Leopoldo Lopez

O/C How to fight authoritarianism from a former political prisoner now living in exile… This Week on Firing Line. He’s a prominent Venezuelan opposition leader who stood up to dictators Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro.

 

Lopez in Spanish 

 

Leopoldo Lopez’s resistance landed him in prison, where he spent nearly four years in solitary confinement, before he escaped to Spain in 2020.

 

LOPEZ: I did not want to leave Venezuela, but…

 

In startling new developments following this interview…Venezuela ordered Lopez’s arrest again, along with several other prominent opposition leaders in exile and in Venezuela. The Maduro regime is also dismissing the results of the opposition primary won overwhelmingly by, Maria Corina Machado, raising concerns about a fair 2024 presidential election. All this, as Venezuela tries to claim oil-rich land from its neighbor, Guyana. Lopez warns that the spread of autocracy is a global problem:

 

Lopez  They are working together. It’s not about ideology, it’s about power. It’s about autocracy.

 

What does former political prisoner, opposition leader, and democracy advocate Leopoldo Lopez say now?

 

‘Firing Line’ with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by: Robert Granieri, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, The Tepper Foundation, The Asness Family Foundation, Charles R. Schwab and by The Rosalind P. Walter Foundation, Damon Button.

 

INTERVIEW

 

HOOVER: Leopoldo Lopez, welcome back to Firing Line. 

LOPEZ: Thank you. Thank you very much. 

HOOVER: You spent nearly four years in solitary confinement under / Nicolas / Maduro’s regime in Venezuela. Since your escape into exile in 2020, you have been advocating for freedom and democracy in Venezuela, and around the world. How do you see your current role in Venezuela’s opposition? 

LOPEZ: So for me, it’s been more than 25 years or 24 years struggling in different roles against the autocracy that we now have in Venezuela that started with a democracy, but it eroded into what it is now, a criminal autocracy that is being processed at the International Criminal Court. I did not want to leave Venezuela. But like millions of Venezuelans, you can see outside here in New York City, Venezuelans that are coming walking all the way up from Central America to Mexico, crossing the border and coming here to New York, to Washington, to Canada. Eight million Venezuelans, and that’s 25% of the population of my country that have gone outside to find opportunities or to escape from persecution. And that was my case. So being outside, I’ve understood that my role is to continue to support the Venezuelans who are in my country at the front lines looking to transition to democracy. But also I came to realize that the struggle of freedom, human rights, and democracy, it’s also the struggle of billions of people in the world. In fact, 70% of the world’s population is living under some sort of autocracy. And I’ve gotten to the position where I’ve met many of the people who, like me, were in prison, who, like me, led the protest. And now we are creating an alliance of democracy defenders and freedom fighters. 

HOOVER: We’re going to talk more about the World Liberty Congress. But to your point about authoritarianism. How fragile is the state of democracy internationally right now? 

LOPEZ: I think it’s very fragile. What we have seen over the past 20 years is a consecutive rise of autocratic regimes. And I think now it’s very clear, and especially after the Russian invasion to Ukraine, that this is not about left or right. It’s not about right wing dictatorships or left wing dictatorships, because it’s an autocratic model that is non-ideological, and that it’s growing. And it’s growing under the leadership, the protection, the diplomatic support of China, Russia and Iran primarily. And they have created a non-ideological network where they are expanding the practices of autocracy worldwide. And this is not a conspiracy theory. Look what happened in Africa over the past six months. We’ve seen several coups happening in the Sahel region in Africa. What they have in common is that there is a presence of the Wagner group, that when you see the people supporting in the streets those military coups, they have flags of Russia and the face of Putin. So the state of democracy, as you say, as you ask, is fragile. But I think we need to understand that this is not a fight you can choose to fight because the autocrats are already fighting it. 

UKRAINE

HOOVER: Right now, are the autocrats winning? 

LOPEZ: I think they are. I think they are in the sense that there are more autocratic regimes spreading throughout the world. We are also seeing a backsliding in democratic countries that are becoming autocratic. And we are seeing more impunity from the practices of autocrats. However, there is one battle ground, one battlefield of all of them, because there are many front lines in this global struggle, which is Ukraine. And I think the fate of Ukraine will determine this dynamic between autocracy and democracy. Because whatever way Ukraine goes, it is going to impact globally the dynamics of this power struggle. 

HOOVER: How? 

LOPEZ: Well, because if Russia wins they’ll come out stronger. And if Russia becomes stronger, Maduro will be stronger and he will have more resources, more impunity, and more capacity to continue to destroy my country, to repress our people, and to violate, systematically, human rights. And that’s the case of Venezuela, but it’s also for Nicaragua and African countries. So it will have an impact. We, we have the responsibility to, to present to the world why this struggle is important for Americans, for Europeans, for the people who live in the free world. Because democracy is under a crisis internally and externally. So internally, the faith in the democratic system it’s also waning. People are more skeptical about democracy. There is no longer that enthusiasm that we saw after the fall of the Berlin Wall: Freedom, democracy, the idea that market economy and freedom and democracy, was going to expand to all of the corners of the world. And 30 years after that, we’ve seen that that’s not what happened. Quite the contrary happened. So talking to the American people, to the people who live in a free world, about how lucky they are to live in a country that has a rule of law, free and fair elections, that respects human rights, that promotes and protects democracy, it’s part of what we need to do. 

HOOVER: Is there a role for Venezuelans to make that case to Americans? 

LOPEZ: Well, I think it’s a role for anybody who believes in democracy, and particularly to those of us where freedom, democracy, human rights, it’s not a theoretical thing you are learning in the university, or you’re talking about freedom when you read a poem or sing a song. No, for us, it’s vital. I spent four years in solitary confinement. I have seen, like millions of Venezuelans and like millions of people from many other autocratic countries, how our freedoms have been taken away, the freedom to talk. I cannot do this, for example, in Venezuela. You know what happens in Venezuela, even with the private TV programs, before you go in, before you sit down with a person who is interviewing, somebody comes to you and they tell you, ‘please remember, you cannot talk about Maduro is a dictator. Remember, you cannot talk about the humanitarian crisis, about the economic collapse. You cannot talk about the exodus, the migration.’ You can talk about everything else. You could talk about the weather. You can talk about, you know, family issues or music or culture. So what I’m trying to tell you is that we have lived the way in which all of these freedoms have been suffocated from us individually and collectively. 

HOOVER: In less than one generation. 

LOPEZ: In less than one generation. 

HOOVER: When you were on this program two years ago, you discussed the decline in freedoms and in the quality of life for ordinary Venezuelans. What is the economic situation for ordinary Venezuelans today? 

LOPEZ: Well, the Venezuelan economy collapsed. You might think that Venezuela is an oil economy. Well, it’s no longer an oil economy. Twenty years ago, we were producing 3.7 million barrels of oil. Today, we might be producing around 700,000 barrels. Venezuela went from being an oil economy to what we have now that is a criminal economy. What do I mean by a criminal economy? Cocaine trafficking, gold extraction, the opaque and corrupt management of the oil and gas industry, and contraband. And around those four pillars of economic activities, you find layers of military and people related to the regime who are those with power. And those people have become way rich. By extracting the funds of the Venezuelan people. And the inequality in our country, today we are not only one of the poorest countries in Latin America, but we are certainly the most unequal, unequal country in Latin America. So if you go to Caracas today, you might find the contrast of people not having the possibility in Caracas of having three meals a day or having running water. And in that same city, in parts of the city, you have concessionaries of Ferrari and the most luxurious brands and restaurants that you could imagine. But that’s for a .5% of the population. The rest of the population is finding ways to feed themselves and their kids or to think about how to leave our country. 

HOOVER: In September, a United Nations fact finding mission issued a report alleging gross human rights violations in Venezuela and warning that the government’s attacks on civic and democratic spaces are intensifying. How has the human rights situation declined in the previous two years since we last spoke? 

LOPEZ: The situation continues to deteriorate. Almost 300 political prisoners, permanent violations of human rights, forced disappearances and all sorts of restrictions to the civil society and to the civic space. And that continues to deteriorate. And the only way this can change if is there is political change in Venezuela. And this might be obvious, but there are some people who believe that migration could be contained, that the country could improve with Maduro holding on to power. I believe that it’s impossible that we see Venezuela performing better in any area,  humanitarian, economic, in any area, if there is no political change. 

HOOVER: You have talked about how autocratic regimes cooperate with one another: China, Russia, Iran. One of your goals is to expose this collaborative network of authoritarian regimes. How are you going to do that? 

LOPEZ: Well, I think that it’s now understood by many people that autocracies are growing. But what I think is not that obvious is the way in which autocratic regimes are collaborating. And they are. The main reason why Maduro is still in power is because he has the support of Putin. Lavrov was in Caracas. Maduro was in China. The president of Iran was in Caracas. So this is not something that we are making up. It’s very clear that we are not only facing Maduro, but we are also facing this network of autocrats. 

CHINA

HOOVER: I was going to ask you about the recent meeting between Maduro and Xi Jinping. China is South America’s top trading partner. How should Americans think about China’s growing influence in South America? 

LOPEZ: Well, I think it’s true in the same way that it’s growing worldwide. And I think that there needs to be a paradigm shift in terms of what we think of globalization. So in the early nineties, we had this idea of a global, cozy, globalized economy. And I think China took great advantage of that. The thinking at the time, if you might remember, was that the expansion of market economy will have a trickle down democracy effect. The thinking was if you can create economic prosperity, you will have a middle class. The middle class will fight for their rights, and that will transition to democracy. Well, it didn’t happen. 

HOOVER: It didn’t plan for a surveillance state. 

LOPEZ: Yes. And now we are finding how the surveillance state with technology that is not neutral is basically creating a very difficult scenario for people to speak out and express themselves. But they are doing it. 

HOOVER: Last year, along with chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov and Iranian women rights activists Masih Alinejad, you founded the World Liberty Congress. The goal, as I understand it, is to bring together pro-democracy activists from around the globe. What will you achieve in this Congress that human rights organizations have not yet focused on? 

LOPEZ: It’s a great question. It’s an alliance of movements, leaders from autocratic regimes, with the will and the commitment to push for transition. So what are we achieving? First, we are achieving solidarity. And solidarity has one important element, not to feel alone. Because this might be a very lonely fight. It usually is a very lonely fight. So to know now that I have brothers and sisters in commitment to human rights and democracy, from Zimbabwe, from Uganda, from Chad, from Belarus, from Hong Kong, from China. And they know that they also have all of these people creates a sense of commitment, of energy, of positive energy to what we are doing. I want to be very clear, we are not asking from our countries for covert operations. We’re not asking for the Americans or the Europeans to do what we have to do. We don’t need only a statement of solidarity. We need support. We need engagement. We need commitment. We need to know that we are not alone because we are fighting for the same values that make this country great. And if you believe that these ideas are important, you should be convinced that these ideas are universal. And if these ideas are universal, it means that they don’t have any borders. And you need to be as concerned for violations of human rights here in the US as they are happening in the Uighur community in China, just to put you an example. 

HOOVER: I want to talk about Venezuela. Going into 2024, is the opposition in worse shape than it has been previously? 

LOPEZ: Well, we need to put this into context, right? We’ve been fighting against the system that now is clearly and openly a recognized autocracy for twenty years. And we’ve had moments of great mobilization, moments of great hope, moments where we have seen the gates to freedom very close. We’ve taken millions and millions of people to the streets, not once, but several times. And this process has been a cycle. So, sometimes we’re up, other times, you know, the organization, the mobilization, the enthusiasm goes down. Politics under an autocratic regime, when the regime always is playing a dirty hand, there is obstacles on the road, there is tension, there is noise. But we will get to 2024 with a unified candidacy that will represent the will of the people for change. That doesn’t mean that the elections will be free or fair, or that the gates will open easily. But it’s an opportunity to build that new cycle of mobilization, hope and attention to the case of Venezuela. 

HOOVER: Elliott Abrams, who served as the United States’ representative for Venezuela in the Trump administration, wrote that the Biden administration’s Venezuela policy is failing. He says, quote, “Oil, it seems, weighs more than human rights when it comes to Biden administration’s policy in Venezuela.” Do you agree? 

LOPEZ: Partly. I think that the moment of definition of the Biden administration policy towards Venezuela, it’s coming to a close. And what we hope is that the commitment to democracy remains a priority. Because, as you frame your question, we have seen that some people would like to put as a priority of the U.S. policy, energy, thinking that Maduro could become a reliable source of energy for the Western Hemisphere. Well, I don’t think that can happen in terms of the production capacity because of the levels of investment, the time. But even if it happens, Maduro will never be a reliable source of energy. I think that the oil policy in Venezuela can become a source of stability only if there is a transition to a democracy. Then there are others that think that stabilizing the dictatorship, that giving resources, giving legitimacy, stabilizing the dictatorship, is going to contain the migration crisis that has taken 8 million Venezuelans to the world, but particularly to the United States. You can go out here in the city of New York and talk to any Venezuelan and ask them, what will it take for you to go back to Venezuela. And most certainly all of them will tell you, if Maduro leaves power. People are clear. There will be no solution to the migration crisis if there is no political change to democracy. 

HOOVER: You just referenced Venezuelans on the streets of New York. The Biden administration recently granted temporary protected status to Venezuelan migrants who are here in the United States, allowing them to obtain work permits and to avoid deportation. The White House previously had been reluctant to do this because they’re afraid it would encourage more migration to the United States. How do you think about this move? 

LOPEZ: Well, I think it’s a very important decision made by the Biden administration. As a Venezuelan, I appreciate very much that decision to give thousands of Venezuelans the opportunity to work. Because most of the Venezuelans who are coming here and to any other country, they want to work. And I hope that this is something that signals the way in which the Venezuelan people will be incorporated to this country that was built by migrants.

HOOVER: In 1981 on the original version of this program, William F Buckley Jr. hosted a Cuban exile by the name of Antonio Navarro who, not unlike yourself, served time in prison. Take a look at this clip with Buckley about some ideas he had for freeing Cuba at the time. 

BUCKLEY:  Now what would you advocate concretely that we do to depose Castro? 

 

NAVARRO: One thing we can do, and I just read in the Congressional Record that we might be doing is we ought to have a Radio Free Cuba. We have a Radio Free Europe and a Radio Liberty. There’s no question about it that if the Soviets were ever to become disenchanted, disenamored simply drained, and removed even partially their support, the discontent inside Cuba today might very well take care of it, and we might look forward to a free Cuba once again.

 

HOOVER: He talked about Radio Free Europe, Radio Cuba, which actually became Radio Marti. These were really important, seminal communications tools that the US offered to freedom fighters in communist regimes during Soviet control. Do you study the freedom fighters that came before you in previous generations?

LOPEZ: Yes, we study them. And we also feel part of a historical movement. And I personally think we need to revindicate the concept of color revolutions, that for the autocrats has become a proxy to the worst enemy. The color revolutions are the freedom movements. It’s the Velvet Revolution. 

HOOVER: Orange Revolution

LOPEZ: It’s the Orange Revolution. It’s the White Revolution. I mean, so many movements, so many protests, so many movements that were very successful, many of them. So in the 1990s, 60% of these movements were successful. Unfortunately, that changed over the century. So, yes, we learn. Also I study a lot of the nonviolent leaders. I have studied a great deal of Mandela, Ghandi, and the person that for me is my guidance in thinking is Martin Luther King in his definition of nonviolent action, not only the strategic and the tactic, but also the sentiment, the passion and the will to confront injustice. Because it’s not about being passive. Nonviolence is not about being passive. It’s about being active and also being daring against these regimes. So, yes, I’ve learned quite a bit. From that comment that we just heard from a Cuban leader 30 years ago, I can tell you that some things have changed, but some things are similar. So he was advocating at the time for the opening of Radio Liberty and Radio Marti, and that actually happened. But that was 30 years ago. What do we need now? Well, I think that the most important support for any country that is living under autocracy, is to provide free and uncensored access to internet. Because if you provide that then all of the communications are unlocked. Then all of the possibilities of using tech for freedom, tech for democracy, become unlocked. So in the same way the world came together to provide a vaccine to the world’s population, I think that the free world needs to come together to figure out ways in which this human right, because I think internet and access to internet is a human right. And I think it’s the most important, most impactful support that we can give to the populations from these countries. 

HOOVER: In your lifetime, you’ve seen a massive decline of freedom in your country. Do you believe that before your lifetime is over, you will see a course correction in your country and that Venezuela will once again be free? 

LOPEZ: No, I am absolutely certain. And I wake up every day with that hope. And I don’t put a timeframe. One thing I learned in prison. Prison is a tough place, but you learn. You learn. And I learned how to manage solitary confinement. I was very disciplined in having a routine. My routine was simple, but I did it every day with Spartan discipline. I would pray every day. I would train every day physically. And I tried to read or write or draw or use my brain in any way. So I did that every day. But the one thing I really learned was the management of time. Because I saw other prisoners thinking or believing the promises that were given to the relatives of their lawyers by the regime: ‘Don’t worry, in two months if you behave, if you, your movement, your family don’t speak out, you will be released in two weeks. In two months.’ And I saw how those people crumbled when those two weeks came and they were still in prison. So I became very aware of not becoming a hostage of time. And I mention this because I’m not going to tell you that for sure it’s going to be in the next year. I hope it’s tomorrow. I hope it’s next year. But you know what? I will be fighting the fight for freedom for Venezuela and elsewhere until I die. Because for me, it’s my life purpose. It’s an infinite fight. It’s a forever fight in the sense of what I do, what I am, and what my purpose is. And that gives me peace of mind. It gives me serenity. And it gives me the capacity to be the same person when you’re on top and you’re below. And just to know that you have the objective to go every day and walk the walk towards that commitment, which is freedom, democracy, human rights, which, as I said, are not theoretical but vital for us. 

HOOVER: Leopoldo Lopez, thank you for returning to Firing Line. 

LOPEZ: Thank you. Thank you very much.