Venezuela’s Maduro sits in US custody as loyalists vow defiance

NEW YORK – Venezuela’s toppled leader Nicolas Maduro was in a New York detention centre on Jan 4 awaiting drug charges after US President Donald Trump ordered an audacious raid to capture him
, saying the US would take control of the oil-producing nation.

The image of the 63-year-old Maduro blindfolded and handcuffed en route to the US has stunned Venezuelans and was Washington’s most controversial intervention in Latin America since the invasion of Panama 37 years ago.

Maduro, who wished his captors a “Happy New Year” on arrival, is due to appear in a Manhattan court on Jan 5.

‘There is fear and uncertainty’

At home, Maduro’s allies were still in charge and have denounced his “kidnapping” as part of an imperialist oil grab.

Streets were far quieter than usual as Venezuelans anxiously discussed what would come next. Some stocked up on essentials but many simply hunkered indoors.

“I’ve just taken the dog out and it feels like an abandoned city, people are shut inside,” said 35-year-old Alejandra Palencia, a psychologist in the city of Maracay. “There is fear and uncertainty.”

With memories of painful US interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, many world leaders were staggered by Mr Trump’s move, even though Maduro’s standing was low given his autocratic rule and substantial evidence of vote-rigging.

Mr Trump said the US would for now manage the South American nation of about 30 million people plus its oil reserves, the largest in the world. But he gave few details of how.

“We will run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” he told a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort, hailing the extraordinary extraction of Maduro just as he was at the door of a safe room.

To the disappointment of Venezuela’s opposition and diaspora, Mr Trump has given short shrift to the idea of 58-year-old opposition leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado,
taking over, saying she lacked support.

Ms Machado was banned from standing in Venezuela’s 2024 election and has said her ally Edmundo Gonzalez, 76, who overwhelmingly won that vote according to the opposition and some international observers, should now take the presidency.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Jan 4 that the US is ready to work with Venezuela’s remaining leaders if they make “the right decision”.

“We’re going to judge everything by what they do, and we’re going to see what they do,” he told CBS News’ Face The Nation.

“I do know this: that if they don’t make the right decision, that the United States will retain multiple levers of leverage.”

Once one of the most prosperous nations in Latin America, Venezuela’s economy nosedived further under Maduro, sending about one in five Venezuelans abroad in one of the world’s biggest exoduses.

They were largely jubilant at the exit of Maduro, whose security forces repeatedly crushed opposition protests. The former union leader, bus driver and foreign minister was the dying Hugo Chavez’s handpicked successor as president in 2013.

“We are all happy that the dictatorship has fallen and that we have a free country,” said Ms Khaty Yanez, who lives in Chile.

‘Only one president: Maduro,’ says interim president

Mr Trump says Maduro masterminded the flow of drugs into the US and was illegitimately in power due to vote-rigging.

Maduro denies those claims.

“There is only one president in Venezuela, and his name is Nicolas Maduro,” said Ms Delcy Rodriguez, who took over Venezuela’s interim presidency, in a defiant message to the US despite Mr Trump’s assertions that she was open to working with them.

“We will never again be a colony of any empire,” she said.

Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who is close to the military, urged Venezuelans to stand firm and emphasised Mr Trump’s repeated comments about sharing in oil prosperity.

“We are outraged because in the end everything was revealed – it was revealed that they only want our oil,” Mr Cabello said in audio shared by the ruling Socialist Party.

US Special Forces swooped in on helicopters to seize Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, under darkness in the early hours of Jan 3 after strikes on military installations in Caracas and elsewhere.

While many Western allies oppose Maduro and say he stole Venezuela’s 2024 election, there were numerous calls for the US to respect international law and resolve the crisis diplomatically.

There were also questions over the legality
of an operation to seize the head of state of a foreign power, while Democrats said they were misled during recent Congress briefings and demanded a plan for what is to follow.

Oil revival?

Mr Trump said major US oil companies would move back into Venezuela and refurbish badly degraded oil infrastructure, a process experts said could take years.

“We’re not afraid of boots on the ground,” he added.

A plane carrying Maduro landed near New York City late on Jan 3, and he was flown by helicopter to the city before being taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

Indicted in 2020 on charges including narco-terrorism conspiracy, Maduro is expected to make an initial appearance in Manhattan federal court on Jan 5.

The UN Security Council planned to meet on Jan 5 to discuss the US move, which Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described as “a dangerous precedent”. Russia and China, both major backers of Venezuela, criticised the US.

Maduro’s opponents in Venezuela have been wary of celebrating and security seemed, if anything, lighter than usual on Jan 4. Despite the nervous mood, in some places cars were moving, bakeries and coffee shops were open, and joggers and cyclists were out like on a normal Sunday morning.

“Yesterday I was very afraid to go out, but today I had to. This situation caught me without food and I need to figure things out. After all, Venezuelans are used to enduring fear,” said one single mother in a working-class neighbourhood in oil city Maracaibo, who bought rice, vegetables and tuna.

It is unclear just how Mr Trump plans to oversee Venezuela.

His comments about an open-ended military presence in Venezuela echoed the rhetoric around past invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which ended in US withdrawals after years of costly occupation and thousands of US casualties.

A US occupation “won’t cost us a penny” because the US would be reimbursed from “money coming out of the ground”, Mr Trump said, referring to Venezuela’s oil.

His focus on foreign affairs provides fuel for Democrats’ criticism and also runs the risk of alienating some supporters, who have backed his “America First” agenda and oppose foreign interventions. REUTERS