00:00And just a few hours after the U.S. attack on Caracas on the early morning of January 3rd,
00:06the Venezuelan people began the recovery operation.
00:08To tell us more about the resilience of the Bolivarian people in those difficult days,
00:13our correspondent Paola Dragnik with her third chapter of her series The Signal of Victory,
00:18this time with the episode entitled The Reconstruction.
00:30Transcription by CastingWords
01:00The immense sadness of the departure seems to subside somewhat with the pride and dignity that heroes stop on history,
01:23like Cesar, dozens of young Cubans and Venezuelan soldiers and civilians were killed by the United States' attack.
01:33He was shaped by the politics of our President Chavez and by the ideology which he carried in his mind.
01:42As a child, he always said he would defend his homeland with his life, as he demonstrated today.
01:52Cesar died with his boots on.
01:54In Cuba, the flag is also flying at half-bast.
01:58The Cuban people are in pain today in the wake of these events and because of the loss of 32 Cuban soldiers who died heroically on Venezuelan soil.
02:14A deep and sovereign internationalist friendship that is incomprehensible to those who make human existence nothing more than big business.
02:44Cuando parece que el mundo entierra hasta su última utopía, que el dinero y la tecnología están por encima de todos los sueños humanos.
02:52Just when it seems that the world is burying its last utopia, that money and technology are above all human dreams, that humanity is growing weary,
03:00at that very moment, 32 brave Cubans offered their lives and rose up as giants in a fierce battle until the last bullet and until the last breath.
03:08A battle that continues in Cuba, in Venezuela and throughout the world, because the U.S. imperialism is always lurking.
03:19Para que el mundo sepa que los cubanos estamos de pie, seguimos resistiendo.
03:23So that the world knows that Cubans are standing tall, we will continue to resist imperialism and barbarism against this plundering that's been carried out in the world.
03:32And without limits, this destruction of the Carlota Air Base in Caracas was repeated in different places where the civilian population was the victim of the attack.
03:46I'm outraged, because this was not only against politicians, but also against civilians.
03:58Many people left Fuerte Tuna and when I came down, everybody was horrified.
04:03Yo vi el helicóptero.
04:06I saw the helicopter from my apartment.
04:08Fuerte Tuna no es solo un complejo militar, sino una...
04:12Fuerte Tuna is not just a military complex, but a small city with about 240 buildings with more than 25,000 apartments, built as part of national housing plans.
04:24It also has sports, cultural and financial facilities.
04:30May the Lord have mercy on us all.
04:37I was so scared.
04:38I thought they were going to tear down that building.
04:40I was looking at it from there.
04:43And those poor women at three in the morning, running with the children.
04:47Come on, you don't do that.
04:54More than the outrage of the attack itself, there is also the outrage at those Venezuelans who left and called for an intervention in this country.
05:02Like that lady who will never rule this country, because you really have to be anti-patriotic to call for those sanctions and this military intervention.
05:11And the response of the Venezuelan people was quite the opposite.
05:17Days later, at the same city that was bombed, this was happening.
05:21A reconstruction that was not only material.
05:24First, the defense of our nation, colors, and culturally, we have a great weapon, which is music and our culture of peace.
05:40Our culture is one of peace.
05:42And with that cultural foundation, with our traditions, we demonstrate that we are not war-mongering people.
05:48Is there any doubt?
05:54The fact is that the Venezuelan people have an idiosyncrasy which is difficult to comprehend by societies that look for their heroes in the market.
06:03Here, young and old inherit traditions, values and customs that solidify their unshrinkable dignity even after an attack.
06:11It is with culture, with our children, with our children, with activities of love, with song and with poetry, that we respond to the empire.
06:23Here, they only find love.
06:25And with this same love, we will defend our country.
06:28Let them not make any mistake about it.
06:32Because with such dedication and dignity, they are recovering every space that was violated,
06:39most of them civilian, like this library in the coastal city of La Guayra,
06:45nestled in the middle of the historic center, a national heritage site.
06:50It is not new.
06:52We saw in Iraq.
06:53We saw in Syria.
06:54Everything, that its culture, that it's our patrimony, must be destroyed.
06:58And so they are military targets.
07:01It is not only the military base that you have in front of us,
07:04the Whiskey Pana House, with more than 400 years of history.
07:08And here we are fighting, standing up to fight, space that will soon be recovered,
07:13so that can continue providing culture and wisdom.
07:18A wisdom that is also popular and expressed in its cohesive social fabric,
07:23a people who are ready to rebuild with their own hands if necessary.
07:28They said the attack broke concrete, but not the community.
07:31Mr. Trump decided that it was Venezuelans' turn to be invaded by foreign boots.
07:43I call on all Venezuelans to get together as one force.
07:52And on a global level, we must also get together,
07:55because today was our turn, but he has Colombia, Mexico and Brazil in his crosshair.
08:00And they know it, which is why solidarity quickly emerged.
08:07The attack on a huge warehouse of dialysis supplies left thousands of Venezuelans without treatment.
08:13But within days, Brazil had a renaissance 90 tons of supplies to prevent more deaths.
08:19Of course, there is fear.
08:25It was an unprecedented, cowardly attack.
08:35That device entered the apartment next door and went into the room and exploded there.
08:40I even saw the fireball that had formed, and the blast immediately threw me out of the room.
08:45But in the middle of the attack, the signal of victory seems to embody everything and is present everywhere.
09:03In La Guayra, in the hillside neighborhoods or by the sea,
09:06And here, on the other side of the Venezuelan capital,
09:10where prestigious scientists assess with distress the destruction left by the imperial attack.
09:16Because, yes, the country's Institute for Scientific Research, IVIC, was also bombarded.
09:25Venezuela is our mother.
09:31Regardless of one's political leanings, this is our mother.
09:36We live here in the IVIC, and we love the IVIC.
09:44And this was not only a flagrant violation against military facilities,
09:48but also against a very important research institution, and that leaves a message.
09:54Within this walls, the most important scientific advances in Venezuela and the region in recent decades took place.
10:01The IVIC even participated in the development of the human genome,
10:07a science that improves the lives of Venezuelans.
10:10That is what the empire attacked.
10:11The real effects of a criminal Yankee Bombay for a contract manifold.
10:26But the problem is not the material damage, rather the mortal damage caused by imperial aggression.
10:43The mortal damage.
10:45When you're a Bolivarian, and you feel that your homeland has been attacked in this way,
10:50it feels it was your own mother who was attacked.
10:52Perhaps that is also why there is such a powerful force springing from the deaths of the Venezuelan people
11:02to recover the material and the human sides of the damages in a stronger, bigger, and more beautiful way.
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