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Dear Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State of the United States of America:
I would like first to thank your team for favorably having taken into account, at the end of last year, my opinions regarding the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Those opinions were also brought to the attention of President Chávez and Foreign Minister Maduro and were well received after an initial reluctance. On behalf of many Venezuelan friends, on behalf of many U.S. Citizen friends of both Hispanic and Anglo origin, I sincerely value your efforts in order to improve the relationship between both governments.
You should be aware that the Ministry of the Popular Power for Foreign Affairs of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela issued today a four-paragraph statement rejecting your recent interview by Globovisión news network. Please refer to the aforementioned statement when reading my comments below, which I have already conveyed to Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro and his team earlier today.
In the United States there has certainly been a misunderstanding not only about the Venezuelan reality, but also about the reality of the rest of the planet until very recently. The acceleration of globalization during the last two decades has however started reversing such traditional U.S. unawareness of all things foreign. In recent times more U.S. citizens have been learning languages such as Spanish or Chinese and have been applying for passports in order to travel abroad. The latest example of such learning process is actually your own admission, dear Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, that you actually documented yourself before your interview, you learned the exact date of the Venezuelan Declaration of Independence, and congratulated us on our most important holiday at the very start of your interview. I do consider this detail as friendly toward my country.
On my morning statement to Foreign Minister Maduro, I suggested him that you, as the U.S. Secretary of State, explicitly acknowledge the right that Venezuela and all other countries do have to maintain relations with other nations, particularly Iran and Cuba. I interpreted your interview words, and conveyed this interpretation to the Foreign Minister, that beyond such acknowledgment there are issues on Venezuelan foreign policy which are not agreed upon by the United States government. Similarly, the Venezuelan government may argue opinions against or in favor of specific issues pertaining U.S. foreign policy.
My personal request to you, dear Hillary Rodham Clinton, is that the government you represent should abstain from criticizing those individuals in Venezuela and elsewhere who have been educated to always react in an “anti-yankee” manner. Please understand that the negative image of the United States abroad will take time to dillute. Please consider that the former unwillingness of the United States to learn about the rest of the world is regretably deeply rooted in many sectors stateside.
I agree with the Venezuelan government position that it is difficult to believe in the sincerity of the intentions to reconstruct any bilateral relationship after several major misunderstandings. However, they are the legitimate diplomatic representatives of all Venezuelans, including both those of us who openly sympathize with the U.S. institutions and economic and technological achievements, and also those Venezuelans who broadly question most U.S. procedures. Therefore I asked my representatives at the Ministry of the Popular Power for Foreign Affairs of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to honor their duty. I asked them not to be afraid of the difficulty of the work they are performing in order to restore mutual trust. They have the duty to clarify to us which types of further signals from the government of the United States may not be qualified as awkward and aggressive toward Venezuela, Latin America and the Caribbean.
We are hopeful that as long as more frequent clarifications and amendments are proactively seeked, we may approach the common goal for the good of the relationship of the governments of Venezuela and the United States.