Youth Spotlight

Interview with Zaimar Castillo

1. Is there a particular moment in your life where you realized that it was necessary to fight for democracy and human rights in your country?

Yes, ever since 2007 with the closing of the rctv television station, a group of students took to the streets to march, demonstrating to the government that the decision they were taking was not the most adequate and that it violated freedom of speech and the right of Venezuelans to choose what they wished to see; from then began my fight within the university environment and we demanded the right to equality, the right to education and to a home, and pacific protest as well as the rights the State had violated from that day forward.

2. Please explain a little bit about your work and the obstacles you have had to confront.

I first started as the student representative in my university where I was in charge of organizing activities for the improvement of university services, increasing social work within communities, meeting with children, vaccination days and other things. A series of phenomena and violations began to occur in Venezuela that made us organize ourselves at the national level- from the membership to the student movement we created a youth parliament that assembled more than 168 students from all states. Now, I am the president of an NGO, Asociación Civil Somos Futuro, joined by young professionals and students from various universities, whose mission is to achieve social compromise. It helps community form a leadership and defends the right to vote. We have a large network within these communities that enable us to improve the quality of life and the empowerment of the community to respond to the problems it faces. 

I have been confronted by political persecutions, undertaken by the national government, when I defend democracy, when I travel for personal growth or when I meet with other students; I am signaled as an imperialist or as paid by the CIA. In August, I was invited to a leadership development course sponsored by the State Department and I was accused by a member of the government of conspiring a coup d’état against the current president. Concerning the cost, the industries and organisms that have supported us are now being watched by the government and facing persecution, and if they further support us they will expropriate or close the company.

3. What is your position on the fact that some people perceive your voyage to the United States as part of a propaganda campaign against the politics of Hugo Chavez?

The people who perceive this are civil servants of the government and what they simply want to do is criminalize the spirit of youth so that people do not continue to believe in us; this is one of the most commonly used strategies of the state to imprison and humiliate those who oppose the government. I believe that a totalitarian and dictatorial government as we have now means that the president of the republic will simply shield himself and search for lawsuits where there are none, as they believe that they will be invaded or collapse, and people are clear that it is not so; I have democratic values and faithfully believe in the electoral process; it is for that reason that today more than ever they try to quiet the young people so that they do not achieve their goals.

4. What challenges have you confronted as a result of your political struggles and your trip to the United States when you returned home?

I have been persecuted by the state apparatus. In the working world, I have been denied the right to participate in a job in a public company. I was publicly criminalized in front of the media as a conspirator or a coup participant.
The big challenge I face is to continue the same fight, to form relief and hope of new people that can continue to defend their public space and to know that hope is not lost, that Venezuela is constituted of young people that are ready to give everything to be free, to be respected by a just country with values, where all can think without being signaled or judged for believing in what they believe in.  

5. What inspires you to continue your fight for democracy despite the threats you have received?

My family, going to neighborhoods and being with people and offering them hope inspires me to believe that one day we will be in the same country in which I was born, free and democratic, knowing that the morning that new generations or my children arrive, they will encounter a country where they can be who they want and are not obliged nor imposed to think as one man wishes.

6. What would you recommend to the youth in other countries that confronts similar persecutions?

To not get tired, to know that hope does not get lost, to create a network of young people that allow them to do things simultaneously, to defend their space, to do social work and be in complete vigilance of human rights that cannot go away nor allow anybody to impose upon them, to the most needed doctrines and personal will.

What would you recommend youth in other countries should do to support the youth in Venezuela?

That they hold forums at the international level to denounce these cases. That these young people can visit and see what is happening here. That a national meeting be held with young defenders of democracy and debate about the problems that are happening in each country facing a democratic crisis. To create a network between the youth of other countries to keep them informed. And interview many young people that denounce the cases of violations that are committed to them.