streets, there were many roadblocks. We had to stop at the barricades to explain to people that we were leaving boys who were being chased to be killed. We got a call from a friend too, who had also run away, I don’t know what it was, maybe it was eleven, twelve, the truth is that I lost track of time. And I have many memories blocked by the trauma. But we got a call from a friend, a very good friend of ours, a group of friends, a social group of ours. We were very close, very strong. Good, he had also been caught up in the chase and the shooting in Alta Vista and they wanted to kill him and he had jumped into into the yard of a plant nursery. Next to the hospital too. The hospital that was across from the church. And that he had heard all the shots and the screams and that, well, he didn’t dare go out because they were going to kill him. There were these animals in uniform who you didn’t know what they really were. Patrolling all the time with military weapons and shooting and disappearing everyone they saw. And well, we couldn’t leave him there, so we took one last chance. We had already left our friend and her daughter because her daughter didn’t want to, she when she heard that they had called us and that we were going back to the area of the slaughter, the massacre, she said she didn’t want to go back. She didn’t want to be killed. She started crying, saying she didn’t want to be killed as nicely as the other boys and that we should leave her at home. We left her and, well, we went back again. We went back to the Alta Vista area, to the Alta Vista nursery, called our friend, he couldn’t hear the phone because he had put it on silent so so that the guards wouldn’t hear the sound or vibration. So we had to drive around a couple of times and he said he had seen a car like ours but he didn’t know if it was us and he was afraid to look out, which is why he had taken so long to come out. But anyway, in the end he came out, jumped the fence, got into the car running, and we managed to get him out of there that day. Well, of course, that… there were also other protests. Apart from that day, the armed groups were very violent, the colectivos, often with an irrational hatred against anyone who opposed the government. They were armed, almost always on drugs or drunk. I was targeted and attacked which is also on YouTube. You can look it up. It’s from the protests at UNEXPO in Puerto Ordaz in 2014. Where, among so many people who were attacked that day by Chavistas, I was attacked and threatened with death that day for defending a woman, a woman who was simply standing there. Protesting with all of us, and the Chavistas arrived and pushed her and knocked her to the ground and started beating her. Simply for standing there, for standing there protesting. Well, we had that university, UNEXPO, just 20 or 30 metres from our house. And the boys, the students when they protested there, we, I used to open the door for them there for all the organisations. The organisations closed themselves off with bars and opened small doors at the ends so that people who had to go to work and didn’t have a car could get out and catch the buses or something. And I opened those doors for the boys so that they could escape from the Chavistas who wanted to kill them. And we started getting shot at on that fence that was in front of our house with military weapons. The Chavistas were passing by on motorcycles and in vehicles and shooting at the door, at our house, leaving holes from military weapons. From Russian weapons and often from the FAL rifles they also had. And well, all of that led us to make the difficult decision that we also had to leave there. Well, unfortunately and painfully, that was how we left. We left Venezuela in September 2014.
[i] And how did you leave? By plane? By car?
[r] Yes, we left by plane. It was much more difficult, practically impossible. We decided to go first to Ecuador, to try our luck there. We sold our cars; we had all our cars there. With that money, we bought our tickets. We packed up, it’s very difficult to pack your life into two suitcases each, and a little dog. We took our little dog with us, who had been with us for many years, a tiny poodle who was part of the family. Yes, we left, we arrived in Ecuador, we tried there for a few months before I got the papers. We decided to get permanent residency papers. We decided to open a restaurant serving Venezuelan food and international cuisine, Ecuadorian food. But we encountered a major problem, which was the beginning of a huge wave of xenophobia against Venezuelans that was sprouting throughout Latin America due to the great wave that was just beginning at that time. Venezuelans were fleeing throughout Latin America and across the globe. But of course, the countries most affected were those closest to Venezuela. Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil. And in a matter of four or five months we saw all our savings disappear. The proceeds from the sale of the vehicles and the few savings we had been able to get out. Because, well, people stopped coming when they found out we were Venezuelans. They stopped going to the restaurant and in the end we had to sell the equipment because we were renting the premises. And well, I managed to get, I managed to get, I prepared myself, I spent a few months studying. I told him I was a lawyer and had been preparing for a few months once I got my citizenship papers to take the merit-based competitive exam, which is how you enter public office. I won several competitions in first place. I was not accepted for most of these public positions for which I won merit-based competitive examinations. Because they told me that despite having all my papers in order and already having Ecuadorian nationality at that time. I was a foreigner, I was Venezuelan. And they couldn’t accept that a Venezuelan would hold a public office. They simply could not accept it. So I complained, of course, as a lawyer. I said, look, but I’m Ecuadorian, I have Ecuadorian papers. I won the merit-based competitive examination. I took all my exams. I did my interview, all the stages of the competitive exam. I have the right. He says no sir, do whatever you do, you’re not going in. That was three or four competitions that I won. In the end, I kept insisting because there was no other option. I hadn’t been able to get any job at all, nothing. I tried to get a job as a driver, a taxi driver. I tried to get a job washing cars, sweeping streets, anything. And no one would hire me because I was Venezuelan. Even with some friends and relatives of my wife that we had there. It was always just promises. Let’s see how we can help you. Getting a job was impossible. At that time, there were only about ten thousand Venezuelans in Ecuador. I took another exam to enter an institution at the hydrocarbon regulation and control agency. I came in first place as a paralegal. In a position designed for university students in law in their sixth semester or recent graduates. Well, I won. I passed the interview. And I started working. The first three months of probation, of course, they made my life a living hell. It was hell trying to get me to quit. That he wouldn’t make it through that trial period. But I needed the job. It was a matter of survival. To be able to work. I passed the three-month stage. I got the job. In the following six months, well, for the same reason, I had to work very, very hard. And working non-stop. Studying, continuing to study Ecuador’s hydrocarbons law. Continue studying the constitution, civil code, etc. All the legal regulations I had already studied but I had to specialise in the area of hydrocarbons. In six months, a new legal director arrived at the agency. Without my knowledge, he compared my work to that of all the other lawyers. He called me into his office and said, ‘Look [name], there’s something different about your work.’ And well, I thought he was going to fire me. I thought, well, I did something wrong, he didn’t like something, and that’s it. But no, it was quite the opposite. He said, look, there’s something very special about you. You analyse very well, you apply the regulations very well. You’re not copying and pasting, you’re analysing each file and reasoning it out. And we’re winning the cases that presented to you, and that’s very good. I’m going to make you the coordinator of hydrocarbon offences at the national level. I objected. He gave me a week to think about it. I continued to object after a week, and he gave me an ultimatum. And he says, well, I’m the legal director and I’m giving you an order. You have to accept the position or you have to resign. I had no choice but to accept the position.
[i] And why didn’t you want to accept it?
[r] Because I didn’t want to have to check the work and files of all the Ecuadorian lawyers. I didn’t want to tell them that it was wrong. But anyway, I had no choice but to accept the position, and of course, within a matter of a month or two, it caused me a lot of problems with all the lawyers nationwide. I couldn’t, of course, put my signature on a document or any administrative file that wasn’t well-founded or well-written. And that caused me a lot of problems. They started opening my drawers at night to steal my files. They started hacking into my computer and delete all my data. I had to have a separate backup of all my files, my archives, everything, everything, everything. I started receiving threats as well. At that time, the government, the government then President Rafael Correa, by the way, his wife is Belgian. And…
[i] I live in Brussels.
[r] Well, I hope you see it, Rafael Correa. What happened? I started as a coordinator of hydrocarbon violations, looking at many old files where many acts of corruption were being covered up, hidden, concealed. Not only from the Correa government but from many entities. With Petroecuador and all the companies close to Petroecuador and Petroamazonas. One is dedicated to exploration and exploitation and the other to the commercialisation of hydrocarbons in Ecuador. And this amount of corruption I couldn’t let it go, cover it up because I would have been an accomplice to this. I started passing reports to the legal director who, as I said, hadn’t been there long. And the legal director asked me to gather more evidence, the evidence from the agency’s central files was destroyed. Because it was, well, everyone was complicit in all the corruption and they couldn’t allow someone to blow the lid off that rotten pot. Of course, that made me a lot more enemies and in the eventually threats that they would frame me for corruption. Existing and non-existent. A lawyer with whom I had become somewhat friendly warned me, as did several other people. And in the end, I talked to my wife and decided, look, I don’t want to spend the rest of my days in prison here in Ecuador for something I didn’t do. Since you can’t work in the private sector because salaries are very low here in Ecuador and it’s very difficult to find work. I saw what happened to someone job in the public sector. As a lawyer, I think it’s time for us to leave here and go to Belgium.
[i] And how long were you in Ecuador in total?
[r] It was a little over two years, yes. 2014, 2017, right? A little over two years, yes. Well, another move, another adjustment. We had gone there also counting on… When we came to Belgium, there was the issue of the language barrier. I don’t… I speak very little French. I didn’t speak a word of Dutch when I arrived here. But my father was Flemish, wasn’t he? And my daughter was already settled here in Antwerp, in Flanders.
[i] And where was your father born?
[r] He was born in Schaarbeek, but his family was from a village in Flanders. But they moved to Scharberg, near Brussels, after the First World War. Because my maternal grandmother was gassed by the Germans during the First World War when she was pregnant with my dad. And then, well, she suffered the foetus in the pregnancy. They decided to move because that area, I don’t remember which city they lived in, where they were originally from. It was devastated in the First World War and they decided to move there. And well, we came here, to Belgium. We began the difficult and arduous process of adapting, studying the language…
[i] You arrived in Brussels and came straight to Antwerp.
[r] Yes, straight away.
[i] And did she pick you up?
[r] Yes, my daughter went to pick us up. Yes, it was a relief. My daughter and her boyfriend, who lent her his car, went to pick us up and took us straight to her flat. She had helped us by renting a small flat for us. Well, she even bought us things, helped us buy furniture, beds, everything, everything. We are very grateful to her, really, for all the help she gave us. Because, well, it would have been much more difficult and much more traumatic, wouldn’t it? But we did get a lot of help from my daughter and my boyfriend’s family too, right? Through my boyfriend. And well, that was in February 2017. We’re going to be 12 years old now in February 2019. And well, we’re still in the process of adapting.
[i] And when they arrived, of course, I imagine that the first few days were a bit of getting to know each other.
[r] Yes.
[i] And then, at what point did you realise that, hey, we have to start a new life…?
[r] Well, my daughter had already started making contacts and had made appointments and done lots of things. She had already made made appointments at Atlas. She had already done a lot of things. She had made appointments at La Gemente. To update her address. Almost immediately we arrived at Atlas and they assigned us a person who guide us so that we could be assigned an assistant. To assign us to the centre where we were going to study, the Adult Education Centre, the CBO. Where we were going to study, to start studying Dutch here, right? With my wife it took a little longer because she couldn’t start studying Dutch. Because she didn’t have the papers, she didn’t have Belgian nationality, right?
[i] You arrived with a Belgian document and your wife arrived with a tourist visa or…?
[r] Yes, I arrived with my Belgian passport and even my Belgian identity card which she had applied for at the Belgian embassy in Venezuela. Two years. And my wife arrived with her Venezuelan passport. Venezuelans don’t need a visa here, they can enter freely. And when they enter with a citizen of the European Union there is no problem, no additional paperwork. You simply enter as a spouse and there is no there’s no problem, no difficulty.
[i] And with your two other children too, or…?
[r] Well, our son [name] had already come a few months earlier. He had graduated from high school in Ecuador. He was there two years ago studying the last two years of high school. He got his high school diploma and came here in July 2017.
[i] 25 August?
[r] August, yes. Yes, after he finished the graduation process there. And the girlfriend who was visiting him there too. Yes, August. He came here. Anyway, his sister was already waiting for him to help him get settled. He already had all his coursework, all his documents, his Belgian passport, his Belgian ID card, everything. Of course, with Belgian nationality a large part of the problem is solved. It’s the legality of being here in Belgium. But anyway, even though I look Belgian and have a Belgian ID card and passport and the first and last names of a Belgian. Well, many people here don’t consider me Belgian. Simply because I don’t speak the language, they immediately realise that I don’t speak it well, not even close to well. And there are some people who don’t care, they try to help, to speak better. More clearly, more slowly, but there is a percentage of people who don’t accept it so easily.
[i] And how do you notice that?
[r] Well, for example, some of my workmates, I started working in a bus factory here in Flanders, at Lear, in June of this year, 2018. And normally here in Belgium, it’s not like in Latin America, where everyone comes up to you when you start a new job to introduce themselves and say hello. Here, people, not even the boss, introduce themselves with their first and last names. But, well, with that custom that I brought with me from Latin America, I introduced myself to some colleagues I saw working in that area. Some were very friendly. Others, as I said, were not so receptive. How did I realise? I said, my name is [name], I’m new here. And he spoke to me in dialect. I didn’t understand him. I said, excuse me, can you speak a little slower? I don’t speak Dutch very well yet, it’s one of the first phrases they teach you in OCVO, right? So that people understand that you have to speak more slowly. And the man looked at me and said… Don’t you speak Dutch? And I said, yes, I do, but not very well yet. And, well, the gentleman went about three months without answering my greeting, or spoke to me, because I didn’t speak Dutch. Other people too, I told him… that phrase is said to everyone so that people speak more slowly, so that they understand you and you can understand them. And, well, there was… Not just that one, there were several people who didn’t like… don’t like that very much… welcoming someone who isn’t Belgian and who isn’t… Not so much that he’s not Belgian, because I’m Belgian, but that he’s not completely pure, so to speak, national, I don’t know, I don’t know. It’s something… thank God it’s not all of them, there’s a majority who are very good people, right? But, well, I don’t consider them to be bad people, it’s just that… I don’t know why they can’t accept someone who isn’t just like them, maybe.
[i] Besides, they’ll be confused when they see you, I imagine, I mean… I don’t know how used to they are to seeing Belgians who have been raised and grown up in another country and don’t speak the language yet. Suddenly it’s not a figure… That they can recognise or that they’re used to… I don’t know how strange it might seem.
[r] Yes, I think here in Antwerp there’s much more… How can I put it? Much more mix, much more culture, much more nationality in the central part of Antwerp, right? But in the towns that are a little further out, in the villages, in the smaller cities… where the population is more concentrated of only Belgians or almost only Belgians, they find it much harder to accept people who are not completely known to them, I don’t know. I don’t know the exact reason why why it happens, but anyway, it happens.
[i] And has it affected you…? How much did it affect you at first?
[r] Yes, of course it affects me. But you have to understand. For example, this man, for three months he didn’t even look at me, he and several other people, were approximately 40% of the workers, to be honest, didn’t even turn to say hello to me. I kept saying hello to them every day, every single day. When morning came, good morning, good morning, good morning. I knew they were never going to turn around, but it didn’t matter. I had no choice but to continue being friendly so that they would understand that, well, I was simply another person and that, well, they were getting used to me being there because I was going to continue being there. Finally, this man who was the first and the one who made the biggest impression on me, had to do a joint project with me about three months later and ended up talking to me. And he smiled at me. He smiled at me once. It was a great achievement. And well, with what we worked on together, he asked me to take him when I finished my part of the work, if I could take it to his area. He was going to work the next day on a different shift. He started work at six in the morning and I left at four in the afternoon. So, if I managed, if I could do him the favour of taking my part of the work to him, along with the work order, he could start work early. So I turned around with a big smile and said, yes, yes, of course, why wouldn’t I? Sure, I’ll take it over there and leave it at your workstation with the work order. Of course, from that day on, this gentleman changed quite a bit. He started greeting us sometimes, always. But it was a change, and well, I think that’s the only way, isn’t it? Keep insisting and being kind so that people understand that… well, yes, they are people and we are also people, human beings. We are not aliens.
[i] Right.
[r] Yeah. Well, we’re here in Belgium now and once we feel a bit stable, with work, still waiting to sort out my wife’s residence papers , but anyway, we have a little more stability now, right? Because you always feel the need to look for… to reconnect with other Venezuelans, right? We decided to create WhatsApp groups and advertise them on Facebook groups. We also started a Facebook group for Venezuelans and Latin Americans in Belgium. My daughter [name] also has a group of Venezuelans in Belgium. Between the two groups, there must be around 7,000 members. That doesn’t mean that they’re all here in Belgium. Right? Not many want to come to Belgium. Others simply already live in other countries, but need contact with other Venezuelans.
[i] And here in Belgium, are there more or less how many?
[r] Well, the statistics on refuge and asylum in 2017 indicate that there were approximately 450 asylum applications. …which, statistically, half are approved and half are rejected. This gives those who are rejected the option to appeal in court. This year, 2018, there has been a huge increase in the number of applications. It is estimated that there has been a 40-50% increase in asylum applications so far this year. These are the statistics I read from an agency that keeps statistics for the European Union. Of course, the country that receives the most asylum applications is Spain, due to language issues. But Belgium is among the top three countries in the European Union in terms of receiving Venezuelan asylum seekers. Well, I am in contact with other Venezuelans here, of course. In these groups we have managed to… We have managed to make a group of new Venezuelan friends, new families, new people who have arrived. Some are asylum seekers, others have simply come here on work contracts. And, of course, Venezuelans are always very cheerful, always planning get-togethers to celebrate a birthday or Christmas. A friend organised… recently, in December, a meal, a lunch to raise funds. For example, to help a soup kitchen for children who are in extreme poverty in Venezuela. She sends those resources there directly. Through some Jesuit priests who make contact, Belgian priests who make contact there with those soup kitchens. There are also other groups of Latin American and Venezuelan women here in Belgium. They collect medicines that are essential and very scarce in Venezuela. Essential medicines, antibiotics to send to Venezuela. That’s something that… are activities that are always carried out. Directly or indirectly in our group. Well, why look for Venezuelans, perhaps. It’s like I said. To find the warmth of Venezuelans, who I believe are the happiest people in the world. Always with a joke, even about adverse situations, bad things, a Venezuelan will make a joke. In any situation you can imagine, a Venezuelan could be dying and the last thing they do is make a joke. And well, that’s what always keeps us looking for good humour, looking to feel better. To feel at home. To seek the friendship of Venezuelans. Most of them are in the Bologna area. Also for practical reasons. It’s much easier and simpler to learn French if you don’t have a foundation in other languages. If not Spanish, because of its Latin roots, learning Dutch is much more complicated. Although there is much more work here. Salaries are higher in the region. But Venezuelans always tend to migrate to the Bologna area. Even those who come to seek asylum go to temporary shelters or to permanent ones when they test positive. Almost always, most of them are assigned to the Bologna area. So…
[i] And they get together with the Venezuelans from Bolonia and the Venezuelans from Bolonia.
[r] Yes.
[i] And what do they do? Do they talk a lot about the situation in Venezuela?
[r] Yes, we talk about it a lot. Our group always… I know several people. I have a friend who is a lawyer who also left Venezuela. They’ve already tested positive. I think it’s one of the fastest positive cases we’ve had here in a week. They tested positive at the political asylum.
[i] And why so fast?
[r] Because they were linked to the case of police officer Oscar Pérez, who was massacred by the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro. They were linked to a person close to Oscar Pérez. Then they suffered several raids on their home in Valencia, Venezuela. And… Well, they were lucky enough to manage to escape. They managed to get on a plane and flee here. They requested… asylum here directly. And with all the evidence they provided, it was approved almost immediately for the entire family. They are the two spouses and three children. They are always linked to political activities. And well, that’s very dangerous there in Venezuela. Also… There’s another person we’ve met at the meetings lately. A man from… from the state of Táchira, which is an Andean state in Venezuela. The man was… comerciante. Para no… reveal his identity too much. Because he is still in danger. And… well, he made complaints about various… irregularities. Like the Chavista mayor who was stealing several billion bolivars from the funds that… were allocated by the central government to the mayor’s office for the city. And… well, he… also… helped the groups that were protesting in the city. And well, they went to his house to take him away and hand him over to the political police. And he did flee on foot through Colombia. And in Colombia, some friends lent him money to come here. To Belica to seek asylum.
[i] And here, is his life still in danger?
[r] Yes, unfortunately… This Chavismo, this Chavista dictatorship has tentacles all over the planet. It has political police agents that they send to gather information on people who are fleeing. Eh… to… I don’t know, intimidate them, set an example that you can’t escape the Maduro revolution, the dictatorship. And it’s always dangerous. So there are certain people who prefer to always keep their identity secret. And their location, to avoid being precisely sought and possibly massacred by the regime even when they are outside the country.
[i] And do you have any fear for your life or that of your family?
[r] No, I have no fears at the moment in Belgium. I was afraid for my children and my wife back there. Especially for my children back in Venezuela.
[i] But not here?
[r] No, no. Here we feel calm. Very, very, very peaceful. There’s a lot of security here. And well, that’s what we were really looking for when we left Venezuela. To be able to have spiritual peace above all else. Being with our family and being able to live and feel good in a place and not be persecuted for be killed or imprisoned. That’s what we’re looking for in life, peace of mind.
[i] And what do you expect in the medium term in Venezuela? What do you think?
[r] Well, I always have hope, and I think all Venezuelans hope that it will end. Sometimes when night is darkest, that’s when dawn breaks. So we don’t know how I think no one knows how we can get out of this situation. Through international pressure, through international intervention or perhaps through internal intervention. You never know, we never know but we always have hope that he will be freed. Now, freed from Maduro and his closest circle, the fifty or one hundred people closest to him does not mean that the country will be fixed immediately. It is a country that has been destroyed. They have destroyed the structure of the state. They have destroyed the economy, they have completely destroyed industry they have armed and destroyed the mentality of many Venezuelans and they have armed many, many criminals and that is an issue, I mean, cleaning up society in Venezuela is not an easy thing to do. Perhaps cleaning up the economy could take five or ten years but cleaning up the population may take fifteen, twenty, thirty years. That’s the hardest part. But the hope that it will change and that they can return only time will tell. We can’t say what we’ll be doing at that time maybe we will, one always dreams of being in your homeland, in your home, but you also have to think that your homeland and your home is where your family is, so we have children, we don’t know if at that time we will already have 1043 01:27:51,548 grandchildren 1044 01:27:53,170 and if they are already settled here or in Belgium, yes, possibly. 1045 01:27:59,080 01:28:05,400 and already have family roots, it might be a little difficult for them to return to Venezuela. 1046 01:28:07,153 It all depends on many factors but let’s hope that the future holds something good for us
[i] Good luck and thank you very much
[r] Thank you very much [name]