Venezuelan Opposition Ambassador to the UK - Vanessa Neumann
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 8 May 2019
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Confident that the socialist regime in Venezuela was in its death throes, the opposition led by Juan Guaido won the backing of elements within the armed forces and appeared to be spearheading a de facto coup d’etat. They seem to have miscalculated. Nicolas Maduro faced down the putsch and continues to occupy the presidential palace. Vanessa Neumann is a member of the diplomatic team backing Juan Guaido’s claim to power. How damaging are the mistakes of the opposition?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker. |
| 0:06.6 | Thanks for downloading this edition of the program. I do hope you enjoy it. |
| 0:11.3 | Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. My guest today is a senior |
| 0:17.5 | diplomatic representative of a self-declared president who enjoys widespread |
| 0:22.6 | international recognition, but who wields little practical power. Vanessa Neumann was appointed |
| 0:28.9 | by the president of Venezuela's National Assembly, Juan Guaido, to be his representative in London |
| 0:35.2 | when he declared himself to be Venezuela's legitimate president. |
| 0:39.3 | A week ago, it did indeed look as though Venezuela was on the brink of regime change, as Mr. Guaido |
| 0:45.4 | won the backing of elements within the armed forces and appeared to be spearheading a de facto coup d'etat. |
| 0:52.6 | His backers in the Trump administration certainly thought the socialist |
| 0:56.3 | leader of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, was about to be toppled amid talk that several of the key |
| 1:02.2 | figures in Maduro's inner circle were acting in cahoots with the Americans. But all the talk of |
| 1:08.6 | Mr. Maduro's demise was premature. |
| 1:11.9 | He faced down the Guido Putsch with staunch backing from Havana and Moscow. |
| 1:18.0 | So how damaging were the miscalculations and missteps of the opposition? |
| 1:23.8 | Well, Vanessa Neumann joins me now on the line from Washington, D.C. Welcome to Hard Talk. |
| 1:29.9 | Thank you for having me on. |
| 1:31.7 | It has been a week of drama and turbulence in Venezuela, which the whole world has been watching. |
| 1:38.6 | But would you accept it has left Juan Guaido and you in the opposition in a weaker position? |
| 1:46.6 | Well, that's up for debate, obviously, because I'm not sure about the weaker position, |
| 1:51.9 | because what has come out is that we've had more unity in the international arena. |
| 1:57.3 | The stronger statements by the group of Lima, which is 13 Western Hemisphere countries, not including the United States, and even the international contact group is now aligning more with the sharper edge of Lima, and it has forced more countries to basically pick a side, and generally the side they have picked is ours. It has also revealed riffs. We now know that the |
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