Nicholas Maduro, the President of Venezuela and his wife Cilia Flores, were kidnapped in the early hours of 3rd January 2026, in a US military operation involving about 150 aircraft. More than 30 personnel of the Presidential Security detail were killed in this operation, which appears to have been facilitated by insider information.
President Nicholas Maduro and Cilia Flores were flown to New York where they were charged for trafficking in cocaine and engaging in narco-terrorism. President Maduro has denounced the charges as nonsensical. Many governments, including the Venezuelan, have condemned the kidnapping, citing Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter which requires respect for other countries’ sovereignty and prohibits the use of military force without U.N. authorization.
The Real Reasons for the Kidnapping
President Trump had been criticizing President Maduro for several months before the kidnapping for narco-terrorism, authoritarianism, electoral fraud, mismanagement of the Venezuelan economy, stealing petroleum resources from the US and reducing the democratic space in Venezuela. Following the kidnapping, Trump’s press conferences insisting that Venezuela would permit US Oil companies to extract and export Venezuelan oil, has led some people to conclude that the main motivation is to establish control over Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. Many attribute the kidnapping Maduro and Flores to Trump’s narcissistic and reckless style on international issues.
But one must not forget, US’ animosity towards Venezuela far predates Trump. In April 2002 the US under Republican President George Bush Jr, worked with opposition forces in Venezuela to overthrow President Hugo Chavez. They almost succeeded. They captured Chavez and took him away to some undisclosed site, and then tried to swear in business leader Pedro Carmona as interim President. But the poorer sectors of Caracas streamed into the streets of Caracas, jamming up all traffic and making it difficult for the coup organisers to consolidate power. Significant portions of the political elite and the military rallied against the coup. As a result, Chavez was released after 47 hour of captivity and he resumed his position as President.
In 2014, President Obama, the then Democratic President of the USA, initiated economic sanctions against Venezuela. These sanctions never obtained United Nation approval, but were supported by several countries in Europe. These illegal sanctions were intensified during the Trump and the Biden Presidencies. There was even an incidence in 2020 when Venezuela was denied the use of its gold reserves deposited in UK banks to procure anti-Covid vaccines – at that time, believed to be an essential life-saving product to stem the Covid pandemic.
Trump’s military operation certainly reflects his narcissistic and aggressive style of governance, but it fully in line with US’ long-term animosity to the Bolivarian process in Venezuela.
The Real Reasons – Hugo Chavez’s Pro-People Policies
This is the reason why the US and its allies in the so-called “free world” were dead set against the “Bolivarian Revolution” initiated by Hugo Chavez after he won the Presidential elections in December 1998 with 56.2% of the vote1. Chavez’s reforms included
– setting up a Constituent Assembly to alter the Venezuelan Constitution and make it more “pro-people”.
– re-negotiating the petroleum contracts to ensure a greater share of the revenue accrued to the Venezuelan government
– bartering cheap petroleum for health personnel from Cuba to initiate a massive improvement of health care for the poorer strata of Venezuelan society
– setting up of around 45,000 local residential councils (communal councils) so that people could participate in the management of local affairs.
Chavez’s reforms, and his personal style of regularly broadcasting long explanations of the policies and programmes of his government, were well received by the Venezuelan population. Following the promulgation of the new Constitution, Chavez was re-elected in 2000 for a new 6-year term. The opposition triggered a Recall Referendum in 2004, but Chavez again won that with 59% of the vote. He then went on to win another 6-year term in 2006, with 62.8% of the vote and yet another 6-year term in 2012 which he won with 55.1% of the vote. This isn’t surprising, as economic and health indices in Venezuela showed that the ordinary people were living much better. The Poverty Rate had reduced from 49% in 1998 to 29.5% in 2014; Under-5 mortality rates dropped from 23.5 per 1000 livebirths in 1998 to 18 per 1000 births in 2014; and Under-5 stunting rates reduced from19.2% in 1998 to 13.4% in 20092.
However, his support of Cuba, the Palestinian cause and his opposition to the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas that the US was trying to pull off in Latin America infuriated the US and the other Western powers. Chavez was disrupting the imperial order that favoured the largest corporations and the billionaires of the West. And he was demonstrating that a pro-people economic program was do-able and that it can win and retain the support of the ordinary people. He, together with Fidel Castro of Cuba, set up ALBA, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, a regional organization aimed at fostering political, economic, and social cooperation among its members. This was established in 2004 to enable South countries to depend on their own resources, instead of having to rely entirely on international organisations, like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank which are partial to the largest corporations. As of January 2017, ALBA had eleven full member states.
These then, are the real reason for the US’s animosity to Venezuela ever since Chavez’s first election victory in 1998. Venezuela was setting a bad example for the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. So, just like the cases of Gadafi’s Libya and Cuba, Venezuela had to be broken, and brought to its knees, to serve as a cautionary tale for other developing countries. The Global South had to be shown that there is no alternative to the prevailing world order that is premised on the un-fettered access for big foreign capital, strong laws protecting Intellectual Property and the free repatriation of profits.
The Sanction Regime
– Barrack Obama signed the Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act of 2014 and used it to sanction 7 individuals in the Venezuelan government. It was extended in 2016 and used by Trump on 75 individuals by 2019
– In 2017, the U.S. government prevented Venezuelan government bonds from trading in U.S. financial markets.
– In Aug 2017, CITGO Petroleum, a subsidiary of PDVSA (Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A, the state-owned oil and natural gas company of Venezuela) was prohibited by an executive order of the US government from delivering dividends to PDVSA. USD 7 billion was thus frozen.
– In Dec 2017, 11 issues of Venezuelan debt could not be repaid. (Who would dare lend to Venezuela after that?)
– The US government did not allow U.S. firms to export naphtha into Venezuela (a crucial input for the extraction of heavy crude oil)
– In 2018, the Bank of England froze 31 tons of Venezuelan gold. And refused to unfreeze it in 2020 when Venezuela wanted to use it to buy anti-Covid vaccine.
– Then the United States began to put pressure on shipping firms to stop carrying Venezuelan oil
By 2020, more than 100 sanctions had been slapped on Venezuela by the US. And they hit the economy hard. Between 2015 and 2023, Venezuela’s foreign currency income dropped 90%. The lack of foreign exchange and the inavailability of spare parts for repairs led to a downgrading of much of the infrastructure and to a deep recession. Venezuela’s real GDP shrunk 74% between January 2014 and December 20193. This means that by the end of 2019, economic activity in Venezuela had shrunk to a fourth of the level it was at in 2013. Mass unemployment ensued. As a consequence, many Venezuelans were forced to emigrate to find jobs.
Of course, the Western press reports the economic mayhem caused by the harsh sanction regimes as due to mismanagement, incompetence, corruption and the intrinsic flaws of an economic system that was attempting to redistribute more wealth back to the majority of the people in the country. Unfortunately, many in the Global South accept and propagate these sorts of interpretations. We really need to be more discerning! Colombia’s GDP increased by 18.3% between 2014 and 2019, while Mexico’s increased by 13.7% in that same period3. These 2 countries indices on corruption and efficiency of administration are not that much better than Venezuela’s. It should be clear that the main cause of the severe economic recession in Venezuela from 2014 inwards, is due to the cruel sanctions enacted by the US and its European allies.
Our Demands
The People of the Global South should lobby for the following
1. National Sovereignty – all countries have the right to seek their own model of development. The principle of non-interference in the internal matters of sovereign countries must be upheld.
2. Strict condemnation of the Gunboat Diplomacy that the US has been exhibiting for decades, though much more brazenly under Trump. Military action in another country should only be permitted under the auspices of the United Nations. It cannot be undertaken unilaterally by any country.
3. The immediate, unconditional release of President Maduro and First Lady Flores.
4. The immediate cessation of the economic sanctions on Venezuela, Cuba and Iran. And the lifting of the blockade on Gaza. The Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) classifies sanctions as a form of “Collective penalties,”4 which are prohibited.
5. Abandonment of plans to use military force against Iran, Cuba and other countries.
6. We should also push our own governments to ensure economic resilience in these uncertain times. We should aim for self-sufficiency in food, energy, medicines and basic technology. We need to build the regional markets so that we are not so dependent on the US and the EU markets. And we should spread the awareness that “neo-colonialism” isn’t just a fancy term used by the Left. It is an under-recognised reality of the 21st Century.
Jeyakumar Devaraj
Chairperson
Parti Sosialis Malaysia
24th February 2026
Notes
1. The other major contender, Henrique Romer obtained 40% of the vote.
2. Sources: https://cepr.net/publications/venezuelan-economic-and-social-performance-under-hugo-chavez
https://en.wikipedia.org/eiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Huga_Chavex_administration
3. Source: Table A3, World Economic Situation and Prospects 2020, United Nations
4. Economists Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs calculate that the U.S. sanctions have resulted in the death of 40,000 Venezuelan civilians between 2017 and 2018. In their report. “Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment: The Case of Venezuela” (April 2019)
Acknowledgement: Danesh Prakash Chacko of the Venezuela Solidarity Group, Malaysia for generously providing details on Venezuelan economy.