The Venezuelan dilemma

The sitting president of Venezuela has been, what the US said, 'captured' along with his wife, son and other officials as a fugitive evading law. Venezuela is a oil-and-mineral-rich country of the South American continent lying along the coast of North Atlantic Ocean and bordering the Caribbean Sea. If Venezuela is a sovereign nation, then it defies common sense as to how its president could be fugitive in the eyes of another sovereign country? But Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, has been 'arrested' by the US through a military operation carried out on Saturday (January 3, 2026) night. From the standpoint of the US military might, it was a meticulous and successful operation, as there was no bloodshed and no US service personnel died during the operation. However, the media is yet to come up with any detailed report on Venezuelan casualties during the US military offensive. It is reported that President Maduro is 'in custody' and will have to face trial on charge of what reports say, narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy and weapons offensive. His wife Cilia Flores, their son Nicolas Maduro Guerra and other Venezuelan officials held during the operation would also face various charges under the US law.

As a power vacuum has been created in Venezuela following Maduro's forcible capture, the US president Donald Trump said US would henceforth 'run' the country. It also baffles the mind how another country might run a sovereign country. For the time being, the vice president of the country, Delcy Rodriguez, who is known to be a pro-Chavez (Hugo Chavez, a revolutionary and former president of the country) will be in charge. So, she is also pro-Maduro by default as they both bear the same legacy of Hugo Chavez. So, when faced with the question of her cooperation with the US in administering the country, Trump said she (Delcy Rodriguez) had little choice (but to cooperate). One wonders what makes Trump so confident. For Trump has not yet said if the Venezuelan opposition leader, a darling of the US and the West, and winner of Nobel Peace Prize, Maria Corina Machado, would be in charge to fill Venezuela's present administrative vacuum. Ironically though, Trump reportedly insinuated that she (Machado) didn't have the gravitas to potentially lead the country. If the report is true, then Trump's suggestion that Venezuela's vice president Delcy Rodriguez has no choice makes sense.

But some uncomfortable questions still remain unanswered: How could US Delta Force carry out its covert mission to dislodge President Maduro from power and abduct him, his wife, son and others practically without any resistance from the Venezuelan army? How could Venezuela's military fail to protect its president? What was the country's intelligence department doing as their president was being taken captive by outside forces? Were they then sleeping or looking the other way? Even if the odds stacked against the military brigade responsible for immediate security of the president, the Presidential Honor Guard, were overwhelming, why, as it appears, did they not fire even a single shot to protect their president? It all sounds surreal! Was it then a set-up about which President Maduro was quite clueless and a helpless victim?

Many such unanswered questions would haunt the curious observers of Venezuelan politics for some time. However, what is clear is that the Venezuelan ruling elites-some members of the army, the bureaucracy and the political leadership both in power and in the opposition-can be bought. It seems the ideology of Bolivarianism and socialism of the 21st century, which lately became the governing ideology of Chavismo (named after Hugo Chavez, initiator of Bolivarianism) has meanwhile run out of steam. Whatever the case, the world is now witnessing a peacemaker president Trump turning into a warmongering one! Other global powers-Russia and China-who are known to be the allies of the country's erstwhile ruling regime, are yet to react meaningfully to the latest development in Venezuela and the Caribbean region.

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