MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
President Trump is scheduled to meet with Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado later today. It's assumed they'll talk about what Venezuela's leadership should look like going forward after the U.S. forcibly removed the authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro. President Trump said of Machado she might be involved in some aspect of it. He also says he plans to oversee Venezuela indefinitely. We're going to get Freddy Guevara's reaction to that. He's the former vice president of the Venezuelan Parliament and a member of the Venezuelan opposition. He's currently a visiting fellow at Harvard University, and he was kind enough to stop by our studios in Washington, D.C. Welcome. Thank you...
FREDDY GUEVARA: Welcome.
MARTIN: ...For joining us.
GUEVARA: No, thank you very much. And, you know, very glad that you are raising Venezuelan voices.
MARTIN: So has the Trump administration's decision to work with Venezuela's vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, left opposition figures like yourself feeling sidelined or let down? I guess the question is if - what has really changed since she was part of that regime?
GUEVARA: Well, I think we're going to see it in the next days. So far, we have good signs and bad signs. The good signs is, for example, as we're speaking, friends of mine has been released from jail, right? But not only friends of mine - that, like, we have at least around 100 people that have been freed in the last days, so that's a good thing. The bad sign, of course, is that you have still the people that are controlling the repression in power there. So I think it's early to evaluate. But we also understand that, A, transitions are a complex process and, B, sadly, we are not the ones that are in control.
MARTIN: You know, most of the world agrees that the opposition won the previous...
GUEVARA: Yeah.
MARTIN: ...Election.
GUEVARA: Yeah.
MARTIN: By that standard, shouldn't Maria Corina Machado or Edmundo Gonzalez, who actually stood as her proxy - shouldn't one or the other of them be involved in governance?
GUEVARA: Of course, we would prefer that outcome. However, we also understand the Americans. They've been following a strategy that doesn't want to, let's say, do a revolution or change everything. They want to do more like a reform that might include some of the old regime's structures. So my guess is that the bet of the American government is controlled implosion. I think the bet of the Maduro leftovers, the ones that are still running there, is just to wait and gain time to see if Trump lose the midterms, and then they cannot enforce more pressure on the regime. You know, they will wait.
MARTIN: How much time do you think this current arrangement has before people become as restive under this sort of interim arrangement?
GUEVARA: Yeah. I hope that this could be in seventh month. There's a constitutional thing happening. In Venezuela, the Constitution doesn't matter, right? We don't have rule of law. But if we want to abide by it, in seven months, we should have a new presidential election. And meanwhile, we have to also deal with a lot of people that will stay in the regime. Many of the officials also committed crimes, so we will have to engage in these weird negotiations, amnesties, transitional justices. This is going to be a very complex thing that allows that the next government that it's elected also has the capacity to actually run the country.
MARTIN: I don't know whether you're in touch with Maria Corina Machado or if you're in a position to advise her. What kind of conversation do you hope she's going to have with the president later today?
GUEVARA: I know that Maria Corina will put Venezuelans' interests first. I will have to say that I think there's two main line of actions. The first one is we need to assure the freedom of the more than 1,000 political prisoners and the end of repression, because it's not just releasing 1,000 prisoners and then you still have the apparatus that can put 2,000 people more in jail. This is like the revolving door that we have to stop. And the second line of action is, of course, the free and fair election. How do we make sure that there's credible commitments and actions that makes this unreversible?
MARTIN: Before we let you go, you've been living in exile since 2021.
GUEVARA: Yeah.
MARTIN: Does the current state of the country give you hope that you can go home?
GUEVARA: For sure. I'm - I mean, now there's people like me who have, like, indictments or judiciary causes, so we need a formal thing to end. Some friend of mine are already planning to go back soon. This new landscape allows more opportunity to raise your head again without the fear of being persecuted at the same moment. I am optimistic, cautiously optimistic. I know that the job is far from being done, but I'm hopeful.
MARTIN: That is Freddy Guevara. He is the former vice president of the Venezuelan Parliament. He's now a visiting fellow at Harvard University. Freddy Guevara, thank you so much for talking with us.
GUEVARA: No, thank you very much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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