He is a dictator who is criticized at home and abroad for stealing the country’s last election. But last Friday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro took office for a third term, having overseen the country’s dramatic decline, including rampant inflation, power outages, hunger, mass migration and the collapse of the country’s democracy.
At a ceremony held in the capital Caracas, Maduro raised his left hand and declared that he would preside over an era of “peace, prosperity, equality and a new democracy.”
“I swear before history!” he shouted.
If he serves all six years, his party’s rule will extend to 30 years.
Even after millions of Venezuelans used the ballot box to express their desire for change, Maduro returned to his presidential palace, Miraflores. And he will do so amid the harshest crackdown ever, with police and troops in riot gear swarming the streets of the capital. journalists, activists and community leaders in prison; His surveillance apparatus expanded widely.
Edmundo González, who the United States and other countries say won the election, remains in exile and has no choice but to flee to Spain or be arrested, while the country’s most important opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, Hiding in Venezuela.
On Thursday she took part in street protests against President Maduro in Caracas for the first time since August. She risked detention as thousands of her supporters chanted “Freedom!” freedom! freedom!”
She said she was then torn from her motorcycle and briefly detained by police before being released. Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello later accused her of raising concerns herself.
There have been few recent protests against the government. And the ever-present threat that security forces will jail civilians will make it difficult for Mr. Machado to continue to rally his supporters to the streets.
Mr González’s supporters had hoped he would reappear in Venezuela for his swearing-in, as he had repeatedly promised in recent months.
But on Friday, Mr. Machado said the government’s closure of airspace had forced the team to postpone its promised arrival to an unspecified moment.
Mr. Maduro faces the possibility that President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has filled his foreign policy team with Maduro’s enemies, will take a tougher stance against him and impose more economic sanctions.
In response, the Venezuelan leader has been accumulating a cache of foreign prisoners over the past six months, which analysts and former U.S. diplomats say he hopes to use as a bargaining tool in negotiations with the United States and other countries.
Venezuelan security forces have arrested about 50 visitors and dual passport holders from more than a dozen countries since July, according to the monitoring group Foro Penal.
“They are exchangeable pawns,” said Gonzalo Himiob, founder of Foro Penal.
Maduro wants a variety of policy changes, including lifting U.S. sanctions that have hit Venezuela’s economy and gaining international recognition.
Venezuelan officials have detained at least nine people who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents and accused some of them of plotting to kill Mr. Maduro.
The United States has no diplomatic presence in Venezuela, and a State Department spokeswoman said the government was not even sure where its citizens were being detained.
Relatives of three detained U.S. citizens say they have not heard from their loved ones since they went missing months ago and have received limited contact from their own governments.
David Estrella (64), a father of five, came to Venezuela by land from Colombia on September 9, according to his ex-wife Elvia Macias (44).
Ms Macias, who is close to her ex-husband, described him as an “adventurer” who went to see friends, full of optimism that the situation in Venezuela was “not that bad”.
He worked in quality control for a New Jersey pharmaceutical company, was preparing to retire and had already visited Venezuela once, she said.
Macias cried as she talked about celebrating Christmas without him.
“This situation has had a huge impact on our lives,” she said.
Mr Maduro’s socialist-inspired movement has run the country since 1999, when his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, took power. Last July, Maduro faced his toughest electoral challenge yet, taking on González, a former diplomat who became Machado’s deputy when the government banned him from running.
Even as the campaign of repression intensifies, many Venezuelans have come forward to support Mr. González. And just days after the election, the opposition party collected thousands of vote tallies, posted them online and said they showed Mr. González had won by a landslide.
Nonetheless, Mr. Maduro declared victory, a claim that has been questioned by independent observers, including the Carter Center, the United Nations and members of the country’s electoral commission.
The United States recognized González as the winner, and even Maduro allies such as President Gustavo Petro of Colombia and Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Venezuela’s left-wing neighbors, distanced themselves.
Neither will attend the inauguration.
Mr. Maduro has detained foreigners for political purposes before. But his government has never had so many people at once, according to the watchdog group Foro Penal.
Some analysts said President Maduro decided to arrest the foreigners because he saw that he could get what he wanted.
In 2022 and 2023, the United States signed deals with the Venezuelan government that resulted in the United States releasing prominent Venezuelan allies in exchange for U.S. citizens held by President Maduro.
This was part of a shift in America’s dealings with governments and others holding Americans captive overseas.
In the past, U.S. policy was not to negotiate with kidnappers for fear that breaking deals would encourage hostage taking.
But it left detained Americans with little chance of being rescued, and critics said it also contributed to the deaths of people like journalist James Foley, who was killed by ISIS in Syria in 2014.
Since then, the United States has shown more willingness to negotiate. But some critics argue that this triggers the very practices in which Mr. Maduro is engaging.
Tom Shannon, who served as a senior State Department official in the Obama and Trump administrations, said he believed Maduro was encouraged by recent hostage deals with Russia and Iran.
Still, he didn’t think it was a mistake to break the deal.
“Part of our job is to take care of American citizens overseas,” said Shannon. “It’s very difficult to ignore people and say, ‘Oh, you’re unhappy.’”
Instead, he said the U.S. government should “inflict a level of suffering that will make it clear to the kidnappers that something like this will never happen again.”
Other U.S. citizens detained in Venezuela include Navy SEAL Wilbert Castaneda, 37, who was visiting Venezuela to meet his girlfriend, according to his mother, Petra Castaneda, 60.
Mr. Castaneda, a father of four, was arrested by authorities in late August. By September, his face was plastered on national television, along with that of Mr. Cabello, the interior minister, accusing him and others of being part of a plot to assassinate the president.
Castaneda, who lives in California, said his son is innocent.
“The whole family is very worried. “We are devastated,” she said. “We remain hopeful that the United States can reach an agreement with President Maduro.”
Stephen William Logan, 83, a retired teacher from West Virginia, said he didn’t even realize his son Aaron Barrett Logan, 34, had gone to Venezuela. Then in September, his family received a call from State Department officials saying he was in custody.
Mr. Logan said his son worked as a “penetration tester” for a major U.S. bank, testing the bank’s security by hacking into its systems.
Mr. Cabello accused the younger Mr. Logan of being involved in the same assassination plot.
“I don’t even know how to visualize it,” the older Mr. Logan said of his son’s environment. He said, wondering if it was something like a “concentration camp.”
Representatives of President Trump’s transition team declined to comment. None of the U.S. detainees have been declared wrongfully detained by the State Department, a designation that could entitle them to further assistance within the U.S. government.
In Caracas, anti-Maduro protests were attended in large numbers on Thursday, even though a similar rally faced violence from security forces and ended in the deaths of participants.
Among those on the streets was Laura Matos, 21, who said “everyone” told her “don’t go out.”
But “I couldn’t sleep last night,” she said. “I said, ‘I want something to happen. I want President-elect Edmundo González to take office, and I want Venezuela to experience change.’”
Alain Delaqueriere contributed to the research.
