In a move seen as expanding the crackdown on the opposition, the regime of Nicolás Maduro detained human rights activist Rocío San Miguel, accusing her of plotting to kill Maduro, Attorney General Tarek William Saab said via X.
San Miguel was arrested February 9 at an airport in Caracas in relation to a vague conspiracy scheme aimed at regime officials. San Miguel, who heads nongovernmental organization (NGO) Control Ciudadano, has specialized in studying Venezuela’s obscure and corrupt military.
Days prior, in a statement at the Miraflores palace Maduro expressed his determination to crush what he described as attempts to “disturb peace,” by any means, or rather “by hook or by crook,” AP news agency reported.
Academic Eduardo Varnagy of the Faculty of Political and Legal Sciences at the Simón Bolívar University in Caracas, told Diálogo on February 6 that this statement “is a faithful reflection of Maduro’s true thinking, not to hand over power through free and transparent elections.”
Maduro backed up his statement by highlighting that of the 30 electoral processes carried out during the regimes of Hugo Chávez and his, they were victorious on 28 occasions. “We are ready to win in any scenario,” he said, AP reported.
“Venezuela follows the path of dictatorship. It was not only the failure to comply with the Barbados agreements,” said economist José Manuel Restrepo Abondado, former Colombian minister of Finance and minister of Trade, Industry, and Tourism. “Now he is trying to sustain that tyranny by force and prevent any attempt at democratic elections.”
“While Venezuela has not reached the extreme levels of repression seen in countries such as North Korea, Cuba, or Nicaragua, it is immersed in a radical authoritarian regime, marked by severe limitations on freedom and political pluralism,” Varnagy added.
In October 2023, the regime and the Venezuelan opposition signed two agreements in Barbados, laying the groundwork for potentially genuine competitive presidential elections.
The decision in late January of Venezuela’s Supreme Court of Justice to uphold bans on opposition presidential candidate María Corina Machado and Henrique Capriles, preventing them from holding office for 15 years, has been a massive blow to the Barbados Agreement and a clear indication of the path set by Maduro: fraudulent elections.
“Maduro is already acting desperately,” Machado said on February 6 to Colombia’s W Radio. “They are not going to take us out of the constitutional and electoral struggle. They may threaten me with their legislative crime, but this fight is until the end.”
Maduro’s fury
These concerns add to the January 25 complaints by Venezuelan opposition political alliance Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) about a new wave of repression by the regime, strengthening dictatorial tactics to hold on to power. “The whole world knows the modus operandi of the totalitarian regime,” the PUD said.
This repressive environment is part of Maduro’s latest campaign, which began with the launch of his Bolivarian Fury Plan. Under this plan, military and police troops deployed throughout the country, starting in mid-February, to counteract “any terrorist or coup attempt,” InSight Crime, an organization dedicated to the study of organized crime in Latin America, said.
Venezuela’s National Assembly also approved a bill in late January to regulate and inspect NGOs, which advocacy groups have denounced as an attempt to silence civil organizations seeking peace and democracy, and as a clear escalation of state repression.
“The mere rumor of this norm creates fear, as a psychological repression tactic against freedoms. This is part of a meticulously planned strategy, which is part of the so-called Bolivarian Fury Plan,” Varnagy said. More illegal detentions are certainly coming, he warned.
Angry silence
“The Venezuelan population is fed up with the system. There is an angry silence. While absolutism may repress some individuals, it is difficult to contain the widespread frustration of an entire nation simultaneously,” Varnagy said. “It’s likely that a series of events will emerge this year where the citizenry will express their unease in a variety of ways.”