Venezuelan autocrat detains US citizens as he tightens his grip on power

He is a tyrant condemned inside and outside his country because he stole the country’s last elections. However, Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan president who has overseen his country’s dramatic decline — including hyperinflation, power outages, hunger, mass migration and the disintegration of the country’s democracy — was sworn in for a third term on Friday.

At the ceremony in the capital, Caracas, Mr. Maduro raised his left hand and announced that he would preside over a period of “peace, prosperity, equality and new democracy.”

“I swear before history!” – He shouted.

If he serves the full six years, his party’s rule will extend into its third decade.

Mr. Maduro returns to Miraflores, the presidential palace in Caracas, even after millions of Venezuelans I used the ballot box To express the desire for change. It will do so amid the harshest crackdown yet, with police and military forces in riot gear covering the streets of the capital; Journalists, activists and community leaders in prison; And a wide expansion of its surveillance device.

The man who the United States and others say won the election, Edmundo GonzalezHe remains in exile, forced to flee to Spain or face arrest, while the country’s most important opposition leader, Maria Corina Machadoit was in Hiding inside Venezuela.

On Thursday, she appeared for the first time since August, joining street protests against Maduro in Caracas. I stood on top of a truck while thousands of supporters, all at risk of arrest, chanted, “Freedom!” freedom! freedom!”

after that, She was briefly detained By unknown opponents and then released.

There have been few other recent protests against the government, and the continuing threat of security forces imprisoning civilians is likely to make it difficult for Ms. Machado to continue mobilizing supporters to take to the streets.

Mr. Gonzalez has said he will return to Venezuela on Friday to be sworn in — but the government has put a $100,000 bounty on his head, and it is unclear how he plans to avoid arrest if he does.

For his part, Maduro faces the possibility of President-elect Donald J. Trump winning He has filled his foreign policy team with Maduro’s enemiesHe will take a hard line against it, and may impose more economic sanctions.

In response, the Venezuelan leader has spent the past six months amassing a cache of foreign prisoners, which analysts and former American diplomats say he hopes to use as a bargaining tool in negotiations with the United States and other countries.

Since July, Venezuelan security forces have arrested about 50 visitors and dual passport holders from more than a dozen countries, according to the monitoring group Foro Penal.

“They are pawns that need to be replaced,” said Gonzalo Himiub, founder of Foro Pinal.

Mr. Maduro wants the lifting of US sanctions, which have hurt the Venezuelan economy, and international recognition, among other political changes.

Venezuelan officials say they have arrested at least nine people with American citizenship or residency status, some of whom the officials have accused of plotting to kill Mr. Maduro.

The United States has no diplomatic presence in Venezuela, and a State Department representative said the US government is not even sure where its citizens are being held.

Relatives of three detained US citizens said they had not heard from their loved ones since they disappeared months ago and had received only limited communications from their government.

David Estrella, 64, a father of five, crossed into Venezuela by land from Colombia on September 9, according to his ex-wife Elvia Macias, 44.

Ms Macias, who is close to her ex-husband, described her ex-husband as an “adventurer” – who was full of optimism that the situation in Venezuela was “not that bad” – and went to visit friends.

She added that he had worked in quality control for pharmaceutical companies in New Jersey, was preparing to retire, and had already visited Venezuela once before.

Ms. Macias cried as she recounted celebrating Christmas without him.

“This situation has had a huge impact on our lives,” she said.

Maduro’s socialist-inspired movement has run the country since 1999, when his predecessor Hugo Chavez took office. In July, Mr. Maduro faced his toughest electoral challenge yet, facing off against Mr. González, a former diplomat who became Ms. Machado’s replacement when the government took power. It prevented her from running.

Even amid the escalating crackdown, many Venezuelans came out in large numbers to support Mr. Gonzalez. In the days following the election, the opposition collected thousands of vote-counting lists, Post it online They say they showed that Mr. Gonzalez won by a landslide.

However, Maduro declared victory, an assertion that was questioned by independent observers, including the Carter Center, the United Nations and a member of the UN. The country’s electoral council.

The United States recognized Mr. Gonzalez as the winner — and even Maduro allies such as Presidents Gustavo Petro of Colombia and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, both left-wing neighbors of Venezuela, distanced themselves.

Neither of them will attend the inauguration.

Mr. Maduro has detained foreigners for political purposes before. But his government has never detained that many people at one time, according to the Foro Penal monitoring group.

Some analysts said that Maduro decided to arrest foreigners because he saw that this would achieve what he wanted.

In 2022 and Then again in 2023The United States then struck deals with the Venezuelan government, under which Washington released prominent Venezuelan allies in exchange for the release of American citizens detained by Mr. Maduro.

This was part of a shift in US dealings with governments and others who detain Americans abroad.

In the past, it was US policy not to negotiate with the kidnappers, fearing that making deals would encourage hostage-taking.

But this left the captured Americans with little hope of rescue, and critics said it even contributed to the deaths of people like James Foley, a journalist. He was killed by ISIS in Syria in 2014.

The United States has since shown greater willingness to negotiate. But some critics assert that this raises the same practice as Mr. Maduro.

Tom Shannon, who held a senior position at the State Department in the Obama and Trump administrations, said he believes Maduro has been encouraged by recent hostage deals with the United States. Russia and Iran.

However, he doesn’t think the deal-making was a mistake.

“I think one of our jobs is to take care of American citizens abroad,” Shannon said. “It’s very difficult to write people off and say, ‘Oh, bad luck, so sorry.'”

Instead, he said the US government should “inflict levels of pain on the kidnappers that make clear this will not happen again.”

Other US citizens detained in Venezuela include Wilbert Castañeda, 37, a US Marine, who traveled to Venezuela to visit his girlfriend, according to his mother, Petra Castañeda, 60.

The authorities arrested Mr. Castañeda, a father of four children, in late August. By September, his face had appeared on state television, where Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela’s interior minister, and others accused him of participating in a plot to assassinate the president.

Ms. Castaneda, who lives in California, said her son was innocent.

“The whole family is very worried, and we are desperate,” she said. He added: “We hold out hope that the United States can reach an agreement with Mr. Maduro.”

Stephen William Logan, 83, a retired teacher in West Virginia, said he did not even realize that his son, Aaron Barrett Logan, 34, had gone to Venezuela. Then, in September, his family received a phone call from State Department officials informing them of his arrest.

Mr Logan said his son was working in the US for a major bank as a “penetration tester” – testing the bank’s security by trying to hack its systems.

Mr. Cabello accused the younger Mr. Logan of involvement in the same assassination plot.

“I don’t even know how to imagine it,” the older Mr. Logan said of the conditions his son was living in, wondering if it was like a “concentration camp.”

Representatives for Mr. Trump’s transition team declined to comment. The State Department has not declared that any of the American detainees are being held unlawfully, a designation that could get more help from within the U.S. government.

In Caracas, many attended the anti-Maduro protest on Thursday, although similar rallies were met with violence from security forces and ended in Venezuela. Death of participants.

Among those who took to the streets was Laura Matos, 21, who said that “everyone” told her “don’t go out.”

“But I couldn’t sleep last night,” she said. “I said: I want something to happen, I want President-elect Edmundo Gonzalez to be sworn in, I want Venezuela to see change.”

“We don’t deserve to be like this,” she continued, while her fellow protesters honked plastic horns around her. “We deserve more, to have a better future. Young people like me deserve to be able to study, work and stay in our country.”

Alain Delaquiriere Contributed to research.