{"id":401237,"date":"2026-01-11T15:12:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T15:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/401237\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T15:12:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T15:12:14","slug":"the-keys-to-understanding-one-of-the-most-critical-weeks-for-venezuela-and-why-some-citizens-have-mixed-emotions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/401237\/","title":{"rendered":"The keys to understanding one of the most critical weeks for Venezuela \u2014 and why some citizens have mixed emotions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Lee el art\u00edculo en espa\u00f1ol. <\/a>\n <\/p>\n

\n People around the world \u2014 especially Venezuelans \u2014 are still processing the events that took place in Caracas a little over a week ago, when Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were awakened in their compound<\/a> in the early hours of Saturday by American Delta Force operatives and taken into US custody.<\/a>\n <\/p>\n

\n The ousted Venezuelan leader and the former first lady are now in a New York jail,<\/a> facing drug and weapons charges to which they pleaded not guilty during a first court appearance. President Donald Trump has said the US now \u201cruns\u201d the oil-rich South American country and Maduro\u2019s vice president was sworn in as acting president.\n <\/p>\n

\n Meanwhile, Venezuelan opposition leaders, many of whom have been living in exile, have vowed to return to the country and take back the power they claim was usurped from them.\n <\/p>\n

\n A lot of questions remain to be answered following the unprecedented ouster of the Venezuelan leader. For Venezuelans, both inside the country and abroad, it\u2019s been a mix of emotions and a sense of uncertainty over what comes next.\n <\/p>\n

\n Here are some key things to know to understand this critical past week:\n <\/p>\n

\n Despite Maduro\u2019s abrupt removal from power, there doesn\u2019t seem to have been much upheaval within the government. His vice president, Delcy Rodr\u00edguez<\/a>, was sworn in as acting president Monday, marking a continuation of the Chavismo movement that has controlled Venezuela for decades.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThere are no external agents governing Venezuela,\u201d Rodr\u00edguez, 56, said during a televised speech<\/a> on Tuesday. \u201cWe are here, governing our people. The Government of Venezuela runs this country, no one else.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Maduro\u2019s most powerful deputies, including Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello<\/a> and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, are still doing their jobs, despite the $25 million and $15 million bounties<\/a> placed by the US government on their heads.\n <\/p>\n

\"Venezuelan<\/p>\n

\n The Chavismo movement was established in 1999 when Hugo Ch\u00e1vez, the late Venezuelan president who was Maduro\u2019s mentor and predecessor, first took power. During this period, the oil industry was nationalized and a series of constitutional reforms led to the elimination of checks and balances and widespread repression of any opposition voices.\n <\/p>\n

\n US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has defended the decision to leave officials of the Chavismo era in power and said the administration views Rodr\u00edguez as more pragmatic<\/a> and as someone the US can work with.\n <\/p>\n

\n It\u2019s not clear if Venezuela\u2019s opposition parties will play a role in this transition. At the moment, they seem to have been left on the outskirts and, in some instances, completely dismissed.\n <\/p>\n

\n Opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner Mar\u00eda Corina Machado has been one of the main faces of the anti-Maduro movement and one of President Trump\u2019s most vocal supporters.\n <\/p>\n

\n Many were caught off guard when Trump said he thought it would be tough for Machado to lead Venezuela following Maduro\u2019s capture.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cShe doesn\u2019t have the support within, or the respect within, the country. She\u2019s a very nice woman, but she doesn\u2019t have the respect,\u201d Trump said during a news conference on the day of the US operation in Venezuela.\n <\/p>\n

\n Machado, 58, spoke to Fox News from an undisclosed location earlier this week. She continued to express her gratitude to Trump \u201con behalf of the Venezuelan people\u201d and said she plans on returning to the South American country \u201cas soon as possible.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Nobel<\/p>\n

\n She also referred to Venezuela\u2019s current acting president as one of the \u201cmain architects of torture, persecution, corruption and narcotrafficking\u201d and a \u201cliaison\u201d for Russia, China and Iran, and called for \u201cfree and fair elections.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe have to move forward,\u201d Machado said. \u201cWe won the election by a landslide under fraudulent conditions. In free and fair elections, we will win with 90%, I have no doubt.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Machado said on Fox News later in the week that she would like to share her Nobel Peace Prize with Trump,<\/a> an award she dedicated to him in October for his \u201cdecisive support of our cause.\u201d<\/a> Trump told reporters on Friday that he would be meeting with Machado in Washington next week. \u201cShe might be involved in some aspect\u201d of the country, he said, without elaborating on any details.\n <\/p>\n

\n Venezuela\u2019s last presidential elections were held on July 28, 2024. The opposition claimed to have won the vote based on voting tallies collected around the country, but the government-aligned National Electoral Council (CNE) declared Maduro the winner.\n <\/p>\n

\n An independent CNN analysis at the time<\/a> found the government\u2019s claim that Maduro had defeated the opposition with 51.2% of the votes was a \u201cstatistical improbability\u201d and the CNE never provided data to support the claim.\n <\/p>\n

\n The opposition posted its own data<\/a> shortly after the ballots closed, showing the opposition had won 67% of the votes against Maduro\u2019s 30%. The tally included a detailed state-by-state breakdown. International observers from the Carter Center and the Colombian Electoral Observation Mission found the results to be legitimate.\n <\/p>\n

\"Venezuelan<\/p>\n

\n Several countries, including the United States and Spain, had recognized the opposition candidate Edmundo Gonz\u00e1lez as the president-elect following the vote.\n <\/p>\n

\n Gonz\u00e1lez, 76, was Machado\u2019s hand-picked candidate after she was banned from running. He was forced to flee the country in the months following the election, due to trumped up conspiracy and terrorism charges presented by the government that would have led to decades in prison. He requested political asylum in Spain where he has been living ever since.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Chavismo movement has been accused of jailing political prisoners for decades and holding them in the infamous Helicoide prison, controlled by the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN).\n <\/p>\n

\n There is no official figure on how many people have been arrested, mainly because the Venezuelan government doesn\u2019t recognize the existence of political prisoners. In its latest estimate, Foro Penal, an independent NGO that provides pro bono legal services to people detained arbitrarily, said more than 800 political prisoners were still behind bars.\n <\/p>\n

\n National Assembly President Jorge Rodr\u00edguez, who is also the acting president\u2019s brother, said this week that the government decided to release a \u201csignificant number of Venezuelan and foreign individuals\u201d<\/a> in what he described as a \u201cbroad demonstration of the intention to seek peace.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Several high-profile inmates, including opposition lawmakers Enrique M\u00e1rquez and Biagio Pilieri, were released this week. Videos shared on social media showed emotional reunions on the streets of Caracas with loved ones. Four Spanish nationals and a Venezuelan-Spanish activist were also among those released.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe await the freedom of \u2018all\u2019 political prisoners, not just \u2018gestures\u2019 that are partial and conditional,\u2019 Foro Penal President Alfredo Romero wrote on X. \u201cThis represents a little more than 1% of the current political prisoners.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Despite these signs of collaboration, the Rodr\u00edguez administration published a decree earlier this week authorizing security forces to detain any person involved in promoting and supporting what it has called the \u201cUS attack.\u201d The National Press Workers Union said dozens of journalists were arrested in the aftermath and later released.\n <\/p>\n

\n Maduro would regularly organize massive rallies, where his supporters would pack streets in Caracas waving flags and cheering on the strongman. Most recently before being ousted, he was speaking out against a possible US invasion and often mocking the idea in long-winded songs and speeches.\n <\/p>\n

\n While there has been some show of support for Maduro and expressions of outrage by his remaining government officials, the streets of Caracas and other major cities have mostly been quiet.\n <\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

\n The largest concentration of people seems to be at gas stations and grocery stores, where people are stockpiling on basic goods.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI wanted to fill up my gas tank, but the service stations are already closed. So I took the opportunity to buy food because we don\u2019t know what\u2019s coming,\u201d Jairo Chacin, a mechanic, told Reuters.\n <\/p>\n

\n Most Venezuelans living abroad have been celebrating the fact that Maduro is behind bars. When news of the US operation broke, celebrations by crowds were seen in cities around the world<\/a>, including Miami, Buenos Aires, Madrid and Bogot\u00e1, where large concentrations of the diaspora live.\n <\/p>\n

\n Social media was also flooded with posts sharing the first photo released by Trump on Truth Social of the US mission, showing a handcuffed Maduro in a gray track suit and large sunglasses clinging to his water bottle, accompanied by messages and memes.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe prayed a lot,\u201d Venezuelan citizen Mar\u00eda Carrizosa told CNN\u2019s team in Bogot\u00e1, Colombia. \u201cI hope the people who have made this possible facilitate a peaceful and calm transition. It\u2019s what many Venezuelans who are living abroad want.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Nearly 8 million Venezuelans have fled the country due to rampant violence, inflation, politically motivated threats, elevated crime and shortages of food and essential services, according to UNHCR.\n <\/p>\n

\n Many living in the United States also called on American friends to \u201cask a Venezuelan\u201d following criticisms about how the Trump administration carried out the operation and questions over the motives and justifications to do so without congressional approval.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe tried to use negotiations, elections, protests,\u201d Freddy Guevara, a former Venezuelan congressman living in the US, told CNN\u2019s Erin Burnett this week. \u201cIs this the outcome that we wanted? Of course not. We\u2019ve been fighting for a negotiated solution for a long time. But Maduro built this path for himself and his cronies (\u2026) Between what we had before and this, I know it may sound surprising, but we Venezuelans prefer this.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The immigration status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans living in the United States remains in limbo<\/a>. The Trump administration ended the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for more than 600,000 Venezuelans last year.\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump also invoked the Alien Enemies Act<\/a> last March to rapidly deport alleged members of the Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang designated as a foreign terrorist organization that the US government accuses Maduro of leading.\n <\/p>\n

\n Many of those arrested and deported had no proven connections to the gang and no criminal records. A number of Venezuelans who were sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador and subsequently returned to Venezuela have tried to challenge their deportations in US courts.\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump said Tuesday the current Venezuelan government would be turning over<\/a> between \u201c30 and 50 million barrels of high quality, sanctioned oil to the United States.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Venezuela is home to the largest proven oil reserve<\/a> on Earth, with an estimated 300 billion barrels lying beneath the surface. The oil industry was nationalized when Ch\u00e1vez first took power and has been subject to US sanctions.\n <\/p>\n

\n The US Treasury Department sanctioned Venezuela\u2019s oil company, PDVSA, during the first Trump administration in 2019 and blocked all transactions and crude oil exports to the United States. The US sanctions caused a steep decline in Venezuela\u2019s oil production.\n <\/p>\n

\n In a statement published on social media earlier this week, PDVSA said it is \u201ccurrently engaged in negotiations with the United States for the sale of oil volumes, within the framework of the commercial relations that exist between both countries.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump met with the CEOs of major oil companies at the White House on Friday. Despite his initial optimism, some said they couldn\u2019t commit<\/a> to the oil deal.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s uninvestible,\u201d ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods said. \u201cThere are a number of legal and commercial frameworks that would have to be established to even understand what kind of returns we would get on the investment.\u201d Exxon left Venezuela in 2007 when the Chavez regime nationalized the oil industry.\n <\/p>\n

\n Meanwhile, the future of the country and of millions of Venezuelans remains uncertain. Still, it seems Trump is liking some of what is unfolding in the government of Rodr\u00edguez, with the US leader saying early Friday that he had canceled a \u201cpreviously expected\u201d second wave of attacks on Venezuela<\/a> due to the country\u2019s cooperation with the United States. He told reporters that he sees Venezuela as an ally \u201cright now.\u201d<\/a>\n <\/p>\n

\n The only thing that is known for sure is that Maduro and his wife are out of the country and in jail. While many see this as just removing the head but leaving the regime in place, others are rejoicing that Maduro is in prison and facing charges after decades of impunity.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lee el art\u00edculo en espa\u00f1ol. People around the world \u2014 especially Venezuelans \u2014 are still processing the events…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101],"class_list":{"0":"post-401237","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}