Maduro cranks up Venezuela repression, drawing neighbor's rebuke

Bloomberg News on Jan 8, 2025

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Venezuela’s government has unleashed a fresh wave of repression as the opposition plans nationwide protests to denounce Nicolás Maduro’s inauguration as president this week.

Around two dozen people have been detained since the start of the year, including a relative of opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González and Enrique Márquez, a harsh critic of Maduro’s policies and former vice president of the opposition-led National Assembly.

The socialist regime has mobilized across the country as tensions rise ahead of González’s vowed return to Venezuela on Friday to be sworn in as president, despite government threats to arrest him upon arrival. Maduro’s repression has even riled his ideological allies in Latin America.

Maduro — who was declared the winner by the electoral authority without presenting evidence — is gearing up to begin a third consecutive term in the oil-rich South American nation despite international condemnation.

The U.S., European Union and other nations say González clearly won the most votes in July’s election, with Joe Biden’s administration recognizing him as president-elect in November. Maduro’s government has scoffed at this, deploying an unusual number of security forces across Caracas since December, including check points on highways and major avenues.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Wednesday he would skip his Venezuelan counterpart’s inauguration, citing the arrest of Márquez and others. The Andean leftist has been the world leader who has most frequently visited Maduro, traveling to Venezuela and the border to meet him at least five times since the start of his term in 2022. “We ask, from our own struggle for human rights in Colombia, that they be respected for everyone in Venezuela,” Petro said in announcing his decision not to attend.

González said Tuesday that his son-in-law, Rafael Tudares, was “intercepted by hooded men in black” and loaded into a van as he was taking his children, aged 6 and 7, to their first day of school.

Around 10 activists working for Vente Venezuela, the party helmed by banned opposition leader María Corina Machado, have been detained in Trujillo state this month. Graffiti and signs saying “Maduro lost” and “Edmundo won on July 28” have appeared around several towns in the western state in recent days.

Machado, who has been in hiding since early August, said Tuesday that police forces were surrounding her mother’s home and neighborhood in Caracas. Carlos Correa, a human rights activist and head of NGO Espacio Publico, was also detained in downtown Caracas, his wife Mabel Calderin said in a post on Instagram.

Another opposition party, Voluntad Popular, also denounced illegal detentions by government forces, saying in a post on X 19 people were rounded up on Tuesday alone, including “civilians, activists and human rights defenders.”

González, a little-known former ambassador before his presidential run last year, has been on a diplomatic blitz ahead of Venezuela’s inauguration, meeting with Biden at the White House, Argentina’s Javier Milei and Luis Lacalle Pou of Uruguay in the last week. He arrived in Panama late Tuesday for talks Wednesday with President Jose Raul Mulino.