Caracas Chronicles

#NowWhatVenezuela keeps you informed about what’s happening deep inside la patria—from headline-making events to underreported stories that provide the clearest picture of our reality. This digest is published weekly.

Join our official channel through this link.

Maduro’s show goes on. Death, too

While Nicolás Maduro, Cilia Flores and Diosdado Cabello were headlining a media circus (reminding of what Castro did with Elián González) with the arrival of Maikelys Espinoza—a toddler whose Trump’s anti-migrants policy separated from her mother—Venezuelans who had been incarcerated after the 2024 election fraud continue to die and suffer. Their deaths, of course, are absent from the chavista propaganda programing.

Since July 28, five of the citizens detained in the postelection crackdown have died in custody, victims of negligence and abuse from security forces and judges.Since 2015, the total number of political prisoners who have died in custody has risen to 19. The physical and psychological damage caused by prolonged isolation in places like Tocuyito, Tocorón or CICPC cells can be irreversible and, in some cases, fatal.

It’s what happened to Ariadna Pinto, released in late 2024, four months after being denounced as a terrorist inciting hate by the leader of a local Hugo Chávez Battle Unit (a chavista grassroots organization) in Cojedes state. Pinto’s Type 1 diabetes worsened due to prison conditions and anxiety: she began retaining fluids, suffering seizures, and decompensating from her first days in detention, according to the Comité por la Libertad de los Presos Políticos (CLIPPVE). After a first hospitalization in August, she was returned to jail, only to be rushed back to a hospital in September with severe hyperglycemia. During that time, she remained shackled and in “humiliating conditions” until her release on December 7.

This year, Pinto had to be hospitalized several times. The kidney failure she developed in prison became chronic. She died on May 10 from respiratory arrest. She was only 20 years old.

A few days earlier, we learned about 27-year-old Lindomar Amaro, also detained after July 28. According to media reports, he died by suicide last week in his cell in Tocorón—the former stronghold of the Tren de Aragua—after several previous attempts.

“His low-income family couldn’t visit him during the nine months of [Lindomar’s] imprisonment because they lacked the means to travel,” CLIPPVE noted. “This tragedy starkly exposes the injustice and inequality faced by the most vulnerable victims.”

The Torres case and the persecution of human rights activists

Chief prosecutor Tarek William Saab released a statement regarding Eduardo Torres, a human rights lawyer working with Provea who disappeared on May 9. For Provea, the statement amounts to the state admitting it captured Torres; for the chavista prosecutor, it was an opportunity to level a flood of charges against him while maintaining opacity.

Torres had defended union leaders currently in jail, as well as public workers who protested low wages. Now, Saab accuses him of being a terrorist who used civilian training workshops as a “façade to organize violent cells” and to sabotage polling stations ahead of the May 25 elections.

Additionally, Saab threatened Óscar Murillo, director of Provea, for denouncing Torres’s forced disappearance. As the newsletter Arepita pointed out, Saab provided no information on Torres’s whereabouts—so he is still considered disappeared.

More traps for May 25

Irregularities continue to pile up ahead of the regional and parliamentary elections on May 25, which are shaping up to be the most opaque and least credible in recent history.

During the electoral drill, chavismo removed the QR codes from the voting tallies—suggesting they will not be available on election day. This is significant because those QR codes were something that allowed observers to save electoral data during the 2024 presidential election, and publish the actual results from each polling station— which was an essential step in exposing the fraud.

“Eliminating the QR codes from the voting tallies, with the complicity of the candidates, means destroying a key guarantee of electoral transparency,” denounced the Unitary Platform on X. “We insist on the urgent need for a serious negotiation, based on the truth about what happened on July 28, that could allow for a democratic, peaceful, and sustainable solution to the crisis.”

Indeed, as journalist Eugenio Martínez pointed out, candidates in this election—such as Henrique Capriles—have failed to publicly protest the apparent removal of the QR code.

Guayana Esequiba: a paper state

The election of lawmakers for the newly created state of Guayana Esequiba points to yet another “electoral disaster,” according to Eugenio Martínez.

CNE director Conrado Pérez—appointed as one of the five rector after Juan Carlos Delpino resigned and left the country—had stated that voters in two municipalities in Bolívar (including Sifontes, where Tumeremo, the supposed capital of the new state, is located) and one in Delta Amacuro would participate in the election. But the electoral district published by the CNE says otherwise.

According to this new configuration, voting will take place in only two areas of Bolívar that aren’t even part of Sifontes—effectively disconnecting voters from the capital of Guayana Esequiba.

More information: Tal Cual also reported that the new state will have 21,403 registered voters who will elect six lawmakers to the National Assembly—the same number of representatives allotted to existing (and Venezuelan-populated) states like Apure, La Guaira, Nueva Esparta, and Amazonas. Voters from those two areas in Bolívar will also be expected to elect authorities for the new state—even though, as Martínez noted, many of them may not even know they’re voting in Guayana Esequiba.

Recommended reads:

• Correo del Caroní: Another story of the Waraos: sobrevivir en tierra hostil series explores the presence of armed groups in Delta Amacuro.
• Efecto Cocuyo: 83% of universities show serious infrastructure damage, according to Universities Observatory.
• Versión Final: Douglas Rico confirms the detention of the CICPC chief in Táchira and five other officers for cocaine trafficking.
• El Impulso: Over 80% of the population has been a victim of cybercrimes and phishing, according to the Venezuelan Banking Association.