Caracas Chronicles

Why Jesús Armas didn’t go into hiding after what happened on July 28th is difficult to grasp. Perhaps it’s that reason, self-preservation, and risk assessment tend to shrink or blur when confronted with calls of justice or freedom—especially in a conflict zone, which Venezuela has become for many since last year. It’s something that tends to happen to militants and partisans in times of war. It also happens to journalists, like Austin Tice in Syria thirteen years ago, who vanished during the civil war and remains missing to this day.

Maybe something similar happened to Jesús, who was dragged out of his car by masked men on December 10th, just before meeting a friend at a café. They took him to a clandestine house, where he endured hell while his girlfriend and loved ones searched for him across Caracas.

Seven months after his arrest, the case of this 37-year-old former city councilman and activist is among the most widely reported, both inside Venezuela and abroad.

His profile partly explains why: a spotless résumé as a young politician and social leader, with credentials from foreign universities and institutions. And although not affiliated with Vente Venezuela, Armas had grown close to María Corina Machado and her inner circle over the past two years. During 2024, he served as the head of organizational efforts for the Comando con Venezuela in Caracas.

He’s also the partner of activist Sairam Rivas, who was among the first political prisoners under Nicolás Maduro’s rule back in 2014. At just 20 years old, Rivas spent time in El Helicoide, where Jesús is being held incommunicado. Today, she’s a leading voice in the campaign for Armas’ release and a co-founder of the Committee for the Freedom of Political Prisoners (Clippve), where she remains a leading figure.

Rivas describes the case of Armas as part of a broader “pattern of destruction” targeting Machado’s campaign team.

“Almost all the regional leaders of the Comando con Venezuela are either imprisoned, in hiding, or in exile,” Rivas says.

Armas predicted chavismo’s defeat two weeks before the vote citing nationally coordinated teams, the so-called comanditos that would soon make international headlines.

The first warning signs came just days before July 28th, when seven black-clad officers jumped out of an unmarked white Jeep in front of Rivas’s apartment building in Guatire. While she kept a low profile while working to establish a comprehensive committee for prisoners’ families, Armas gained visibility as the country approached its pivotal election.

Machado announced that Armas had joined her campaign team in July 2023. On March 21st, 2024, after six of her close aides sought refuge in the Argentine embassy—and another two were arrested in broad daylight—Armas publicly honored them.

“I’m one of the newest members of this team, but from day one, they’ve made me feel like I’ve always belonged,” he wrote on Instagram, ending with the opposition’s leader’s famous rallying cry: “¡Seguimos hasta el final!” (We keep going until the end!)

Armas predicted chavismo’s defeat two weeks before the vote, citing nationally coordinated teams (“mobilized for outreach and witness training”) that would soon make international headlines. On election day, he tweeted about polling station witnesses stationed throughout western Caracas—once a chavista stronghold—and reported irregularities at polling centers. After the fraud was carried out, he circulated images of protests and voting tallies and explained to outlets like The Washington Post why colectivos and police forces were attacking local comanditos.

Like him, tens of thousands—or perhaps more—worked on the ground as volunteers and final links in a machinery supporting opposition candidate Edmundo González.

But Armas was not the campaign’s top coordinator in Caracas. That role belonged to long-time Vente Venezuela figures like Helen Fernández, former acting mayor of the Metropolitan District of Caracas and director of the Comando in Distrito Capital, where González Urrutia secured 64% of the vote.

A hunt for regional campaign chiefs

The regime’s crackdown on the 24 regional directors of the Comando con Venezuela began the day after their appointments were made public. Guillermo López, Juan Freites, and Luis Camacaro were unable to assume their roles in Trujillo, La Guaira, and Yaracuy, respectively. On March 8th, Emil Brandt, head of the campaign in Barinas, was detained.

Two weeks before the election—after Machado and González toured the eastern region—Ángel Aristimuño was arrested in Monagas, him being the only regional campaign chief from another party (Un Nuevo Tiempo). He was among those freed last week as part of a prisoner swap between the governments of Maduro, Bukele, and Trump.

After July 28th, María Oropeza livestreamed regime agents breaking into her home in Guanare and taking her away as she prayed and pleaded not to be harmed. Noel Álvarez, former Fedecámaras president and head of the campaign in Miranda, has been imprisoned since Maduro’s illegal inauguration. And with the recent arrest of Manuel Enrique Ferreira in Lara, eight regional directors are now behind bars.

The case of Armas stands out for his own public visibility during the post-election crackdown—a time when the streets emptied and political activity was reduced to online activism and public tributes to victims and prisoners…

Two others are in exile including Omar González, who led the campaign in Anzoátegui and escaped Venezuela after slipping past the cordon in the Argentine embassy. At least ten more are believed to be in hiding, based on their last known public communications.

In Amazonas, Isaac Caballero fell silent after joining an opposition rally in Puerto Ayacucho on July 8th. The next day, SEBIN appeared outside Lilibeth Sandoval’s house in Cojedes, who also went quiet afterwards. No word has been heard since from Yanira León in Falcón, who called for protests against electoral fraud on August 16th. Nahir Mota’s office in Apure was raided in November, as was Douglas Rodríguez’s home in Bolívar on January 31st.

The last thing we know about María Teresa Clavijo of Carabobo is that Diosdado Cabello accused her in November of being linked to foreigners allegedly plotting “destabilizing plans.” As for Gustavo Ruiz of Zulia, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued precautionary measures for him, his wife, and their child due to the serious risk of irreparable harm.

A case that wouldn’t go quiet

The case of Armas stands out for his own visibility during the post-election crackdown—a time when the streets emptied and political activity was reduced to online activism and public tributes to victims and prisoners in plazas, jails, and government buildings. While Maduro spoke of 2,500 detentions, Armas posted videos attending vigils and encouraging civic participation, like the one in Plaza Los Palos Grandes that ended with former lawmaker Williams Dávila disappeared.

In September, Diosdado Cabello accused Armas and “a cunt (coña) named Sairam Rivas” of receiving $10,000 from Machado to organize a protest in front of the Brazilian embassy. On December 1st, the “red hands” protest in La Castellana demanded the release of political prisoners and action from the International Criminal Court. Police presence was so heavy, Rivas added, that Armas had to leave before the event ended.

When I mentioned to her how exposed Armas had become amid the crackdown on campaign figures, she shrugged and said yes, that “the risk was always there.”

“When they took Jesús, they told him they had been looking for him for six months, just because he was part of the campaign’s organizational structure.”

They’ve only seen each other once since his arrest, during the brief window when guards may ease restrictions in the first days of detention—when abuse and anxiety are often worse—before receiving “orders from above” to isolate prisoners and ban visits. On the sixth day of his disappearance, Rivas got a call from Armas, being held at Zona 7 of the PNB’s Boleíta station, east Caracas. He told her they allowed him one call and she had to get there fast.

“He’s done the hard, patient work that free societies also depend on. That’s how communities and people are saved anywhere in the world.”

She made it and they spoke for 15 minutes. Armas recounted the interrogations. How he lost all sense of time after days tied to a chair, his face covered. How they suffocated him with plastic bags while demanding to know the whereabouts of María Corina, Juan Pablo Guanipa, and other opposition leaders.

“When I returned to Boleíta the next day,” Rivas says, “SEBIN agents told me Jesús had been isolated and cut off from all contact as soon as I posted the tweet announcing we had found him.”

Like at least 15 other political prisoners—including presidential candidate Enrique Márquez, former candidate Freddy Superlano, and former lawmaker Américo de Grazia—Armas cannot receive visitors or meet his lawyers. The only proof of life Rivas gets is the occasional bag of dirty laundry dropped at the entrance to El Helicoide, or a scribbled list of necessities dictated by SEBIN guards: “Grab a pen and write this down,” they tell Rivas from time to time.

His elderly parents, now under Rivas’s care, haven’t seen or heard from him either. Yet Armas continues to draw recognition even behind bars. He was accepted into a Master’s program in International Policy at Stanford. Political science icon Francis Fukuyama has called for his immediate release. So has the University of Bristol, where he studied under the UK’s Chevening scholarship. And in June, for the first time ever, Global Leaders from the McCain Institute and Obama Foundation scholars signed a joint statement demanding his release.

“Jesús is part of a generation of new leaders doing things differently,” says Pedro Pizano, director at the McCain Institute. “He’s not the typical lawyer who stays abroad or lobbies at the ICC.”

“Thanks to Jesús, 1,200 children in Caracas now have access to clean water,” Pizano adds, referring to the NGO Ciudadanía Sin Límites, which Armas led. “He’s done the hard, patient work that free societies also depend on. That’s how communities and people are saved anywhere in the world.”