Venezuela Today: Between Dictatorship and US Imperialism

On January 3rd, the United States government deployed 150 military aircraft, bombed several cities in Venezuela, targeting military and other infrastructure, and abducted Venezuela’s head of state Nicolás Maduro alongside his wife Cilia Flores. Homes and other residences near the military targets were impacted and destroyed. 75 military and 2 civilian deaths have been reported. Maduro and Flores were transported to New York, where they are being charged with four counts of crimes related to narco-terrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine. The maximum sentence for the offenses is life imprisonment.

If you’ve been online or in organizing spaces since this news, you may be wondering why there is so little clarity as to what this means for Venezuelans, and how you can be in solidarity with us. Let’s break it down.

Should I support the U.S. intervention?

The United States intervened in Venezuela for two reasons: oil, and an expanded sphere of influence. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, but it is also a strategic country for the geopolitical struggles between the United States, Russia, and China. Had the United States only wanted Venezuela’s oil, they would have had it already.

Maduro’s regime courted Trump for a long time. As recently as 2024, on episode 7 of his podcast, Maduro spoke warmly of Trump, saying “If we had met, Trump and I would have understood each other. We would have even become friends.” His co-host, then Vice-President and now interim President Delcy Rodríguez, agreed. In fact, under Rodríguez’s previous charge as Venezuela’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, CITGO, a U.S. based subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned company, donated $500,000 to Trump’s first inauguration. CITGO subsequently hired Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski as a lobbyist. However, competing political interests in Trump’s administration, pivoted Trump away from an alliance with Maduro. Starting in 2017, the United States imposed increasingly harsh sectoral sanctions, kneecapping Venezuela’s already collapsing economy. Mismanagement and corruption accruing since the Chávez era, low oil prices, and the U.S. sanctions plunged Venezuela into a deeper humanitarian crisis that it has yet to recover from.

To most external observers then, the U.S.’s intervention is a clear violation of international law and a threat to the international world order. The abduction of a foreign head of state likely violated the UN Charter, and certainly violated Venezuela’s sovereignty. This, after months of the United States carrying out extrajudicial killings of civilians in the Caribbean. All these events are, in general, bad news. They affirm that the United States can export devastation and loot the riches of the world with impunity. So, why were Venezuelans celebrating Maduro’s abduction?

Should I support Maduro’s regime?

Nicolás Maduro is Hugo Chávez’s chosen successor to continue the Bolivarian Revolution. Maduro is a dictator. Venezuelans in Venezuela have used all civic tools available to them to remove him from power: we have protested, marched, resisted, voted, and organized to no end. The Chavista regime controls all branches of Venezuela’s government, and the reality is that civic tools are useless under a captured state.

Take Venezuela’s 2024 presidential elections, for example. Venezuela has one of the most sophisticated and secure voting systems. The process provides the National Electoral Council with a digital tally for immediate reporting of results, and a near impossible to falsify physical tally (called “actas”) to corroborate said results. The National Electoral Council, controlled by a Chavista majority, delayed announcing the digital results under the premise that the system had been subjected to a cyberattack from North Macedonia. The Council then announced Maduro won by a slim margin with 51% of the votes. The opposition contested the results and publicly posted the actas to corroborate their claim that their candidate, Edmundo González, had won by a wide margin with 67% of the votes. Maduro’s regime, instead of following electoral law, providing what he called “the real actas,” and publishing the disaggregated results within 48 hours of the election as required by article #146, instead approached the Chavista-only Supreme Court of Venezuela to rule on the dispute. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Maduro, with no option to appeal. An extensive wave of state violence and repression followed, where opposition organizers, human rights activists, teenagers protesting, and others were arbitrarily detained and at times disappeared by government forces. Maduro’s regime never pursued action against North Macedonia, nor provided evidence of the cyberattack. One year and five months later, the disaggregated results have yet to be published as required by law, and the website for the National Electoral Council remains disabled since the elections.

There are currently over 800 political prisoners in Venezuela, many of whom are currently disappeared or held at El Helicoide, Latin America’s largest torture center, located in Caracas. There are no legal avenues available to Venezuelan citizens to directly address these human rights violations. A 2025 report by the UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission concluded that “the independence of the Venezuelan justice system has been deeply eroded, to the extent of playing an important role in aiding state repression and perpetuating state impunity for human rights violations. […] Judges also failed to protect victims of torture by ordering that they return to the places of detention where the torture allegedly occurred, despite having heard victims – sometimes bearing visible injuries consistent with torture – make the allegation in court.” In 2012, Chávez initiated Venezuela’s withdrawal from the Organization of American States and the American Convention on Human Rights, which blocked Venezuelan citizens’ access to denounce human rights abuses to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The International Criminal Court has an open investigation against the Maduro regime for crimes against humanity committed against Venezuelans since 2017.

Maduro consistently disregards Venezuela’s Bolivarian Constitution. In 2017, he violated Venezuela’s environmental law and the extensive Indigenous rights enshrined in our constitution by unilaterally approving the Orinoco Mining Arc (OMA) against widespread resistance from Indigenous activists and environmental groups. The OMA is a mega-mining project that opened over 12% of Venezuela’s total territory to mining by foreign companies. The territory is larger than the entire country of Portugal, and the project has caused an ongoing ecocide, as well a drastic increase in the displacement, exploitation, and trafficking of Indigenous people in the region. Maduro promised a gold mine to only Chavista governors in Venezuela for them to redistribute the riches illegally extracted from Indigenous land to the population in their own states, and claimed he would create a committee to manage the funds in states governed by the opposition leaders. Five years later, such committee has yet to be created. Dozens of massacres have occurred in the OMA territory, with little action from the regime. In 2022, Virgilio Trujillo, an Indigenous land defender, was killed in broad daylight. His killing was never investigated, and even after requests from the community, Maduro never made a statement on it. Illegal mining has extended well beyond the original OMA territory, impacting Canaima National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Notice how none of these things have anything to do with whether Maduro is a socialist. In fact, whether Maduro is a socialist or not would require a whole different essay. Let me say this though: ironically, the only thing that Chavistas, the United States, and the right-wing in Venezuela can agree on is that Maduro is a socialist -but anti-Maduro Venezuelan leftists understand that he is a kleptocrat exploiting the language of socialism for political cover.

So you see, when foreigners speak positively of the Bolivarian Revolution, Venezuelans experience cognitive dissonance, and often wonder if anyone abroad has read anything beyond what teleSUR posts. teleSUR, of course, being a news network founded by Hugo Chávez and funded in its majority by the Venezuelan government, it engages in media vassalage and promotes unchallenged state propaganda under the guise of a leftist editorial bent.

Should I support María Corina Machado?

Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado is the opposition’s de facto leader. Machado rose to prominence after publicly challenging Chávez, and garnered even more support after successfully organizing the Venezuelan opposition to provide proof of Maduro’s electoral fraud. She was revered for offering hope to Venezuelans that the dictatorship could be toppled, and is understood to be the actual power player behind Edmundo González candidacy. Machado is also a right-wing, fervently neoliberal zionist who has sought international support by promising the privatization of Venezuela’s oil industry, as well as establishing a Venezuelan embassy in Israel. She dedicated her Nobel Peace Prize to the Venezuelan people, and President Trump. She is the inevitable result of Venezuela’s dictatorship and U.S. intervention.

In a country where leaders across the political spectrum have been persecuted, arbitrarily detained, tortured, and exiled, Machado stood out for her resilience. This is not surprising, as without any support or solidarity from the international left, only someone aligned with and resourced by the United States can withstand the risk of publicly challenging Chávez, and later Maduro. Let me repeat this: it is simply materially impossible to be a known anti-Chavista in Venezuela without external protection and support.

But, you may ask, how can Venezuelans align with a politician who celebrates Trump’s extrajudicial killings of Venezuelans, not to speak of his numerous other attacks against Venezuela and its people? How can Venezuelans align with someone deadset on selling Venezuela to the United States? First, selling Venezuela is not new to us. Seeing another political leader court international favor on the back of Venezuela’s riches has been a continuous thread in our history, including the Chavista regime. Second, call it a scarcity of choice and the tragedy of desperation. When you have spent 25 years resisting against the collapse of your country brought on by internal and multiple external actors, the chronic violations of your human rights, the grief of a fractured cultural fabric egged on by the people in power, the loss of a fifth of your community to the largest mass exodus recorded in the Americas, the defeat of every attempt to legally remove a corrupt, armed dictatorship, and the erasure of your struggle by the intellectual international left who was meant to be on your side? Yeah, after all of that, people lose the patience to wait for a politically pure option.

I, alongside the vast majority of the 8 million Venezuelans now living in diaspora, couldn’t vote during the presidential elections because Maduro’s regime made it impossible for voters abroad. From this place of privilege, the diaspora, I could chastise Venezuelans in Venezuela and opine about the most morally pure electoral choice, but that would be grotesque and I know my place. Venezuelans most directly bearing the brunt of the dictatorship get to make whatever choice they need to try and find a way to get out from under it. Not that it matters anymore, given that since the U.S. intervention, Trump has sidelined Machado from the political future of Venezuela.

Should I support the Venezuelan people?

Yes, the point here is to support the people, not the state, any state. While international media is focused on the illegality of the United States’ actions, and dogmatic leftist Substack and Instagram accounts are working overtime to launder Maduro’s image, the Venezuelan regime has decreed a state of emergency and called for the pursuit and capture of anyone deemed sympathetic to the U.S. intervention. This has resulted in colectivos, Chávez’s paramilitary groups, flooding the streets and arbitrarily detaining civilians to search their phones and belongings for anything that can be perceived as anti-Maduro sentiment. All while Venezuelans struggle to raise funds to afford food, data plans (as internet access is unreliable at best in Venezuela), and to recover from having their homes destroyed by U.S. bombs.

Supporting Venezuelan sovereignty means supporting Venezuelan people, not your preferred political party. Like it or not, Edmundo González won the presidential election in 2024. In the best case scenario, there would be a peaceful transfer of power from Delcy Rodríguez to Edmundo González. This means that a right-wing, neoliberal, zionist government would be in power in Venezuela. It doesn’t look great, but it was the only option available and the one chosen by the Venezuelan people, who are in their majority pro-Palestinian and understand our struggles are linked. The hope, however idealistic, is that this scenario would allow Venezuelans a modicum of civil liberties to organize and pursue grander political goals.

The worst case scenario is that interim President Delcy Rodríguez remains in power, meaning that Venezuela continues to be a dictatorship, but it is now a U.S. controlled one. At this time, this seems like the most likely outcome, as she was the government official who facilitated the $500,000 donation to Trump’s 2017 inauguration; Trump has stated to the press he wants to work with her; and after initial resistance and explicit threats from Trump, Rodríguez has said she is open to dialogue and Venezuela is open for business with the United States. This is also the quickest, and least costly way for the United States to control Venezuela.

A third option would be holding general elections in Venezuela. According to Venezuelan electoral law, elections need to be held within 30 days after the Presidential office is vacated. Because of the illegality of Maduro’s abduction, it is unclear whether this applies. Whether it applies or not, Trump and Rodríguez seem more interested in negotiating with each other, than on facilitating a new round of elections in Venezuela.

Supporting Venezuela’s sovereignty then means demanding an end to U.S. aggression and that the 2024 election results are honored. After that, we can plan to resist the zionist government, and give Venezuelans in Venezuela a chance to develop a truly liberatory political movement.

How can I support?

Demand a stop on U.S. aggression, a peaceful transition of power in Venezuela, and a release of all Venezuelan political prisoners. Contributing to fundraisers and mutual aid collectives in Venezuela is also a great start. More immediately, elevate Venezuelan voices. Elevate Venezuelan voices with no strings to the U.S. or Venezuelan governments, and do your part to name state propaganda when you see it online or hear it person. It is exhausting work, we need your help with it.

I know those actions don’t sound glamorous, and that Western culture often looks for an exceptional action, a hero, and an easy answer, but the work of liberation requires disciplined solidarity, political curiosity, and long-term commitment. Demand for a plurality of Venezuelan voices to be centered, and resist black and white thinking from non-Venezuelans. We are often drowned in the noise of right and left wing reductionist politics, both of which focus on defending the state, and not the wellbeing of Venezuelan people. You don’t need to be politically perfect, but you must become and remain politically curious. Don’t let dogmas align you with a state over the people.

If you are calling for international law to be respected, hold space for the fact that the majority of Venezuelans do not actually give a single [redacted] about Maduro’s future. You can align with us in resisting U.S. intervention, but it will be a hard sell to ask us to defend Maduro’s rights after he has happily brutalized us for more than a decade. Like they say in the U.S., we have bigger fish to fry. Still, if it’s important for you to demand Maduro’s human rights to be respected (somebody has to do it, after all), stay in solidarity with us and in the same breath demand the same for the people of Venezuela.

To be clear, Venezuelans don’t need saving, but we need disciplined solidarity. Your support must be clear and precise. I know the nuance of the situation can make things murky, so if you need an ideological motto that resists U.S. intervention and doesn’t abandon the struggle of Venezuelans, here’s one: the U.S. does not have the legal or moral authority to intervene in Venezuela, even though Maduro is a dictator. Venezuelan sovereignty means the people have the right to choose their own future.