H.E Ms. Haifa Aissami Madah, Ambassador of the Permanent Mission for Venezuela to the OPCW-ICC, during her speech.
H.E Ms. Haifa Aissami Madah, Ambassador of the Permanent Mission for Venezuela to the OPCW-ICC along with Mr. Alvaro Sanchez, Chargé d’Affaires of the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in The Hague, celebrated their country’s 206 years of its Independence on 5 July 2017 at Kasteel De Wittenburg in Wassenaar, along with a great number of ambassadors and chief of missions, representatives from international organizations and hundreds of guests from the Venezuela diaspora to artists, Dutch business and official sector, NGOs and more.
For additional pictures, please open the following link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/121611753@N07/albums/72157686291540946
Both, Ambassador Aissami Madah and Mr Sanchez addressed the audience by highlighting Venezuela’s history and recent achievements. Find bellow their respective speeches.
“It is a great honor for me to welcome you today as we commemorate the 206th anniversary of our independence as a Nation.” Said H.E. Haifa Aissami Madah.
“As many of you know, I have the privilege of having arrived in this country in 2011 as ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the kingdom of the Netherlands, and from that perspective to serve my country and contribute to the strengthening of bilateral relations between our countries, I have also had the privilege to meet many of you and work in the field of multilateral organizations that host this city as well.
After 5 years of an intense bilateral and multilateral agenda in that role, I had to continue this wonderful work, but now with special emphasis on the multilateral sphere.
In 2015 our government decided to establish a diplomatic delegation to attend to multilateral affairs, it is again my honor to lead the new Mission; this initiative of Venezuela is a clear sign of the importance that my country gives to the bilateral relations with this neighboring country and all the international organizations established in this city as well.
Many of you have heard about the “crisis” in Venezuela, in fact we are currently facing some problems as any other countries in our region. The Venezuelan crisis is created artificially by the blocking of production and distribution channels. Evidence for the existence of a so called “Economic Warfare” has been collected by numerous academics, and it has only one goal, to put its hands in our oil resources.
The strategy to artificially create a situation where basic foodstuffs and medicines are in short supply is not new. The same happened around Latin America in the early seventies, where economic warfare was one of the many dirty methods used to oust the democratically elected governments. There is an international strategy. Their plan is to create the impression that chaos reigns in the country and then justify and bring an external intervention. With the overwhelming majority of the media in opposition hands, and with the enthusiastic support of the world corporate media, a huge campaign of intoxicating consequences with this aim has been waged daily.
In spite of all this, the Venezuelan Government is committed to overcome the present difficulties and to work hard to prevent the peace of its citizens.
Dear colleagues; this morning his Excellency the Nuncio congratulated me for our National Day and asked me to speak to you today about hope, about the hope of the Venezuelan people. I promised him that he would do this and express our hope and confidence in the leadership of Pope Francisco to help us overcome these difficulties because we are convinced that through dialogue we can find a solution to our differences. And we firmly believe that we are the Venezuelans who have to preserve peace and we will do so.”
In his turn, Mr. Sanchez after welcoming his guests with cordial greetings went on to deliver his Independence Day remarks. He paused at Venezuela’s past, present and peek into the country’s future. Sanchez continued,
“Today is a day of celebration for Venezuela. 206 years ago, in 1811, we formally gained our independence from Spain and drafted our first Constitution. Simon Bolivar was definitively the leader and the hero of the wars and political struggles that took place between 1811 and 1830.
Throughout those years Bolivar resisted all sort of difficulties. Among them: attempts against his life, political plots, and betrayals, exile, lack of resources and many other conflicts. Nonetheless, Bolivar always kept his moral intact, fought bravely, maintained the unity of Venezuelans and secured our precious independence.
Not only that, but Bolivar was also the Liberator of many other South American nations, as well as the architect of Latin American and Caribbean unity, a dream that still has to come true.
Today we proudly pay tribute to Simon Bolivar, for we are currently going through times in our history where values such as courage, independence, struggle against colonialism and Latin American unity are paramount.
In addition to Bolivar, there is another brilliant Venezuelan hero that we would like to pay tribute to, and that is Francisco de Miranda, the mastermind, and genius behind our first Constitution of 1811 and our First Republic.
Prior to 1811, Miranda took part in the wars for the independence of the United States and also in the French Revolution. In addition, Miranda traveled the world quite extensively. Of the many countries visited by Miranda, he came to the Netherlands in 1785. He visited Rotterdam, The Hague, Leyden, Haarlem, and Amsterdam.
At the end of his Dutch tour, Miranda wrote that Holland impressed him as a “singular and most curious country”.
Neither should we forget the important role played by the Dutch Caribbean islands, specially Bonaire, in offering assistance to Miranda and his soldiers prior to his landing on La Vela de Coro, in northern Venezuela, where he first hoisted our national flag and tried to liberate us from Spain in 1806.
We therefore highly appreciate the historical and cultural links between Venezuela and the Netherlands. It is a bond built on years of friendship, cooperation, and solidarity. As a footnote, I would also like to mention that I recently learned that football was first introduced in Venezuela by Dutch oil workers from Shell in the early 20th Century.
Venezuela and the Netherlands have been brotherly nations. It is no different now in the 21st Century than it was in the 19th and the 20th Century. Venezuela and the Netherlands share and extensive border coastline in the Caribbean Sea. However, more than that, we share values and visions. That’s why we cherish so much our relations with the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Tomorrow, our newly appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, Samuel Moncada, will visit Curacao for bilateral meetings. This will be his first trip abroad, which is an indication of our appreciation to the Netherlands.
Similar to that, His Majesty King Willem-Alexander also chose Venezuela to be his first Latin American destination when he visited us in 2013. In addition, but more recently, in April of this year, the Director of the Western Hemisphere Department, Mr. Marcel De Vink, also decided that his first ever trip to Latin America had to be Venezuela.
Indeed, lately, both of our countries have been working very hard in order maintain high levels of cooperation, to facilitate trade, to enhance culture and education and also to guarantee a safe and peaceful environment free from drug and human trafficking, as well as free from some other forms of illegal activities.
In fact, Venezuela and the Netherlands signed in 2013 a memorandum of understanding, which provides us with a framework to, among other things, engage in political dialogue and set up annual mixed commissions, the latest of which was successfully held in The Hague in May 2016.
Finally, in terms of our current situation in Venezuela, Ambassador Haifa El Aissami has already provided us with a very comprehensive and sufficiently explained overview.
We are ultimately facing real threats against our democracy and our independence. However, just like Simon Bolivar and Francisco de Miranda, before us, we will keep our heads up and defend our sovereignty.”
