Maria Corina Machado - Venezuelan Opposition Politician HARDtalk

It's shrinking by 8% per year, faster than any other

Inflation is at nearly 500% and most people say they can no longer

The opposition say President Maduro must go.

My guest on HARDtalk, Maria Corina Machado,

has led street protests and is calling on all Venezuelans,

including the military, to force limb to resign.

including the military, to force him to resign.

President Maduro accuses her and the opposition

Maria Corina Machado, welcome to HARDtalk.

Thank you very much, Sarah. It's a pleasure.

Can you start by giving us a sense of what life

is like in Venezuela for ordinary people?

We Venezuelans, as you know, are sitting on top of the largest

oil reserves in the world, but on the ground Venezuelan

people are starving, are dying of hunger,

of lack of medication and of violent crime.

Actually every mother, housewife, has to spend long hours

in queues in front of supermarkets just to bring food back

Many times they arrive with their hands empty

because there is nothing to buy, or when they find something,

they cannot pay, because today in order to feed your family

you need at least 16 times theofficial minimum

You make the point though that Venezuela

It has 95% of its export revenues coming from oil,

This is a problem as a result of the oil price not

No, not at all, Sarah, because it started long before.

Actually, before President Chavez came to power 17 years ago,

Venezuela produced more than 70% of our food needs.

Today, because of the way the regime has suffocated the economy

through expropriation, invasions, control of the economy,

we import over 80% of what we require to feed our population.

In fact, the oil production has dropped in the last years

and even though the price of oil has risen from $7 a barrel

when Chavez arrived to over $150 during this period,

almost five times today, the fact is that there are no

reserves today in order to import food, medicines and other

supplies that are needed for a society to survive.

They, in the windfall oil period, robbed the resources,

and now the result is a society, a country, that is almost ruined.

But you are talking about a country that's in crisis.

And there'll be many who will say that what you are proposing,

to get rid of the President, is only going to make things worse,

that there are other things that you could do to help

Well, you will know that even if an election of a President

is fair, which it wasn't in Venezuela, democratic status goes

It has to do with the way Government behaves.

Venezuela has turned into a dictatorship.

There is no independence of power whatsoever.

The judiciary system is totally on the side and on the

There hasn't been one single ruling of the Supreme Court

It is against the interests of the regime.

As I was saying, the independent media is persecuted.

Over 20 newspapers have been closed in the last three years.

Over 2,000 aggressions just this year against journalists

Every day that passes by, people die.

Newborn kids die in hospitals because there is no

Our children are growing without milk, without vaccines

But you are laying all of these problems at the door

of the President, Nicolas Maduro, and you have tried various things.

You tried to shorten his term from six to four years,

The understandable reason, that you can't change

And now there is an attempt at a recall referendum

and that is running into difficulties.

Absolutely, because that's the nature of the regime.

A dictatorship, but one that has tied relations with

organised crime, corruption networks and the military.

Maduro has decided that he is willing to do anything as long

as he can stay in power, because there are huge

interests amongst these networks of corruption.

As I say, drug trafficking, arms trafficking, illegal

exploitation of minerals have taken place in Venezuela.

Venezuela today is the principal path where it goes.

The point here, as you were saying, is we have insisted

on a constitutional, an institutional path

in order to have a change of Government in Venezuela,

which is today the first step in order to stop suffering, pain,

We went to the parliamentary elections.

We overcame huge, obscene obstacles and it was a landslide.

The Venezuelan people said they wanted a change,

But Maduro decided to block these ways.

Now, he has said to you, and in fact there was a visit

from the US Under-Secretary of State in June, and he said,

I think it's very good we are taking these steps with the US.

"I only wish the Venezuela opposition would engage in serious,

transparent dialogue in the same way."

Well, he does, in the morning, and at the same time

the paramilitary groups, the armed forces and the police goes

against not only women and housewives who are in queues

And when they protest, they fire against them.

We have students that have been detained in the last days.

We have over 100 political prisoners.

And everybody who dares to speak out, any of your colleagues who tell

the truth and say how people are being killed in the mining

fields, they are killed, just as a journalist Lucia Suarez

So will you refuse to go into talks with the President?

For years we have been asking for dialogue, true dialogue,

because we know very well what the regime has done

in the past when they feel that the international pressure

and the popular pressure for regime change is important.

They sit down and then they violate every single term that

So what we are saying now, we need guarantees...

So if we said to you and other opposition leaders, let's sit down,

let's have a dialogue, let's talk about this,

Yes, but there have to be guarantees.

Just as the Secretary-General of the Organization

He was part of the mission of the South American organisation

union that came two years ago on a dialogue mission.

Today he says, he realises it was all a lie.

It wasn't true that the Government was willing to make reforms

That's why Mr Maduro, Secretary-General of the OAS,

has presented an impressive report and has opened a file

Not only regarding institutional, democratic institutions

and violations of human rights, and the opposition of the Government

that is denying any true process of transition.

You have asked for the largest movement that has ever existed.

What are you wanting, people to come out on the streets?

We want people expressing their desire for dignity,

What does that mean, do you want them on the streets?

We do want people power to express peacefully in order to make

the Government realise that it is time to sit down for a real

I want to know very specifically what it is you mean.

Just what happened a few days ago, 5th July,

Women knew that on the other side of Colombia there

was food for their kids, but Maduro had closed the border

So they went to the blockade of the National Guard

and they started saying, we want to cross, we want food,

we want to bring food and milk to our homes.

And you would open those borders completely, would you?

If I supported this kind of movement and expression, yes.

And they are peaceful and it is our right to speak

I want journalists to come out together with our fishermen,

with the moms, with the students, with union leaders that today have

been persecuted and denied our right to move ahead peacefully.

You were mentioning the recalled referendum.

It is an institutional path in our constitution

that is an effective way to solve a political crisis that

It is the democratic way that we channel.

But you have said the military citizens have the constitutional

duty of respecting and accompanying this fight.

Now that sounds like a call for a military coup.

No, what I'm calling is for the military citizens

to respect the constitution and to not accept orders that mean

repression against people that are peacefully in the streets,

against young women that are with their babies in their hands

In the last days over 500 Venezuelan citizens have been detained.

Many are badly hurt, because they were on the

So it is a military coup? Absolutely not.

You're asking soldiers not to do what their Government...

No, not to accept illegal orders that means repression

debut at say these are not a legal orders. They could say they are not

repressing the people. They should not repress people hungry in the

streets demanding for their rights to be preserved.

A military coup, Sarah, just took place some

hours ago in Venezuela, when President Nicolas Maduro

decided to name the actual Minister of Defence.

An active military in charge of the whole food system.

He decided that the whole Cabinet from now on should report

to an active general, to a military, the Minister of Defence.

This has no precedent in Venezuelan history.

What it shows is that actually Maduro today is responding

to the highest rank military members.

So I'm still not clear what you are asking the senior

military figures, or even junior military figures to do,

What I'm saying is we all citizens, civil and military, not

only have the right, I believe we have the duty at this

time, when the Venezuelan constitution is violated every day.

When there are systemic violations to human rights, there's torture,

there's persecution, when children are dying every day

that passes by because there is no food, no medicines.

When Nicolas Maduro blocks humanitarian aid, that even

the Catholic Church has offered tonnes of food and medicines

and Nicolas Maduro is denying this much-needed aid to arrive.

When all these things are happening, the time has come for

Tell us how it is going to happen, this overthrow of the President.

You want the President to be removed from office.

You say you want it democratically, but you are proposing what,

that the military turn to him and say it's time to go?

What we are demanding, what is our right, is to move ahead

with the recalled referendum, which as I mentioned

is an institutional, effective means in order

to solve these, to solve this dramatic crisis.

We have complied with every single requirement, which are high,

in order to move along and have the referendum take

place this year, Sarah, because it's important to know that

if they delay the referendum up to 2017, it is stated in our

constitution that the designated Vice-President stays until the end

of the term, which will not mean a change in Government.

They will probably get rid of Maduro, but the regime

and the corruption would stay in place.

So what we are saying is we have the right

for the recalled referendum to take place this year.

It is an imperative, a moral urgency...

But you will know that the petition you arranged to collect signatures,

the Government says that many of them are fraudulent.

The Elections Council rejected 600,000 of them because they said

that 11,000 of the names on that were dead.

Look, we required 200,000 and we submitted over 1 million,

Thousands of public and employees have been fired because they signed.

Many journalists have been fired because they signed

It is the regime of terror, of intimidation, that's in place.

Will the referendum happen this year?

It is obvious the regime is willing to do anything to block it,

anything, because they are willing to do anything to stay in power.

And that's when defiance to oppression takes place.

We need to let Maduro know, and the international community,

Sarah, that this is about Venezuelan lives, about Venezuelan dignity,

about our freedom, our right to live in democracy.

We've suffered huge costs to defend these rights.

It is today a matter of life or death.

You know that the Government has said that you tried a coup before,

you've been here before, you tried a coup of

They've accused you of plotting to kill President Maduro,

and say they have the evidence from e-mails and phone intercepts,

and there is still an investigation pending on that.

Well actually, I've been accused not of only one crime but of several.

I've been banned from leaving in my country for over two years,

because I went to the Organization of American States to speak out

about the violations of human rights from Venezuela.

My children have been threatened to death.

I have the political police behind me every time I put a step

This is the way the regime wants to silence the voices of those

who defend the truth and the right to live in democracy and peace.

And today there is this growing movement of women, I have to say

mothers, throughout Venezuela, who are overcoming fear,

because they are thinking of the lives of their children

and the future that we will leave them in a country of

opportunities, of respect and freedom and democracy.

That's what's at stake in Venezuela now.

And those who say you are an American stooge, you are getting

financing from the Americans, they are giving you help,

Well, they say the same to every single journalist that comes down

They've said the same to the Venezuelan Catholic Church

They say that as a way to intimidate you, to silence you.

Today we realise that this struggle we are moving ahead has to do

And finally, after 17 years, the world has opened its eyes.

It realises that there is no democracy in Venezuela.

It is not only a dictatorship, but one that has links

to the international crime, that has given Venezuela a safe

haven for the guerrilla and the drug trafficking groups.

Let me ask you, because on that American charge, have you ever taken

money from the Americans, any financial support from them?

It is illegal to receive money from other countries,

and we of course have never and will never break the law.

International co-operation from NGOs to NGOs is something

that is legal and that this Government has been blocking,

but we respect the law, even though we face a dictatorship

Have you had American support and help or any backing,

even if it's not financial, with your campaigns

Yes, there have been activists, human rights activists.

There are members of the Congress that are speaking out.

There are journalists that have come down here to find out what's

going on in Venezuela, and the actual threat that this

is not only for the lives of our kids and our nation

but the whole stability of the region.

Once you have a state that is turning to a "narco-state",

that is moving into a Mafia state, those people from America

and throughout the world that are there to speak out

and to understand how serious is Venezuelan regime not only

to ourselves but the whole democratic international community.

The opposition leader, Leopoldo Lopez, was sentenced to 14

years for subliminally inciting violence.

Given all that you're saying about being followed

and your children having threats made against them, do you fear that

Anything could happen to us, Sarah, at this point.

I'm threatened almost every single day, but I have trust.

I trust the will of the Venezuelans, of our generations that

understand the huge responsibility that we have.

At this moment in which Venezuela can move along through a transition

to democracy and peace, to stop hunger, to stop death.

If you get what you want and President Maduro

is removed from office, will you stand to be President?

Well, I've said many times that I hope to be the first

Venezuelan woman President, but at this time our only

priority is to create a transition to move along,

to stop this pain, and to create a Government of national unity

in which all sectors, including those which have been

supporting this regime, can feel included, in order to have

strong democratic institutions, in order to move along

in reactivating our economy to have production, to have jobs,

to have prosperity, and to have most important of all,

trust among us, trust among the Venezuelan people,

which has been destroyed by this regime.

Maria Corina Machado, thank you very much for coming on HARDtalk.

I know it won't be to everybody's taste, but the summer heat

is beginning to build, temperatures widely across central

and eastern parts of England getting up to 26, 27 degrees.