Venezuela loyalists rally one week after Maduro's capture
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CARACAS: Supporters of Venezuela's deposed leader, Nicolas Maduro, geared up for a mass protest Saturday (Jan 10) to mark one week since his dramatic capture by US forces.
Anxious relatives meanwhile camped outside jails, awaiting the promised release of political prisoners by the interim government.
Despite the shock of Maduro's capture during deadly nighttime raids on January 3, signs emerged Friday of cooperation with Washington after US President Donald Trump's claim to be "in charge" of the South American country.
Venezuela's foreign minister said Friday it had launched talks with the United States on restoring diplomatic ties, which were severed in 2019 during Trump's first term.
Washington said US diplomats had visited Caracas to discuss reopening the American embassy.
A State Department official told AFP on Saturday they had left again on Friday "as scheduled".
"The Trump Administration remains in close contact with interim authorities" in Venezuela, the official added.
Venezuela's interim president Delcy Rodriguez, has pledged to cooperate with Trump over his demands for access to Venezuela's huge oil reserves after Maduro's ouster.
But she also moved to placate the powerful pro-Maduro base by insisting Venezuela is not "subordinate" to Washington.
In a gesture of ongoing defiance, organisers scheduled a rally of activists from the ruling leftist "Chavista" movement on Saturday.
The demo caps a week of angry protests after the United States launched airstrikes on Caracas, seized Maduro and took him to New York to face trial on drug-trafficking charges alongside his wife, Cilia Flores.
ANXIETY OVER PRISONERS
Rodriguez's camp on Thursday began releasing prisoners jailed under Maduro, promising a "large" number would be freed in a gesture of appeasement pending talks with Washington.
However, prisoners' rights groups said on Saturday that so far fewer than 20 had been freed, including several prominent opposition figures.
Families slept out overnight under blankets near El Rodeo prison east of Caracas, hoping for the release of their loved ones.
"I am tired and angry," Nebraska Rivas, 57, told AFP, as she waited for the release of her son.
"But I have faith that they will hand him over to us soon," she said, after sleeping out on the pavement for two nights.
"I have been fighting for this for seven years, and I feel encouraged now because this is the home stretch. But I am also disappointed because nothing is happening."
The exiled opposition candidate from the 2024 elections, Edmundo Gonzalez Urritia, who was hoping for the release of his son-in-law, complained on X that "fewer than one per cent of the announced releases" had taken place.
"Each hour that goes by without answers is a new form of violence against the families," he wrote.
OIL TALKS
Following Maduro's capture, Trump vowed to secure access for US companies to Venezuela's vast oil reserves.
Chevron is currently the only US firm licensed to operate in Venezuela, through a sanctions exemption.
The White House said Saturday that Trump had signed an emergency executive order protecting US-held revenues derived from sales of Venezuelan oil, to prevent them from being seized by courts or creditors.
At a White House meeting on Friday, Trump pressed top oil executives to invest in Venezuela's reserves, but was met with a cautious reception.
ExxonMobil Chief Executive Darren Woods dismissed the country as "uninvestable" without significant reforms.
Experts say Venezuela's oil infrastructure is creaky after years of mismanagement and sanctions.
Trump said foreign firms had enjoyed no meaningful protections under Maduro, "but now you have total security. It's a whole different Venezuela."
He stressed that the companies would deal only with Washington, not Caracas, when exploiting Venezuela's oil resources.
Washington has maintained maritime pressure on oil tankers in the Caribbean, where it seized a fifth tanker carrying Venezuelan crude on Friday. Trump said that oil would be sold.
A sustained increase in Venezuelan oil production would take "months to years," Latin America specialist Orlando J. Perez, of the University of North Texas at Dallas, told AFP.
"It requires legal clarity on who can sign contracts, predictable sanctions relief, credible security conditions for firms, and major capital/technical inputs in a degraded sector."
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