Caracas Chronicles

This isn’t an exposé. It’s a trace of a relationship that has weathered ideology, silence, and time. And of the lingering dissonance that sustains a regime long after belief fades.

It’s also something else. A story that blends memory, reality, and something harder to name. The facts are real—or close enough. But some things must remain vague, for reasons that will be obvious to some and unbelievable to others. You can accept it, question it, or dismiss it entirely. That’s fine. It’s your story now, too.

This is a record of a relationship—not truly a friendship—that’s stretched across decades, disagreements, and changing roles. One of those rare connections in Venezuela that survives not because of ideology, but in spite of it. It’s also a window—partial, fogged, but revealing—into how power endures there: through fatigue, through routine, through a quiet understanding that belief is optional, but control is not.

In Venezuela, relationships are not all about ideology. Some are built on time, on the rhythm of shared spaces, long waits, and the small rituals that make politics feel less like machinery and more like a long-running play with a cast you learn to know.

I met him when he was a staff officer to a senior chavista official. In Caracas, back when I was a U.S. military attaché, everyone crossed paths often—at receptions, ceremonies, embassy events. There was always something. You saw the same faces again and again. Eventually, you weren’t just colleagues. You became part of each other’s landscape.

Beyond protocol and hallway politics

I learned the cadence of Venezuelan bureaucracy early. A meeting set for 10 am meant an audience—where a dozen others waited their turn while aides served tiny coffees, and staff officers and unit commanders cracked jokes like schoolboys in detention. You could sit for an hour and never be bored. It was like waiting at a barber shop—rumors, laughter, a little gossip, and the feeling that if you stayed long enough, something important might fall into your lap.

He would ask for a favor—help with a visa for a relative, a meeting with someone hard to reach at the embassy—and I would ask him to open doors for me too. We went to weddings. Shook hands at graduations. Once, we ended up at the same christening, laughing like we had no role in the chaos that swirled around us.

Then came April 2002. The rupture caused by the rebellion against Hugo Chávez wasn’t immediate, but it was irreversible. He heard I’d been in contact with people linked to the opposition. That meant betrayal to him. To me, it meant doing my job. After that, the silence stretched over a decade.

I asked about the opposition inside Venezuela. “Not a factor,” he said. “María Corina is symbolic. She’s not organizing anything that threatens them. The ones who could act are abroad. The ones inside are either quiet or irrelevant.”

We never really severed the line. Occasionally, a family member would pass along a greeting. I’d send a polite word back. Eventually, we started speaking again—first indirectly, then with more ease. We talked about the old days, mutual friends, and our health. At first, we avoided politics. But over time, the boundaries softened.

Lately, our conversations have returned. Not often—once a year at first, then twice—but when they do, the calls stretch. An hour, sometimes more. He speaks carefully. So do I. But something has changed in him. I can hear it. The toll of years working inside the machine. The erosion of certainty. The long shadow that falls over even the most devout revolutionaries once they begin to outlive the revolution. When they themselves recognize their actions no longer measure up to their talk.

Speaking the regime’s truth

Now though, he’s a fixture inside the twilight of chavismo’s inner sanctum, close enough to the center that the walls of Miraflores don’t echo when he talks.

Here is what he said in a recent conversation. The Middle East is burning again, and that buys them space. “The gringos are busy,” he said. “Nobody’s looking at us.”

Oil prices are up. Sanctions are still in place, but we’ve found ways around them. Chevron is out, replaced quietly by Chinese and Argentine firms. The U.S. tariff? “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “We’re still shipping. Buyers are still buying.”

The crimes regime officials have been accused of—drug trafficking, corruption, human rights abuses—those are political persecutions, part of an imperialist media plot, he proffered. Outside, there are indictments and press releases. Inside, they mean nothing. There are dinners and bodyguards.

Then, almost offhandedly, he added: “Look, even we know Edmundo won that election. Everyone does. But so what? Elections don’t matter anymore. They’re just for show. We decide who wins before the first ballots are even printed. You think power changes hands because of a vote?”

And democracy? I asked. “Come on. Maduro was president yesterday, today, and he’ll be president tomorrow. That’s the only democracy that counts.”

“They’re not worried,” he continued. “None of them.” He didn’t mean they feel invincible. He meant there’s no pressure. No immediate risk.

That’s the mood inside the regime. Not triumphant. Just standing, unchallenged, while others wait for something to change.

I asked about the opposition inside Venezuela. “Not a factor,” he said. “María Corina is symbolic. She’s not organizing anything that threatens them. The ones who could act are abroad. The ones inside are either quiet or irrelevant.”

What about the military? “Still aligned. No cracks.”

The people? “Under control. Remittances are keeping them afloat.”

The Cubans? “Even they say this is the calmest it’s been in years.”

I pressed him a little. “Do you actually believe this?”

What about Venezuela’s famous conspiracies? I asked. Is no one worried someone is plotting to take over?

He paused. “Someone is always plotting. There is always something going on.”

“But plots here are like shadows. They change shape with the light. Sometimes they’re real. Sometimes they’re just stories we tell to keep from falling asleep.”

“We know this quiet time won’t last. But right now, we can breathe.”

There’s an old saying here: No es que el muerto está vivo… es que se le olvidó morirse. It’s not that the dead man came back to life. He just forgot to die.

That’s the mood inside the regime. Not triumphant. Just standing, unchallenged, while others wait for something to change.

When the line went quiet, I sat with the message for a while. For a moment, I remembered the friend I knew years ago—idealistic, patriotic, maybe even a little naïve. And I wondered how he changed, how the ideology hardened, and how power shapes the people who get too close to it.

There were moments when his words felt rehearsed—like lines repeated too often to reassure his comrades, no longer meant for truth. I couldn’t tell if he still believed them, or simply needed to. That’s how survival works inside the regime.

What he left me with sounded like a confession—or maybe a dare. In a country where the ground shifts without warning, even a moment of calm can feel like control.

But when men feast beside a volcano, they rarely look down.