Caracas Chronicles

Venezuela may be at the gates of a new ‘we did all that for nothing’ stage, increasing the risk of a citizenship that could turn their backs on public affairs once again—just as they did after the protest waves of 2014 and 2017 and after the failure of Juan Guaidó’s caretakership in 2019. During the last few years, most people were apathetic towards politics, until the success of the opposition primaries and the subsequent rise of Maria Corina Machado as a national leader broke the lethargy. Then, the movement Machado and her collaborators were able to build gained a momentum strong enough to translate her political capital to Edmundo González Urrutia, win the July 28th election and collect the tallies that—once published—proved that Maduro had lost by a landslide. 

Since then, the Maduro regime has followed its pattern of becoming more authoritarian and brutal when facing a threat against its rule. Just like when the opposition won the National Assembly in December 2015, when the population took to the streets in 2017 or when a big part of the international community started to consider Maduro illegitimate in 2019, the institutions under chavista control and the security forces have joined him in expanding and intensifying pressure not only on the opposition but on everyone. 

In a charge led by no other than Diosdado Cabello, the regime launched a general offensive of propaganda and persecution that targeted not only Machado and González, and opposition politicians and grassroots organizers, but also PSUV ranks, soldiers and police officers, public employees and all kinds of ordinary citizens, from indigenous peoples to foreign tourists that are being accused of terrorism, moved to prisons or turned into hostages. 

In the thermodynamics of this entropy-prone system we call Venezuela, the force exerted by the Maduro regime has been stronger than the force exerted by the sum of the population, the opposition and the international community that doesn’t support Maduro. The capacity of Maduro to impose his will, therefore, has not reached its limits so far, which means that he has been completely successful in his one and only goal—the same goal he shares with the coalition that backs him: staying in power one more day. 

The chavista elite seems to expect that they can hold the fort—through sheer violence, notwithstanding that everyone and their mothers are calling them out on the fraud. The regime relies on the population’s need to survive and the limitations of international sanctions to continue its rule, even if an overwhelming majority has said with crystalline clarity that they want Maduro out. In fact, chavismo is increasing its own international isolation by breaking ties (or threatening to break ties) with any state that questions Maduro’s victory on July 28 while boasting the abuse of human rights: something that can be explained by assuming the regime has calculated that being a global pariah with a ruler hated by his people is preferable to handing power over. 

Maduro trusts his only critical political ability—handling chavista inner politics to coordinate the different tribes to his favor—and a global context where the governments with more reasons to be concerned about Venezuela, like Colombia and Brazil, insist on being referees instead of antagonists while the big player with more capacity to act, the United States, looks indecisive between the need of defeating chavismo, the interests represented by Chevron, and its own political agenda with a tight election behind the corner.  

In the thermodynamics of this entropy-prone system we call Venezuela, the force exerted by the Maduro regime has been stronger than the force exerted by the sum of the population, the opposition and the international community that doesn’t support Maduro

While the Americas allow time to pass by, as if a new wave of mass migration and the terrible precedent of such fraud won’t harm them, Machado—in Venezuela—looks more alone and vulnerable. It’s increasingly painful to see a woman, who a few months ago became a mass phenomenon by rallying outdoors to bring back to life those villages scorched by the humanitarian emergency, reduced to repeat catchphrases in video calls with the press while in hiding. Here in Caracas Chronicles we are quite disturbed by the way the opposition has been communicating lately, but the fact is that the political actors who oppose the regime are facing a persecution with no precedents in modern Venezuela—at least since the times of the military dictatorship toppled in 1958. More than an opposition, the democratic forces have been cornered to become a resistance. State terrorism is real and has been effective in demolishing the mobilizing capacity of Machado, the work of journalists and academics, and the general voice of an entire society.  

This is new. It doesn’t feel like when the second Pérez administration suspended constitutional rights after the 1989 Caracazo riots or the coup attempts of 1992. In fact, it’s been ugly enough to push into exile one of the most important individuals in this historical juncture: Edmundo González Urrutia, precisely the guy that about eight million people elected as president on July 28. 

González’s exile to Madrid has been the most powerful episode of the narrative the regime is working to impose: no matter what you guys do, we always win (Cabello adds, always in character, “los vamos a joder,” meaning “we are are going to fuck you up”). 

This is fuel for the new despair tsunami that is making people cope with another painful defeat by focusing on their everyday challenges as the economy worsens. The confusion instilled by González’s clumsy communications worked in Maduro’s favor: only in the fourth one González explicitly made us know that he still sees himself as president elect, that he wasn’t quitting as such. And now, comes a new intrigue planted by the government: did Edmundo González promise to shut his mouth and recognize Maduro as the election winner, in exchange for leaving the country?

This is what the Rodríguez siblings are saying, after the government disseminated a letter that supposedly González signed—at the Spanish embassy—in which he made the commitment to abide by the Supreme Tribunal’s decision certifying Maduro’s win in exchange for safe-passage to Spain. González and his lawyer, meanwhile, said that no document signed under coercion is valid—which points to the probability that González actually signed something under duress. Many disturbing questions are raining on this issue. How involved was the Spanish government on that negotiation? How come the Maduro regime took pictures of González and the Rodríguez siblings on a diplomatic site? With Rodríguez threatening to disclose audios, is chavismo announcing that embassies—technically, foreign territory—are wire-tapped or intervened by intelligence services? 

While we wait for the impact of these revelations—both in Venezuela and Spain—and perhaps for a response from the U.S. besides last week’s round of individual sanctions, one of the most bizarre developments in our already discombobulating contemporary history has taken place in the vacuum left by an opposition who lost the initiative, and an international community so far unable to really impact things. Courtesy of social media, we witnessed the arrival of “Ya Casi Venezuela,” an initiative that despite its marketish, slightly joyful, title seems to be crowdfunding—nothing less than—a mercenary army to depose Maduro et al, assuming that chirurgical action by foreign soldiers for hire is the only option left. 

The things one has to write down in the 21st century!

Former Navy SEAL Erik Prince, the founder of the private military company Blackwater (known for murdering Iraqi civilians), appears to be involved —something that has instilled in a considerable audience the hope, at least online, that this is for real. Prince, in the past and as a Trump backchannel representative, directly met with Delcy Rodríguez to negotiate the conditions of American prisoners in Caracas. More importantly, former Caracas security chief and political prisoner Ivan Simonovis has become its most notable advocate. Meanwhile, some diaspora celebrities are promoting donations, which according to the Ya Casi Venezuela Twitter account are supposedly managed by a non-profit in the U.S. and overseen by an American who, according to the account, was a former prosecutor of the U.S. Department of Justice, go figure (although according to the site the effort just went over the $800k mark).

So, what’s going to happen?

All transitions are foggy and uncertain; maybe Venezuela’s already started, maybe not yet. Historical change can only be seen in retrospect. Despite González’s exile and the absurdity of Ya Casi Venezuela, despite the brutality and resilience of the alliance around the heir of Chavez, the regime remains unable to convince anyone that Maduro won. The fact that he lost the election, in a landslide, continues to have value and it can’t be removed from the equation. 

It matters. It has to matter.