Every Venezuelan who shares a close timezone with Caracas did not sleep tonight. At 2 am, the United States entered the country and captured Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, sending them to the USS Iwo Jima and off to the United States, specifically New York, where they were both indicted on criminal charges that include narco-terrorism. Here are reports from the BBC, Reuters, AP News, and Caracas Chronicles (this last one I seriously recommend you follow if you truly want to understand Venezuela). I just finished watching Donald Trump’s press conference in which he announced that the US would “run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition”.
And I’m already exhausted. And I’m not alone. But more on that in a second.
Of course the grand deluge of comments on social media are raising questions about this move. And so many people tell us about the sanctions, about how they just want our oil, how it’s not about freedom…
Well, duh.
And on the other hand, I see genuine joy. I saw a popular podcaster cry on his video for today. I see my people in Spain, Miami, Chile, in so many places in the world, gather around and celebrate, especially after seeing this picture of Maduro, bound and blindfolded, presumably on the USS Iwo Jima, shared by Trump on TruthSocial.
And again, I’m exhausted. And now I’ll tell you why.
Eight million Venezuelans have fled the country since Maduro rose to power, joining many who did so when Hugo Chávez took over in 1999. That’s more than the Syrian refugee crisis. That’s millions of people who left behind everything they knew to try and survive, leaving behind families they’d probably never see again. We faced, in the worst cases, blatant xenophobia in countries like Chile and Spain, or having to start from absolute scratch in the best. But we survived as best we could.
And then Trump came. Many saw him as a saviour, the strong man that would free us from the commies, the lefties. He won by 11 points in Miami-Dade County here in Florida in 2024, where most Venezuelans live. And then came the deportations. To hear the accounts, like one on this episode of This American Life, is harrowing. So many Venezuelans are left wondering, “Now what?” If we can’t go back home, but we can’t stay here, what do we do?
That brings us to this morning. I want to make myself perfectly clear: the Maduro regime, and the Chávez one before him, were brutal, miserable dictatorships. I have people close to me who are as we speak in jail, just because they either thought differently or are hostages so the government can do whatever they want. I’ve seen people as young as 14 get beaten up or shot in the face for protesting against them. I worked in a newspaper where the editor tried to coerce a respected journalist into turning their reporting into propaganda (she refused and quit immediately). All that while, in a colossal mismanagement of resources, they turned one of the most prosperous countries in the hemisphere into one of the poorest. During the Nineties, one dollar was 4.30 bolivares, the official currency. Today, one dollar is over 300 BILLION bolivares –completely worthless. I saw empty supermarkets, impossible-to-find medicines, entire families trying to find food in the garbage bins outside my bus stop.
The last straw came in July of 2024, when, despite an unbelievable operation from the opposition that proved that Venezuelans were sick and tired of Maduro… he just decided to wipe his ass on the results and assume anyway. (I once more direct you to an episode of This American Life that will tell you the whole story.) That’s where it became painfully obvious to the few remaining optimists amongst us, me included: these people would not leave peacefully.
We got proven right today.
I am absolutely glad that Maduro is out. But he was perhaps the least worrisome of the bunch. The four remaining are the worst. Journalist Mariana Atencio said it better than I could.
And now Trump has said the US will “run” Venezuela. He didn’t say how they will “run” the country. He didn’t show signs that they are controlling any place in the country. And this action was made without any authorization from Congress, which I’m sorry, but that can be used in court against them. Can you imagine what would happen if Maduro and his bitch of a wife walk free? Forget how stupid the US would look but can you imagine how much stronger he would look? Or if cooler heads in the United Nations, even though they have openly criticized and condemned the Venezuelan regime, decide that this isn’t the way?
And this is the eternal bane of the Venezuelan. We seem to be doomed to choosing the lesser of two evils. We keep trying to overthrow a dictatorship, risking millions of lives, or we sell ourselves to an autocrat. I fear so much the naivete I see in comparing this to Panama and how Noriega was ousted, while this feels much more like what happened in Iraq. And remember, my parents still live there.
I’m scared. I just want my country to be free. Truly free.
Why is that so much to ask for?
My Mind in Letters 
