00:00I'm going to give the floor to Deputy Nora Bracho, Vice President of the Special Commission
00:08designated to draft the Amnesty Law for Democratic Coexistence. You may have the floor.
00:36Good afternoon, Mr. President, colleagues, Parliamentary colleagues, Venezuelans who listen to us at this moment.
00:45Today we are not voting just for a single law. We are voting an opportunity, a historical opportunity for the
00:53country.
00:53Venezuela has left years of confrontation, persecution, and social fracture, and it has left jails, exile,
01:04and there have been families separated for reasons, some of them political.
01:10There have been profound pain in Venezuelans.
01:14And when a nation goes through this level of rupture, the answer cannot be simply to move the page.
01:26It must be the justice with a future narrow vision.
01:30That is why our Parliamentarian group, Libertad, insisted on something fundamental,
01:35an amnesty without missing parts, an amnesty without reparation, an amnesty with memory is fragile.
01:49And that is why we have put so much heart in working in this law.
01:54The reconciliation is not erasing history. It is dignified.
01:59It is not closing our eyes. It is to look at each other as a society.
02:05It is not surrendering before the conflict. It is overcoming it.
02:10Today we send a clear message.
02:14Venezuela can correct. Venezuela can construct, build agreements that transcend beyond our differences.
02:25To the victims, we want to speak to them directly and with our hearts.
02:31This law is not pretending to substitute their pain, nor minimizing what we have been through.
02:39No law can do that, but it represents a path towards recognizing that there were a fracture,
02:47that there were affectations, that the Venezuelan state has the duty to guarantee security of Venezuelans,
02:55but also that never again it has utilized the power to follow those who think differently.
03:03That path will never again. It's not rhetoric.
03:07We are affirming today in ratifying that the Islam must be wide,
03:12that it must include everyone, those political inmates, to the exiles, to the persecuted,
03:21to those who think differently, that those that for political reasons are abroad from our space and our vision.
03:33To legislate, to debate, to represent, to represent is not to create a battle.
03:40It is having a clarity in the principles and flexibility as well in the mechanisms to reach those principles.
03:47Venezuela needs stability.
03:50For there to be a democratic transition that for Venezuelans can dream with a future
03:57that prove, that offer them opportunities.
04:02Venezuela needs as well to close the cycle of persecution, of harassment,
04:08that the only thing it has attracted are a painful moment for the country,
04:13for all Venezuelans, for you and for us,
04:17and for those who are watching us from their homes.
04:20This law can be the beginning point for a different chapter for an area in which the respect for the
04:31Constitution
04:31and the democratic coexistence is the rule and not the exception,
04:36in which having different opinions must not be a motive of persecution,
04:42in which pluralism is a strength and not a threat for anyone,
04:48in which no one has to feel fear for expressing their opinions,
04:54for thinking differently, for having a political stance.
04:59The history is judging those parliaments, not for their intensity,
05:05one minute, Deputy, thank you,
05:08but for the quality of their decisions.
05:11And the Amnesty Law could be an important step forward for this parliament in Venezuela.
05:18We ratify that today we need justice and we are betting for the encounter of the whole nation.
05:23We want peace with memory.
05:26We want a deep change in the institutionalization of our nations
05:31and that the victims and their families,
05:33we are speaking to them directly,
05:36and the Civil Society,
05:38through the Organizations of Human Rights,
05:40and the universities we say today,
05:41thank you for all of your suggestions to this law.
05:46We hope that the final result is one that it was expected
05:49and it is a collective achievement.
05:51Today we support the majority of these articles, initial articles,
05:55with the conviction that a better nation is possible,
05:59with the conviction that the future of Venezuelans cannot be a hostage of conflicts.
06:07We hope that it is open an era of respect to dissidents
06:14and that all of us understand that all of us can coexist in the nation.
06:22I insist, in spite of our differences.
06:26A chapter of pluralism and respect of the freedoms of Venezuelans,
06:34that's what we wait for.
06:36The country is watching us.
06:38Thank you very much.
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