Juan Guaido sat down for an interview published by El Nacional today to talk about the upcoming May 1 anti-government protest, and in general about the state of the opposition movement in Venezuela.
During the interview, Guaido appealed to Venezuelans to continue to turn out to anti-government protests despite the feeling that they may have limited or no effect on the state of affairs in the country. He said:
Being immobilized doesn’t take us anywhere. Neither does hopelessness.
Guaido said that the opposition was in the best position that its ever been to bring an end to the Maduro dictatorship, given the unified front that the opposition presents at the National Assembly and the level of recognition that he enjoys abroad.
When asked how much longer he thought it would take for the Maduro regime to collapse, Guaido said that he did not think that it would take long. He said:
Maduro has already lost. He’s been defeated. It’s been months without any formal announcement fro the government; it hasn’t inaugurated any new public works, and it won’t do it because it doesn’t have money. It’s not receiving loans and it doesn’t have bilateral relations with anyone in the world beyond Russia, China and Turkey.
Guaido was also asked if the opposition has committed any mistakes, to which he said that it had made “many” in the past several years. When pressed to be more specific about the last three months, Guaido said:
Not moving faster, maybe. [It’s a mistake to not] nourish links better, [or] communicate better. [It was a mistake to not] explain the Amnesty Law better, to have left it to explain itself.
When asked if he thought that Venezuelans are losing hope in their struggle against the regime, Guaido said:
The main mechanism at our disposal is the citizens’ protest. We’re not stuck. We’ve made a lot of progress, despite the tragedy that we live. We’ve been wanting change for years, but we cannot allow [ourselves to become] hopeless, or to give the regime some room to feel like it can defeat us. We’re seeing a natural peak in citizen’s [demands for change] given the situation in the country.
El Nacional also asked Guaido if he had a message to Maduro. Guaido said:
I think that there’s little that you can say to someone who has already lost their humanity. He’s done. His time has passed. The best decision he could take right now is to leave.
El Comercio: 67% of Peruvians Have Negative Opinion of Venezuelan Migrants
Peru’s El Comercio published a poll conducted alongside the Ipsos firm found that 67% of Peruvians have a negative opinion of Venezuelan migrants.
Only 23% of respondents said that they had a positive opinion of Venezuelan migrants living in Peru.
According to El Comercio, Peruvian’s negative opinion of Venezuelan migrants has been steadily increasing since February 2018, when only 43% of respondents held a negative opinion.
Of those who viewed Venezuelan migrants negatively, 54% said that it was because they believe that the migrants commit crime, while 46% said that it was because the migrants take jobs from Peruvians.
In the same article, El Comercio reports that Peru houses the most Venezuelan migrants after Colombia, and that 730,000 of them live there.
The survey was conducted between April 10 and 12. It has a confidence level of 95%, and is accurate within 4.3%, The same size was 517 people.
Brush Fire Fills Baruta Sky with Thick Smoke
A brush fire filled the sky over the Baruta neighbourhood of Caracas this afternoon with a plume of thick, black smoke.
Below, images and pictures of the fire:
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