Message of Compañero Nicolás Maduro Moros, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,
in Commemoration of the Bicentennial of the Battle of Ayacucho
December 9th 2024
Good afternoon, on this very special and beautiful afternoon in the City of Caracas, in this iconic place where the Nation always pays tribute to its Heroes, its Heroines. A special, beautiful, brilliant afternoon. It would seem that on the Day of Freedom, when the liberation of the lands of Manco Cápac, of Atahualpa, of the Great Kingdom of the Incas, of the Children of the Sun was achieved, Heaven wanted to give us this wonderful Sun, this wonderful City, to us also as heirs of the Children of the Sun, of the Quechua, of the Aymara, of the Caribs. A spectacle that we are seeing here in this Caracas, Free, Sovereign, at Peace, Beautiful, at Christmas. Very beautiful today.
I would like to greet in a very special way, the representatives of the Governments of the World present in Venezuela, Ambassadors, of Fraternal Peoples, of China, Russia, India, Turkey, Belarus, Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Abkhazia, Free Palestine, Suriname, South Africa, our Sister Syria, Vietnam, Brazil, Iraq, Sudan, Malaysia, Egypt, Saharawi Arab Republic, Korea, Indonesia, Bolivia, Colombia, Norway, Qatar, and of all the International Organizations represented in Venezuela.
A very special greeting to the Young People present, Golden Youth; to the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, a beautiful expression of the Music, Culture and Identity of Venezuela; to the Martial Band of Military Musicians that are here; to the Bolivarian National Militia, the Militiamen, Men and Women of the People; to the Deputies of the National Assembly; Officers of the Bolivarian National Armed Force.
Presidents of the Public Powers, Dr. Jorge Rodríguez, President of the National Assembly; Dr. Beatriz Rodríguez, President of the Judicial Power; Dr. Elvis Amoroso, President of the Electoral Power; Dr. Tarek William Saab, Attorney General and President of the Moral Power; Vice Presidents of the Government, Compañeros Diosdado Cabello Rondón, Ricardo Menéndez, and all the Vicepresidents. The Executive Vice President is not present, although she was the creative architect, together with the Mayor of Caracas, Carmen Teresa Meléndez, and Nahúm Fernández, of this beautiful monument that today we are delivering to the City of Caracas She is currently in the Arab Emirates, on her way home from China.
I want to greet the Superior General Staff, Generals in Chiefs, Ministers, Strategic Operational Commanders, Commanders of the Army, Navy, Aviation, the National Guard, the Bolivarian National Militia, Commanders of the REDI and ZODI.
Greeting to the Decorated, for the first time the newly created Decoration “Battle of Ayacucho”, Great Victory of Ayacucho, which is given to the Victors of Ayacucho, 21 worthy Venezuelans who were sanctioned by the North American Empire last week, and that sanction became a Decoration to their Honor, to their Morale, and a Commitment.
Go ahead then, General, Commander of the Parade, command at discretion and continue at your post for a moment. Let's get going Let's get a move on! Let the compañeras and compañeros recover the energy of their legs, because these Military Personnel, and let's give them a round of applause, are here at this Historical Moment of Ayacucho, unforgettable for their records, unforgettable for their Lives. General in Chief Padrino, please put a note of recognition in the record of all the Officers, all the Cadets and all the Military Personnel present, making it an unforgettable award, for having been in the anniversary of 200 Years of Ayacucho, on such a beautiful afternoon as this.
Order the formation then, General. That's correct, to stand at ease.
We have carried out a long day making an important effort to commemorate what it means to recreate the memory of 200 years of a Unique Historical Process that marked, since that time, a stellar period of Ideas, of Republican Dreams, a stellar time for concrete utopias, a stellar time for unitary effort, leaving a mark forever in the genes of our Life, as Peoples and as Republics.
A day like today 200 years ago was the culmination of a long process that began with the arrival of Spanish colonialism in this immense geography of what is now America. From the territories snatched from Mexico, from California, Texas, Arizona, from the North of America, through Central America, Panama, all of South America and part of the Caribbean, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Spanish Empire imposed a system that we could describe as amazing, an amazing system of Conquest, Domination and Colonialism.
And one might think, Men and Women of the People who see us, who hear us and who are present here, they might ask how they managed to subjugate, to dominate and exterminate Cultures and Peoples who had lived for more than 12,000 years in these territories of what is known today as America and which the Inca Empire called the Abya Yala, Abya Yala, the Land of the Gods, the Magnificent Land. It is necessary to study, in order to be nourished by it as well, the History of Conquest and Colonization.
The Liberator said 200 years ago, more than by force, we have been dominated by deception, by lying; which means that we have been dominated more by deception, but also by force. And when one studies the Process of Liberation of South America, but specifically when one studies the process of liberation of Peru and Upper Peru, which today is Bolivia, epicenter of the command of the powerful and beautiful Inca Empire, on comparing it with other processes across the whole America, one can clearly see the imperial colonialist methods which were used yesterday and which they do not cease trying to use, with their superiority complex, still in the XXI Century.
For sure, more than 500 years ago there was a conqueror named Francisco Pizarro, study him, research, so that you know all the barbarities Francisco Pizarro committed against the Empire of the Children of the Sun, and all the schemes and plots he used to take advantage of internal differences.
The first thing he did was to get a group of indigenous people who were loyal to him and who served as interpreters to begin to penetrate the psychology of the tribes and Peoples that existed throughout that Region of what is now Peru and Bolivia.
Then he learned about the differences and internal wars that existed between the last Inca Emperor, Atahualpa, and one of his brothers who had recently been at war, Huáscar, and so he set out to offer his weapons and his military power for a revenge against Atahualpa. Thus the division of Peoples began to work for tribal reasons, for egos, for warlordism, or for excessive ambitions, for hatreds or desires for revenge.
We have been dominated more by deception and lies, by perfidy and intrigue, I paraphrase the Liberator, than by force. Deception, today we call it psychological warfare, today we call it cognitive warfare, and its imperial antecedents over the centuries are those of the war of intrigue, of division, which they deployed as a strategy to subdue an entire Continent that had been living free, happy and at peace.
The second component which Francisco Pizarro applied to the Inca Empire, on the recommendation of the former conqueror of Mexico, Hernán Cortez,, was advice that he gave in Spain when they both met with the King, and were endowed with royal powers to come and conquer America.
Hernán Cortez told Pizarro that they were related. In addition, he told him: The formula that worked for him in Mexico was to divide them and kill their chiefs.
So Pizarro set himself that goal and gradually achieved tribal division, and then set himself the goal of deceiving Atahualpa, who with an army of 40,000 men, well trained with the weapons of their peoples and of their time, could not avoid that action at the time.
Hernán Cortez told Pizarro, kill the Oldest Chief, because the Indigenous Peoples believe that their Chiefs are gods, and when you kill him they believe that their God has died, and they will lose the will to fight. And it was exactly what Pizarro did, in a meeting of deception he murdered Atahualpa, and that meant the beginning of one of the bloodiest periods of conquest, colonization and human, political, cultural extermination of the ancient Civilizations of South America. And of what we might well call the criminal legend of Francisco Pizarro as the great Conqueror who crushed the Inca Empire.
It took 290 years, for there to be a Tupac Amaru, Eternal Glory to Tupac Amaru. There had to be a Tupac Katari, a Bartolina Sisa, and Bolivar, Sucre, and the United Liberator Army had to arrive, 290 years to do justice and vindicate the Children of the Sun, and defeat the Spanish Empire that had finished and exterminated their Cultures and their Lives. The imperial strategy has always had the same component: cognitive warfare, lying, deception, division. At the time to divide the Peoples who were after all 12 million inhabitants, Diosdado, Hector, Cilia, Ambassadors, there were 12 million inhabitants, which means that it was a powerful, great Nation of Indigenous Peoples;.
Atahualpa alone was followed and protected by 40,000 soldiers well-armed for the time; that was one of the advantages of the Spanish armies that arrived with arquebuses, with gunpowder, and surprised the Indigenous Peoples in a thousand ways, to intimidate and deceive them. How many lessons can we draw for the beautiful times we are living, of Redemption, of Liberation. Because I have to say it too, I thank God, above all things, I thank God, the Immortal and Eternal Spirits of the Liberators, that from Venezuela we have been able to celebrate the 200 years of Carabobo and now the 200 years of Ayacucho with a Country in Freedom, Independent, Sovereign, Dignified, respected by the World, both vindicated and vindicator of the Ideas of Freedom. It's no small thing.
100 years ago the Centenary was commemorated by the People in the midst of an atrocious Dictatorship, a Country that Juan Vicente Gómez had turned into a Gringo Colony, into an Oil Protectorate handing over all our oil wealth to American companies.
I think and sense in my body and my mind what the Centenary Generation felt, admiration for the Heroes, but also pain, because the Nation had been lost. 200 years later we have to say, the Nation today is standing, upright, rebellious, walking on its own two feet, Free and at Peace.
490 years have passed since Francisco Pizarro murdered Atahualpa, since Francisco Pizarro arrived in Cusco, the capital of the Inca Empire, since Francisco Pizarro arrived at the Temple of the Sun, sacred place of the Aymara and Quechua Indians, and destroyed the Empire of the Sun. He built a church.
And in that place, in 1534, in the month of November 1534, he brought a Banner that His Majesty, the King of Spain, had given him, this Banner that was known in history as the Pizarro Banner, and placed it on top of the Temple of the Sun as if to say: We have arrived, this land is ours.
290 years later, after the Victory of Ayacucho in the month of December of that year 1824, the United Liberator Army entered Cusco on horseback, acclaimed by the people in the streets, with Sucre in front and the Aymara People, the Quechua People, heirs of Atahualpa, gave him the Pizarro Banner as a war trophy, as a Symbol of the Liberation of the Children of the Sun.
I made a video on TikTok yesterday, I don't know if you saw it, also on Instagram, on Facebook and on Telegram, and it came out in the Media too, look for it, give me a like, a like doesn't cost anyone, and put it there to share, a like and share. Because this history is little known and it is so Glorious, Generals, Admirals, it is so Glorious; that's why I wanted to mention it here, because General Sucre in December 1824, exactly 290 years later, defeated the last bastions of the very powerful and long victorious Imperial Spanish Army.
And the first thing that General Sucre thought, the first thing that came to his mind when he received this Banner as the maximum war trophy, and when he liberated Cusco from the dominion of 290 years, was to send Pizarro's Banner as a Symbol, to the Liberator Simón Bolívar. And so he did, immediately a party set out on horseback to carry Pizarro's Banner with a beautiful letter to Bolivar. The banner arrived in Lima, and was admired.
The Liberator Simón Bolívar had already arrived at the Temple of the Sun earlier in the Battle of Junín and they say that he had a deep meditation, and asked the Gods of the Temple of the Sun, the Indigenous Ancestors of the Temple of the Sun to accompany him in the Battle of Junín and allow him to triumph. Events turned out exactly that that way in the month of August, the prelude to the Great Victory
And do you know the first thing that Bolivar thought when he received the Pizarro Banner as a symbol of the great historical victory, of the break of the imperial domination over our South America? The first thing Bolivar thought was to send Letters to Santander for Pizarro's Banner to go and be unfurled in the streets of Caracas, because in Caracas the dreams of South American Freedom began.
And so Pizarro's Banner arrived in Caracas, because it was in Caracas on April 19th 1810 and on July 5th 1811 that this long historical journey began to get rid of every vestige of domination, subjugation, subordination, colonialism. So I wanted to bring it today and I am going to leave it open here for the People to see for 30 days, so that our People can see the symbol of 290 years of domination, almost three centuries, waving here in Caracas, Caracas the Liberator, Caracas the Rebel, Caracas of the Historical Revolution.
From this place, I want to greet the Peoples of South America and all of our America and the Caribbean. The United Liberating Army was the result of Bolívar's immense work to reunify Forces.
If for 290 years they dominated us by deception, dominated us by lies and dominated us by force and division, Bolivar achieved the Historic Feat of uniting in a single Dream, in a single Project, in a single Army, all the Forces for Liberty of that time, not only of Venezuela, but in all of South America.
Because Bolivar could have quietly stayed governing Gran Colombia, what is now Panama, Colombia and Venezuela. But Bolivar always had the objective from a very early age, of the Unity and Liberation of South America, as he called it in his speech of July 3rd 1811, of the Great Patriotic Nation.
And if, lamentably, we were dominated by deception, by force, by division for 290 years, our freedom came about from Union, from Strength, from a Project, from Leadership.
It is admirable and I am very excited to contemplate, to recognize and to be able to preside over this Bicentennial as a People-President, as a man of the People, as an ordinary man. It is very exciting to be able to see the gigantic work of the Liberator, how he made us arrive at the Camps of Junín and Ayacucho, Gentlemen Officers, Men and Women of the People, Militiamen and Militiawomen, with the most powerful Army that has ever been known in the History of the whole of America.
Even the process of Independence of the United States never had an Army as Beautiful and Powerful as ours. And notice how it was called the "United Liberation Army".
For there were forces who had fought in Boyacá, Carabobo, who had fought in Bomboná, Pichincha, who had traveled all these spaces, and only the Political, Doctrinal Union, the Union of that Dream and Military Union, and here I can put it today in the XXI Century with concepts of the XXI Century, only the Popular-Military Union, in a single power and in a single Army, managed to corner and give a historical lesson in Junín and Ayacucho to the Spanish Empire and drive it out of these lands definitively. Beautiful Lessons that come to nurture all the combative thinking of this wonderful time of Rebirth.
I want to send very special greeting to all the Soldiers, all the Military and all the People of Peru, of Bolivia, and to tell the People and the Military of Peru, of Bolivia and of all South America, today in Ayacucho, Sucre calls us to Union, calls us to a new Liberation, calls us to a new process of South America and of Our America.
Soldiers of the Great Patriotic Nation, hear our call from Venezuela, let the drums of Liberation and the Union of Our America sound, let the intrigue cease, let division cease, let the separation of Our America cease, let the cowardice of the poltroons who submit to imperial blackmail, denying the Banners of Bolivar, of Sucre, of all the Liberators of America cease.
My effusive and affectionate greeting also to the Military of our Sister Colombia. Today I was watching the Tribute to General José María Córdova, and I am sending from here to the Colombian Military, to the People of Colombia, the same call for Unity to Liberate our Nations from imperialist, neocolonial rule, and to realize the original dream that founded us, and for which you wear your uniforms of the Original Dream of Bolívar and Sucre.
There are many lessons left to us, Beautiful Lessons for this time and for future times; now we are in times of the Bicentennial Era. For younger people, you should know that this Bolivarian Bicentennial Era began on July 24th 1983 when a young Captain named Hugo Chávez Frías, swore with the same force of the Sacred Mount, and with his same words, to see Venezuela liberated.
In this Bicentennial Era that would take us, from July 24th 1983, the day he was born in this Caracas, Birthplace of the Liberator Simón Bolívar, until December 17th the day Bolivar departed in Santa Martha, betrayed, stabbed and assaulted by intrigue, by lies and betrayal of the greatest man who has ever existed on all this American and Caribbean land, our Liberator Simón Bolívar.
So it has fallen to us to see how that oath of then Captain Chávez came true, how that Captain became the Great Comandante of a People and of a great Historical Process, and how that Historical Process was able to transcend even the physical loss of its Leader.
Many said, once Chávez is gone, this People will fall back to sleep, and you all know what has happened, this People is more awake, more rebellious and more on its feet than ever, carrying forward the Banners and the Dreams and the Gigantic Utopias.
We have overcome the harrassment, the psychological warfare, the political warfare, the economic warfare, we have overcome the conspiracies. The Empire and the fascist Right have run out of the Manual of Conspiracies, they have applied everything against Venezuela; every time there is an adverse event in the world they want it to happen too in Venezuela. When the Gringo Army entered Iraq in a criminal way in 2003, March 2003, they asked the Gringos to do the same in Venezuela. Result: Frustration and defeat for them. Result: Triumph of Tranquility, Peace, Development and National Sovereignty.
When the Gringos went into Libya, bombed and murdered thousands, they asked them to come and bomb and kill Chávez. And our Comandante, I remember him perfectly facing the illness he had to suffer, told the People: "Venezuela is not Libya, Venezuela is the Nation of the Liberators.”We love Libya, we love its People, we regret this barbaric attack that dismembered and tore Libya apart, and brought it into the chaos from which that People wants to escape”. And in Venezuela Union, Peace, Sovereignty reigned there in 2011.
When in 2014 the Nazi groups staged their coup in Ukraine in Kiev, murdering dozens of innocent people, and the Nazis who rule Ukraine, who have been defeated by President Putin and the Russian people also said, the time has come, now it's Venezuela's turn. And we already know the end of that story. In 2014, our People, with the Constitution in hand, defeated the "Guarimbas” and the attempt to bring a Civil War to our beloved Venezuela.
Now, in view of the events in Syria, we are observing the development of very painful circumstances for the People of Syria. Now the shameless ones are coming out, the brazen voices of fascist extremism, asking for a Civil War be fomented in Venezuela as well.
I tell you, make no mistake, make no mistake, for the People of Venezuela in perfect fusion, People, Military, Police, will triumph along the path of Peace, and in Venezuela there will be Peace, Stability, National Unity and the Constitution will prevail. Not Iraq, not Libya, not Ukraine yesterday, not Civil War today, no, no, no; we are the Children of Ayacucho, we are the Children of the Sun. And if Ayacucho was the Waterloo of the Spanish Empire in America. If you were to dare, Imperialist Gentlemen, if you were to dare, fascist Gentlemen and Ladies, it would be the Waterloo for all your conspiracies and you would regret for a 100 years having dared to touch the Sacred Peace and Stability and Union of our Beloved Venezuela.
What was missing is here, a Beautiful Crescent Moon, over there the Sun is already saying farewell to the day, the Bicentennial, and over here the Moon, filling us with her Light and her Love on this wonderful night; and over there that screen, Yánez, look at the screen that looks so beautiful, is showing the Moon. It was showing the moon.
Here is this book, I am going to put it in my media accounts so that it will be known by our People "Southern Campaign, ALBA awaits us”. A book that should be made available in every classroom.
Junín and Ayacucho are revived in words and are born again in actions, Patriotic Student Youth, Essays, Comments, Opinions of our Students. A book made by Students for Students with this Glorious Story. Glory, Eternal Glory to our People!
I want on this day of Ayacucho, to proceed, as well, to present the already drawn up, already complete Plan of Transformations and development of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces, the Plan of the Venezuelan Military Revolution, Plan Ayacucho 2024-2030, which we have completed today.
And I am going to sign it so as to make it the Plan of the Republic 2024-2030, the Ayacucho Plan, to deepen the Nationalist, Anti-Imperialist, Bolivarian, Socialist, and more than ever deeply Chavista Military Revolution.
Here you are, General-in-Chief. Present yourself, please. I present it to you signed and approved in my role as Commander in Chief, of the Ayacucho Plan 2024-2030, with the Glories of the Past and the Glories ahead to conquer and build. Go ahead, as forcefully as you can, then.
It has been wonderful this afternoon and this evening of December 9th; wonderful the opportunity to give to the People of Caracas, here at the Paseo Los Ilustres, on this spectacular afternoon, on this fresh and beautiful night, before the presence of the noble people, of the five generations that we carry forward in our Nation today. I want you to receive this Monumental Square, this Ayacucho Square, in Tribute to Antonio José de Sucre; a Beautiful Square, which brings the main reflections.
Here on the left one marvels at seeing such living statues; in front Antonio José de Sucre on that day like today, and here on his spirited and victorious horse, our Liberator Simón Bolívar; a Beautiful Monument.
I want to greet the Architects, the Designers, the Engineers, but especially, after I met them in these days when I visited them, the Workers who made this beautiful work.
I asked that on one of the monoliths we place, for eternal remembrance, the names of all the Workers, Engineers, Engineers, Architects who participated in building this wonderful work for this Bicentennial Year 2024.
Because it is the ordinary People, the simple, straightforward People, the Humble People, who make these Monuments with Love; the ones deserving of all the Glory, of all the Tributes and all the Recognitions. Honor to the Working People, to the ordinary man and woman, who made this Beauty possible.
And officially, on this beautiful evening, I hand over this Monument that bears the thoughts in his handwriting of the Liberator Simon Bolivar, who wrote a Biography that should be distributed and become familiar to you.
It was about the only person in his life about whom the Liberator wrote a Biography, and we have to see how he knew the details of Sucre's life, and the admiration he had for General Sucre, General Mabo. That is why Sucre was killed by the oligarchy of Bogotá in complicity with the Oligarchy of Quito; he neglected his safety and went alone on the roads, and in Berruecos they ambushed and killed him because Sucre was a faithful and loyal follower carrying on the Liberating Work of Simon Bolivar.
And Bolivar said, in those Admirable and Glorious times of Venezuela and the Great Patriotic Nation, he wrote at the end of his Biography: “The Battle of Ayacucho is the Summit of American Glory and the Work of General Sucre. His disposition has been perfect, and his execution divine. Skillful and prompt maneuvers disrupted in one hour the victors of 14 years with a perfectly constituted and skillfully commanded enemy.
Ayacucho is the desperation of our enemies, Ayacucho, just as Waterloo decided the fate of Europe, decided the fate of the American Nations. The coming generations are waiting for the Victory of Ayacucho so as to bless it and see it occupy the Throne of Freedom, ruling over all Americans in the exercise of their Rights and the Sacred Empire of Nature.
General Sucre is the Father of Ayacucho, he is the redeemer of the Children of the Sun, he is the one who broke the chains with which Pizarro weighed down the Empire of the Incas. Posterity will represent Sucre, with one foot on the Pichincha and the other on the Potosi, carrying in his hands the cradle of Manco Capac, and contemplating the chains of Peru, broken by his sword.
Lima, 1825. Liberator Simon Bolivar: What Glory, what Greatness, what Beauty, let us be Worthy heirs of this Greatness, of this Beauty, and let us say from our Heart:
Long live the victory of Ayacucho! Long live the great Marshal Sucre! Long live Bolivar! Long live the Great Patriotic Nation! And long live the fusion of People Military and Police! Until Victory Always, Ayacucho! We will triumph!
Thank you very much.