Maduro highlights “achievements” during the year 2023 in Venezuela

The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, He stated this Sunday in his end-of-year message that during 2023 there were “important achievements” in economic, security and defense matters, among other areas, despite the “siege and permanent threat” that – he assured – there is against his country.

During a mandatory radio and television broadcast, the head of state stated that Venezuela has “achieved the impossible” thanks to your “political, social and economic model”that “It cannot and does not want to be a carbon copy or copy of anyone.”

In economic matters, he pointed out that, due to the “creation of alternative formulas to neoliberal recipes”the nation has reached “important balances” and has advanced, “successful way”, towards the growth of a “new diversified model“, with the aim of “overcoming” the “dependence” to oil.

“There is still much to do, but, by working together, we achieve important balances in a war economy”said Maduro, who maintained that these results, of which he did not offer further details, were obtained despite alleged conspiracies of the “empire and right-wing extremist forces” for “destroy recovery efforts.”

Fight against corruption and crime

Maduro expressed that, as “if it were not enough to face such evil and powerful enemies”In reference to “empire” already a sector of the opposition, this year “a battle had to be fought” against corruption in the “State and in the private sector.”

He pointed out that, “without regard”the authorities undertook a “frontal fight against corruption, an old and dangerous scourge that corrodes from within and that has no flag nor discriminates with its voracity” and? “he did a lot of damage” to the nation, a battle that -he stated- “We have to continue”.

In March of this year, the Government began an anti-corruption plan that promised to arrest executives, businessmen and senior officials of all branches of the State, but after 61 arrests, two deaths and the ‘disappearance’ of the then Minister of Petroleum, Tareck El Aissami – who resigned to “support” the investigation – the process was stopped, without explanation, just two months later.

In parallel, Venezuela has worked to “consolidate comprehensive security” and “fight crime”through actions such as the operations deployed in the last four months in seven prisons, which resulted in the “dismantling organized crime mafias”among them the transnational criminal organization Tren de Aragua.

“This operation remains alive and continuous to guarantee controlled penitentiary centers (…) and without any type of crime”said.

The defense of Essequibo

The head of state also highlighted the “fight for the historical rights of Venezuela” on Essequibo, a territory of almost 160,000 square kilometers in dispute with Guyana, on which a referendum was held on December 3 in which the majority of Venezuelans who participated supported the creation of a state in that area, among other actions .

He assured that this issue “He managed to unite all (Venezuelans) above partisan, religious, cultural and any other differences.”

He recalled the agreement signed on December 14 with his Guyanese counterpart, Irfaan Ali, in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, where both countries committed to not threaten each other and avoid incidents related to the dispute, a “a pact that, unfortunately, the Government of Guyana, pushed by its former colonial empire, the United Kingdom, intends to break with a hostile provocation.”

Maduro made reference to the arrival of a British warship in “common seas” with Guyana, after which a team from the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) was deployed on Thursday to carry out a “defensive action” which, this Sunday, according to the Minister of Defense, Vladimir Padrino, was withdrawn before the “exit” of the boat.

“No one and nothing will be able to intimidate the people of Venezuela, which has a Bolivarian National Armed Force that defends them”added the Chavista leader.