On the occasion of the commemoration of 211 years of Venezuela’s Independence
Today, July 5th, Venezuelan people celebrate the 211th anniversary of Venezuela’s Independence and the Day of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces. All the historical events that contextualize the political life of Venezuela have to do with important independence gestures led by great women and men of the Great Homeland. The Liberator of America, the great Simon Bolivar understood from an early age the importance of creating strategic alliances between the countries of the Greater Caribbean.
Haiti is one of the transcendental and important reference points for the revolutions that have existed in our America. In 1804, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, general-in-chief of the army of the first free country in the Americas, proclaimed the independence of what had been the French colony of Saint Domingue. By decision of its liberators, the country would henceforth bear the indigenous name of Haiti.
Napoleon’s dethronement of the King of Spain in 1808 stimulated the yearning for self-government among Creole groups in Spain’s American colonies. From 1810 onwards, such yearnings were embodied, from Mexico and Venezuela to the Río de la Plata and Chile, in wars of independence that had leaders such as Miguel Hidalgo, Simón Bolívar, José de San Martín and Bernardo O’Higgins, respectively, and involved the whole of continental Latin America. The Spanish American West Indies, whose native oligarchies feared a repetition of the Haitian example in their own lands, then withdrew from the revolutionary wave: they thus delayed independence processes which, when they took shape later, would end up distinguishing themselves in key aspects from those unleashed in 1810. The victorious Battle of Ayacucho in 1824 sealed the independence of mainland Latin America from Spain. A year earlier, the United States had issued the Monroe Doctrine, the first concrete cornerstone of a foreign policy that had not been abandoned and which aspired to enclose our America for its exclusive dominion.
If the Haitian Revolution excited the slaves of the West Indies, including of course the Spanish American ones, it frightened the respective oligarchies. This explains why some great figures, such as Simon Bolívar, San Martín and Antonio Jose de Sucre fought in more than one of today’s countries and finally, the Congress of Panama, planned by Bolívar in 1824 (the year in which the victorious battle of Ayacucho sealed the independence of continental Spain and America) and held in 1826, so that “the American republics, formerly Spanish colonies, would have a fundamental basis”.
Today, 211 years after Venezuela’s Independence, the independence processes in our America set the path to achieve the emancipation of historically oppressed peoples. For more than 200 years, Venezuela has been the protagonist of the most important battles in the history of humanity. Some events in history preceded that important moment that led to the signing of the Act of Independence on July 5th, 1811.
On April 19th, 1810, the Mantuan conspiracy against Spanish power was reborn; they succeeded in sending Vicente Emparan, a subordinate of King Ferdinand VII, into exile. In 1811, the General Congress of the Venezuelan provinces was installed and demanded the Declaration of Independence from Spain. Bolívar declared: “That great projects must be prepared calmly? 300 years of calm are not enough? On July 5th, 1811, the majority of the Congress, led by General Francisco de Miranda, voted in favour of the absolute Declaration of Independence, and Miranda defended the idea of the birth of the First American Republic in defense of the freedom of the Venezuelan people, as one of the ideas of the Act of Independence states: “We believe that we cannot and must not retain the ties that bound us to the government of Spain, and that, like all the peoples of the world, we are free and authorised to depend on no other authority than our own”.
It was Miranda who, in his emancipatory project, promoted the ideas of independence by raising the principles of Liberty, Justice and Fraternity inspired by the French Revolution. The Precursor of Independence, Miranda, who was a tireless fighter, followed by Gual and España in the independence process, sought support in several European countries to realise the dream of independence and continental unity. Miranda was one of the great protagonists of independence. Invited by Bolívar, he appeared in Venezuela at the end of 1810 and joined the fight for independence as a protagonist associated with the most radical current, which was expressed through the Patriotic Society, on April 19th, 1810, at which time he began the fight for Venezuela’s independence from the Spanish yoke.
Bolívar, inspired by the teachings of his teacher Simón Rodríguez, together with Miranda, began the project for the independence of Venezuela in 1810, as stated by Commander Hugo Chávez Frías on July 5th, 2012 on the occasion of the 201st anniversary of the signing of the Act of Independence.
By 1819, almost half of the Venezuelan population had died in the war, I believe that this was the country in this entire continent where the war of liberation was bloodiest. This was the epicentre of the war of liberation of South America, of Latin America from the Spanish empire; so Bolívar says: half of the Venezuelans have died fighting against Spain and here we are, the other half, anxious to follow the example of our compatriots. If Venezuela had to fight alone against the whole world, if the whole world offends it. We have no alternative. Our only option is greatness, freedom, independence. And the greatness of our Homeland and of our Great Homeland. Now, what pain, at the end of that epic cycle, at the end of that feat, Bolívar utters this phrase, 1830: “My fellow citizens, I turn red when I say this, independence is the only asset we have acquired at the expense of others. But it opens the door for us to reconquer them, under your sovereign auspices, with all the splendour of glory and freedom. The whole of the 19th century has passed; almost the whole of the 20th century has passed. Today, thanks to a people that woke up, thanks to an Armed Forces that woke up, and here we are united, people and Armed Forces, we have recovered national independence. And we will never lose that independence again, never again, compatriots of the Bolivarian people and comrades-in-arms”.
With the beginning of the Bolivarian Government (February, 1999), Simón Bolívar awakens from a long dream of forgetfulness and festive patriotic days. The Father of the Homeland restored his moral value together with the people, his thought, as Venezuelan political and social history begins to unveil the dark passages obliterated by the Creole oligarchies and governments at the service of imperialism, the same that fragments Latin American unity with the separation of La Gran Colombia.
Bolivarian Socialism was preconceived, devised, matured in the evolution of the same circumstances that identify it, has its distinctive feature in the adjective Bolivarian. The main argument is philosophical-political; but also social, derived from the historical struggles of the people.
The Bolivarian Alternative Agenda (1996), is the platform of the government program: The Proposal of Hugo Chávez to transform Venezuela, which will be the first Plan of the Bolivarian era (1998); therefore, the Bolivarian bases are laid, even, long before the –Por Ahora– appeared; being these, the common thread of a thought based on the homeland’s history, independence, sovereignty, from an endogenous, integral conception of development, which structures the humanist and self-managed socio-economic pentasectoral model of the Bolivarian project.
At the international level, the Bolivarian hurricane is walking with Bolívar; President Hugo Chávez begins official visits to other countries with emancipatory and integration proposals, participates in the X G15 Summit in Jamaica (February 1999); joint work agreements are established between Venezuela and Nigeria (April, 1999); in the II Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Association of Caribbean States (April 1999), carries the message of Latin American and Caribbean integration.
Highlighting the bases and foundations of Bolivarian Socialism in the thought and work of Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, has multiple dimensions, but one of the most important is the configuration of a country project gestated from its own genealogical heritage, reinforced in the house of blue dreams and consolidated in the political project that swears in the samán de Güere.
At the XI Summit of the Andean Community, Colombia (May, 1999), he presented the plan of action for the integration of the Andean subregion. The Bolivarian Government begins the rapprochement with the OPEC countries; at the meeting of Heads of State of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), it proposes to extend oil facilities to member countries (July, 1999). In September of the same year, President Hugo Chávez met at the Vatican with Pope John Paul II.
The Head of State denounces the pressures of the U.S. Embassy, to add votes to Washington against Cuba, China and Iran. A stalk against Venezuela begins in the air and border military sphere; in July (1999), the request to fly over Venezuelan airspace is denied and the political relations between Venezuela and the White House begin to become uncomfortable for the outgoing government of Bill Clinton (1993-2001).
The President ratifies at the 45th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN), the international message of modification and democratization of that organization. In February 2001, it strengthened binational relations with Saudi Arabia and Qatar; as well as Venezuela, it sets a precedent at the Quebec Summit (2001) to reserve its position on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
The social, economic, territorial, and international policies touched the interests of the national bourgeoisie and the neo-colonialists of the United States government, therefore, the closeness that the continental leader sought with sister Colombia, in order to promote mechanisms to strengthen the relations of integration between both countries; that is, to return to the Bolivarian political project of Gran Colombia, it was not approved by the interventionist interests of the sevenleagues, according to José Martí.
Hugo Chávez was emerging as a dangerous enemy for the political interests of the United States; the dissonant voice of the continent and rebellious contestation towards capitalism and imperialism, which he called savages, also evidenced the disguise of the new international order, regarding the attacks on the Twin Towers (2001) and the invasion of Afghanistan.
Faced with the enthusiasm of setting up a new homeland, a socialist homeland, the tragedy could not be greater than the physical disappearance of Commander Chávez (2013), around the shock, pain and suffering of the Venezuelan people, who now had to assume the leadership of the Bolivarian revolution and prepare for the imperialist onslaught. The words of Commander Chávez in his last public speech (December 8, 2012), began to be felt among the Venezuelan people who, stunned by the imperialist media, went to vote for the new president of the Bolivarian Republic, Nicolás Maduro Moros.
This article has been centered around the infinite love for Chávez, of those, who insist that the legacy of Hugo Chávez, prevail as an anti-imperialist egida, a better possible world and the greatest sum of happiness for the people,atet of thepainful echo of losing the maximum exponent of the Continental Revolution of the people of the world.
From the Bolivarian model, the conceptual elements are extracted based on the same Robinsonean approach of inventing a new society in Spanish America. In the Bolivarian model, 2 speeches by Bolívar will be prioritized: the response of the Patriotic Society at the dawn of the signing of independence (1811) and the speech of the Congress of Angostura (1819).
From the Bolivarian model, the conceptual elements are also extracted based on the same Robinsonean approach of inventing a new society in Spanish America. In the Bolivarian model, 2 speeches by Bolívar will be prioritized: the response of the Patriotic Society at the dawn of the signing of independence (1811) and the speech of the Congress of Angostura (1819).
In the installation of the first Venezuelan constituent congress (1811), two great forces opposed each other; the colonial remnants that we see today are evident in the interests of the conservative Mantuans, who advocate compliance with the Spanish authorities, for their subsequent recognition of independence by Ferdinand VII. The libertarian force headed by Francisco de Miranda and the members of the Patriotic Junta, including Bolívar, demand immediate independence in that Congress; for such an act of emancipation they were accused by those of promoting schism and wanting to provoke another Congress.
Here is the first conceptual element of the Bolivarian model: the definitive independence from imperial rule; based on the unity of that glorious enterprise called freedom. At the close of his speech, Bolívar said: Let us fearlessly lay the cornerstone of South American freedom (…) to hesitate is to lose ourselves.”
Given the characteristics of the Angostura Discourse and the description of the historical context that occurred in 5 years of war in Venezuela, battles, deceptions, betrayals; it would be impossible to understand the magnitude of this historical speech by Bolívar; a prelude to the moral and political foundation for those who would have the responsibility of drafting the political constitution of Venezuela, which sought:
the need to constitute in America a very solid public power, capable of guaranteeing that social stability, making effective the political equality of the races and working tirelessly to obtain, in the near future, the leveling of the deep political and economic imbalances that the colony had left as a heavy legacy to the Republic
Long live the homeland of Miranda and Bolivar!
Long live the peoples of our America!
Long live Venezuela!
