What Venezuelan Students Initially asked for on February 10 (Historical document)

Document # UCV FCU addressed to the Minister @ RodriguezT_MIJP #FreeTheStudentsNOW  pic.twitter.com/dfo0Tmsbbz tweeted by Juan Requesens ‏12:24 PM - 10 Feb 2014

In the communication below to a representative of the Maduro government, student leader Juan Requesens laid out on February 10, 2014 the conditions for a dialogue with the government which focused on two areas: 1) release of students who had engaged in protests as is their constitutional rights and 2) For the government to stop accusing them of being "coup plotters" and "terrorists" for holding nonviolent demonstrations.  The Maduro government's response was the extrajudicial execution of students, more arrests and the continued use of extreme language against students who are peacefully protesting.

Juan Requesens, President FCU UCV

February 10, 2014

Mr. Rodríguez Torres.

Minister of Popular Power for the Interior , Justice and Peace .

Through this communication we are writing to you in order to reject categorically, on behalf of the national student community, the arrest of our classmates in Tachira and the mistreatment of high school students and transfer to Coro for thir eventual imputation. Also the repression suffered by students in various houses of study . Students exercising the legitimate right to protest and are now treated as criminals . Every call to dialogue , is useless to the extent that students are detained , and the student movement that has been consistent with the recognition , the depolarization and the call for joint work between state bodies and bodies representing students can not accept the detention of students.

This student movement , stands apart completely from a violent agenda , it is not our nature and we have demonstrated in all the mobilizaitons and protests that have taken place, what we can not accept is the blackmail of being labeled as "coup plotters" or " terrorists " if we use our main tool for demanding our rights .

Finally, we demand likewise, the response presently about those detained , their release and the immediate formation of working groups to address issues related to insecurity and violence in our home campuses.

Juan Requesens
President FCU UCV

Sr. Rodríguez Torres.
Ministro del Poder Popular para las Relaciones Interiores, Justicia y Paz.

Por medio de la presente nos dirigimos a usted con la finalidad de rechazar categóricamente, de parte de la comunidad estudiantil nacional, la detención de nuestros compañeros de estudio del Táchira, así como los maltratos sufridos por los bachilleres, y el traslado a Coro para su eventual imputación. Así mismo la represión sufrida por los estudiantes en diversas casas de estudio. Estudiantes que ejercían el legítimo derecho a la protesta y que hoy son tratados como criminales. Todo llamado a dialogo, es inútil en la medida en que los estudiantes permanezcan detenidos, y este movimiento estudiantil que ha sido consecuente con el reconocimiento, la despolarización y el llamado a trabajo conjunto entre los órganos del Estado y las instancias de representación estudiantil no puede aceptar, la detención de estudiantes.

Este movimiento estudiantil, se desmarca absolutamente de la agenda violenta, no es nuestra naturaleza y lo hemos demostrado en todas la movilizaciones y protestas que hemos llevado a cabo, lo que si no podemos aceptar es el chantaje de ser calificados como “golpistas” o “terroristas” si usamos nuestra principal herramienta para exigir derechos.

Para terminar exigimos asi mismo, la respuesta del presente sobre los detenidos, su liberación y la inmediata conformación de mesas de trabajo para tratar los temas relacionados a la inseguridad y la violencia en nuestras casas de estudio.

Juan Requesens
Presidente FCU UCV

Youth and Students address the Venezuelan Nation: Now is the time for Resistance

#Resistance

PRESS RELEASE 2: The Student Movement and youth to the Nation 02/24/2014

The undersigned hold that:

"Foreign military forces have laid siege to Venezuela. Their mercenaries attack us in a vile and savage manner. Their goal is to enslave us and to be the conductors of our existence, dishonoring the flags that have kept us in the street and that we will defend to the death.

We want our Freedom. It is vital to defend the sovereignty of the nation, expelling Pro-Castro Cubans who are usurping the government and the Armed Forces.

We do not accept nor will we accept the criminal policy promoted by the regime, impunity, repression and persecution. It is unacceptable that this regime continues to promote the impoverishment of the people, enough of humiliating Venezuelans and reducing them to subsistence levels. We are not and never will be your slaves. Censorship is unacceptable as is the siege on the Freedom of expression.

We are outraged and it makes us our blood boil that Cubans are intervening in our affairs as a Nation.

We demand the deposition of the usurper Nicolás Maduro and his entire cabinet, in addition, the Freedom for all our political prisoners and the disarmament of the collectives.

You cannot dialogue with those who have tortured and sexually abused comrades in the struggle. You cannot talk to murderers. Our principles do not allow us to dialogue with who protect irregular groups firing against the defenseless population to instill fear.

We will protest until our demands are met. We will conquer the Freedom of Venezuela and expel the Castro- communists from the homeland! The street should remain ours. Our will to be free is unwavering, which is why, as repression intensifies, grows the courage of a country that aspires to be reborn and to be great.

To all Venezuelans,

The regime declared war on all civilians who did not join with their ideology. Our call is to defense: not to allow the invaders and the repressive bodies to profane your street, your avenue or your property. Impede them access so that they do not shoot at your neighborhood, so that they do not destroy your properties, so that they do not injure yours and, above all, to know that there are embattled Venezuelans, who will not be enslaved by the use of force.

The Student and Youth Movement is the spearhead of this great Venezuelan awakening. What guides us are our hearts: we are neither with the government nor with those who falsely oppose, we do not respond to any particular political interest or respond to any economic interest. We are with the Venezuelan people; we are the sons and daughters of the people. That people who suffer daily in order to get food, the people that when sick cannot heal properly because it cannot obtain medicines, these people who every day are victims of a group of thugs allied to the regime that steals and kills with impunity. That people who long for a decent job where their salary will be enough for them to live with dignity. People of Venezuela: all your sons and daughters have taken the first step.

People of Venezuela: It is necessary that you actively join this protest and national mobilization. If we do not overcome, the death of our comrades would have been in vain, and the problems will not be solved. If we do not overcome, death will overtake us as well. 200 years ago, we won our independence; let's do it again all together, doing honor to the blood of young patriots who have given everything for Venezuela. We are not opposition: it is the hour of the Resistance, that's who we are.

Without freedom, nothing "

José Vicente García, Roderick Navarro, Gaby Arellano, Juan Urdaneta, Julio Cesar Rivas, Eduardo Bittar, Lorent Saleh, Josmir Gutiérrez, Ana Karina García, Villca Fernández, Iván Uzcategui, Liliana Guerrero, José Martínez, Víctor Uribe, Juan Flores, Raúl Rodríguez, Aimara Rivas, Luis Octavio Rivas y Gabriel Boscán.

IF YOU ARE IN AGREEMENT WITH THIS POSITION, SPREAD THE MESSAGE AND ADD YOUR NAME.

Original Spanish text available online here.

Venezuela: Repression and Death versus Freedom and Life

Women protesting outside the Cuban Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela

 Today marks two weeks since the Youth Day in Venezuela began on February 12 sparking a series of nonviolent demonstrations that were met with deadly force by President Maduro's security forces and paramilitaries. The response to Maduro's repression has been two weeks of massive protests across the country. Maduros and his Cuban allies have responded by escalating repression by what has now revealed itself to be for all purposes to be a dictatorship operating in Venezuela. Alessandra Solini who produced a video explaining the reasons for the protests on February 16, 2014 has produced another video showing compelling images of what is taking place across Venezuela which is embedded below.



Opposition leader, Leopoldo Lopez, unjustly jailed on February 18th continues imprisoned and is a prisoner of conscience. His wife  Lilian Tintori and a National Assembly Deputy, María Corina Machado, are calling on "mothers, grandmothers, and sisters" at 10:00am today February 26, 2014 to protest in the streets of Venezuela "for the fallen, the tortured, for the prisoners" under the name "women for LIFE" asking women to dress in white and to march silently with white flowers.

 The number of deaths, and equally disturbing the number of students who are being disappeared, are escalating. The picture below has the names and images of nine of the victims of the Maduro regime's brutality but the number of known murder victims is now at 16 as of five hours ago.

Meanwhile in Cuba activists have taken to the streets in solidarity with their Venezuelan counterparts and have been subjected to threats, brutal beatings, and detentions. Last week Cubans and Venezuelans came together in Miami announcing a coalition.

Today will have the women of Venezuela in my thoughts as ten in the morning approaches and they begin their silent protest dressed in white carrying white flowers. The tactics of repression of the Castro regime are duplicated in Venezuela by Maduro but also the democratic opposition, in this case women dressed in white silently carrying white flowers demanding an end to repression, are following a path laid down by Cuba's Ladies in White.

Prayers and solidarity for the student movement in Venezuela seeking to be the authors of their destiny and to rescue their country from the totalitarian abyss and to the women of Venezuela who are demanding an end to repression and risking their own lives in the process.

The choice is clear in Venezuela: Maduro government offers violence, repression and death versus a student movement nonviolently fighting for freedom and life.

What is taking place in Venezuela is an example of civic courage that will be remembered through the ages.

The student movement's "magic" weapon in Venezuela.

"Hate cannot triumph over hate only love can defeat it." - Venezuelan student movement 


The student movement in Venezuela is wielding a magical weapon that cuts without wounding, heals as it is applied and exalts them who use it. Maduro in Caracas and Raul Castro in Havana are desperately trying to destroy the weapon before it removes both Maduro and Castro's agents there from power. The paradox is that it is also a weapon that cannot be taken from the students. Maduro and Castro can only persuade them through appeals to emotion and the illusion of a short cut to victory for them to put down this "magic" weapon dramatically reducing their chances of success.

The word "magic" is used here in the terms as a power that is able to shape events through a mysterious force. This mysterious force that has great power is nonviolence. Nonviolence is the force and in practice it becomes nonviolent resistance to evil actions and systems.

In the video above the spokesman for the Venezuelan student movement makes a powerful observation: "Hate cannot triumph over hate only love can defeat it."

Their movement is civic and nonviolent. This is asymmetrical warfare and in that war, nonviolence is the opposition's magical weapon that gives it a strategic advantage over Maduro and Castro's tanks, fighter jets, and snipers.

Maduro and Castro's dictatorships understands this and tries repeatedly to break the nonviolent character of this movement by engaging in heinous acts against the innocent to strike terror in the populace and hatred in the opposition then infiltrating the opposition with provocateurs claiming that if they would only shift to violence that victory would be more quickly achieved.

It is a lie.

In abandoning nonviolence the opposition loses its asymmetric advantage and has little chance of success without the assistance of outside powers in an armed struggle. Even with outside support it only rises to 26%. On the other hand maintaining a nonviolent posture increases ones chances for victory to 53%  according to studies by Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth studying conflicts both violent and nonviolent over the past one hundred years. 

Why is the chance for victory only 53%? Because nonviolence is a powerful weapon but to defeat an adversary with any weapon you need to have both a big picture strategic vision of how to arrive at your goal and the tactics to carry them out. If the student movement in Venezuela has those two elements then their odds of success are even greater.

The temptation to self-defense to justify violence is another tool of tyrants. We have seen several nonviolent student protesters shot in the head by regime snipers while others have been tortured and raped. The purpose of these outrages are to appeal to emotion as mentioned previously.

Gene Sharp an expert in nonviolence offered the following analysis on the danger of violence overtaking a nonviolent movement:

Frequently in revolutionary groups there will be people inside of the movement who may offer opinions that are their genuine opinions. They may be the mouthpiece of your opponent -they may be actual employees of the intelligence services assigned to wreck this movement. To not only urge the opposition movement to use violence and create dissension within the resisters, but also to actually carry out violence in the midst of otherwise peaceful demonstrations. Or in extreme cases even to carry out the violence on a larger scale like political assassinations. Then blame it on the revolutionary movement and then have a rational and so-called justification for rounding up revolutionaries and jailing many people who had nothing to do with these activities. The people who are always pushing for violence and acts of sabotage really need to be isolated and because they well may be the agents of your opponent. Don't fall for that. The nonviolent struggle has to be continued on a nonviolent basis. Otherwise you destroy your own power capacity and with that the capacity to achieve your objectives."

Sharp has also spoken out about the short sightedness of appeals to international military support:

I think it is an unfortunate choice that people make. It is predictable that your opponent will have the means of violence, the means of oppression. If you get someone else to come and help you, they will come with their interests, and potentially turn your country into a battlefield. Even if they help defeat the oppressor, it will not result in empowerment. People will not be ready to fight the next oppressor who tries to take over the country.    

The future of Venezuela is being decided and the ability of the student movement to remain nonviolent while carrying out their strategic vision for the change they seek using civic non violent means will be an important factor in the final outcome.

Student Movement presents the motives for their protests

"Without Freedom, nothing." - Venezuelan Student Movement

Student and civil protests that are taking place in Venezuela are the result of the systematic destruction of our country at the hands of a communist regime and the complicity of those who benefit from the system. Impoverishment , insecurity , shortages and all the problems that beset the country, not derived from the inefficiency of the government, they are the typical policies of these regimes. Its main objective is the spiritual ruin and slavery of peoples.

On Youth Day, glorious anniversary for all Venezuelan students, we raised the volume of our protest and several compatriots gave their lives for it. Today we reclaim the patriotism of these young people, the hundreds arrested and tortured, unifying the entire Nation around Liberty. In such historical circumstances, responsibility calls us all: we call on all the Venezuelan people to remain in the streets, it is necessary to restore the constitutional order.

Being this the nature of our goals, the Student Movement considers, as a first step, the resignation of Nicolas Maduro and his entire cabinet. Likewise, our State can not continue under the direction of castro communism: We demand the immediate expulsion of all Cuban agents from our institutions.

Our resistance is legitimate, no ruler has the right to assume the reins of the lives of those he is governing. The government is simply delegated the administration of the public: never to be lighthouses of the existence of citizenship. This that we describe occurs in a legitimate government, our disobedience is justified even more so with an illegitimate government like this. It is absolutely impossible to dialogue with leaders who have usurped functions that do not belong to them.

The Student Movement does not recognize institutions that attempt against the life of its citizens. That is why we do not dialogue or negotiate Freedom with communists; that would mean a betrayal of Venezuela and ourselves as free and independent beings. That is why our call extends to all Venezuelans, at stake the future of us all. Together we can reverse the process of political, economic, social and cultural decay that this regime has led us into. It is vital to overcome, otherwise, we will not be the masters of our fate.

Without Liberty, nothing. 

Texto original en castellano

"When a law is unjust, the correct thing is to disobey"

Las protestas estudiantiles y civiles que se están desarrollando en Venezuela son producto de la destrucción sistemática de nuestro país por obra de un régimen comunista y la mirada cómplice de aquellos que se benefician del sistema. El empobrecimiento, la inseguridad, la escasez y todos los problemas que agobian al país, no derivan de la ineficiencia del gobierno; son políticas típicas de estos regímenes. Su principal objetivo es la ruina espiritual y la esclavitud de los pueblos.

En el Día de la Juventud, aniversario glorioso para todos los estudiantes venezolanos, elevamos el volumen de nuestra protesta; varios compañeros dieron la vida por ello. Hoy reivindicamos el patriotismo de estos jóvenes, los cientos de detenidos y torturados, unificando a toda la Nación en torno a la Libertad. En tan históricas circunstancias, la responsabilidad nos convoca a todos: llamamos a toda la población venezolana a mantenerse en las calles, es necesaria la restitución del orden constitucional.

Siendo de esta naturaleza nuestros objetivos, el Movimiento Estudiantil considera como primer paso la renuncia de Nicolás Maduro y todo su gabinete. De la misma forma, nuestro Estado no puede continuar bajo la dirección del castro comunismo: exigimos la inmediata expulsión de todos los agentes cubanos de nuestras instituciones.

Nuestra resistencia es legítima; ningún gobernante tiene el derecho de asumir las riendas de la vida de los seres que gobierna. El gobierno es un simple delegado en la administración de lo público: jamás serán faros del existir de la ciudadanía. Esto que describimos ocurre con un gobierno legítimo; nuestra desobediencia se justifica aún más con un gobierno ilegítimo como éste. Es absolutamente imposible el diálogo con gobernantes que han usurpado funciones que no le pertenecen.

El Movimiento Estudiantil no reconoce instituciones que atenten en contra de la vida de sus ciudadanos. Es por ello que no dialogamos ni negociamos la Libertad con comunistas; esto significaría una traición a Venezuela y a nosotros mismos, como seres libres e independientes. Es por ello que nuestra convocatoria se extiende a todos los venezolanos, está en juego el futuro de todos nosotros. Juntos lograremos revertir el proceso de descomposición política, económica, social y cultural al que este régimen nos ha llevado. Es vital vencer, de lo contrario, no seremos dueños de nuestro destino.

Sin Libertad, nada.

"Mom, went to fight for Venezuela. If I don't return I left with her."

http://www.el-nacional.com/politica/Movimiento-Estudiantil-emite-comunicado-nacion_0_358164451.html