“Maduro is not a president, he is the leader of a narcoterrorist structure that has declared war on the Venezuelan people. This criminal structure maintains its power through drug trafficking, gold smuggling and human trafficking. President Trump’s strategy against this criminal is absolutely correct”warned Maria Corina Machado, the famous Venezuelan opponent, on Thursday, from an undisclosed location, during a live broadcast at the American Business Forum, in Miami, in the presence of Donald Trump, the Argentinian Javier Milei accompanied by footballer Lionel Messi, and many international personalities. “Maria Corina”, as she is warmly nicknamed by Venezuelans, 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner, lifelong anti-Chavista liberal opponent, continues to live in hiding while she is actively sought by the Maduro regime for “high treason”.
“In Venezuela, state propaganda is operating at full speed”
“We are already on a plan B, including many friendly countries, to rebuild the Venezuelan nation and democracy”explains to the Tangwall Campagin, from Caracas, the former Venezuelan representative to the United Nations and former ambassador to Israel Milos Alcalay, who calls for a return to negotiations between Washington and Caracas. And to continue: “Maduro is afraid of losing everything, so he stays in power at all costs, hiding behind a classic victim discourse. He repeats that he is “David against Goliath”, he says he is “at war against imperialism, colonialism”. But I don’t know if Maduro is ready to play the hero to the end like Noriega, the former Panamanian dictator who stood up to the United States, before being overthrown by an American military intervention in 1989, Operation Just Cause, and ending up in prison. »
In the meantime, the threat of military intervention has become more plausible every day since President Trump declared again this week that “everything was possible” and that American bomber planes were training off the Venezuelan coast. “Two months ago, we didn’t believe itconfirms Vincent, a Frenchman living in Venezuela for twenty years. But in view of the imminent arrival of the largest aircraft carrier in the world, we are starting to prepare for it. » Indeed, the USS Gerald R. Ford is currently sailing from the Mediterranean with 70 fighter jets and 4,500 soldiers on board, heading to the Caribbean, to join the eight warships and thousands of soldiers already in the area. Trump reaffirmed this week that he rejected any offer of dialogue with Maduro. He confirmed, at the end of October, having authorized the CIA to enter Venezuela in order to carry out secret operations to capture President Nicolas Maduro, on whose head there has been a price of 50 million dollars since last August.
Soldiers and cannons on the beaches
To thwart American plans, Venezuelan state propaganda is operating at full speed in a country without a real opposition press. In recent days, official television has reported, with a large number of reports, “hundreds of thousands of soldiers, millions of reservists and 200,000 paramilitaries mobilized on all borders, and particularly on the Caribbean coast”… “Ready to fight for peace”in President Maduro’s own words. The international channel teleSUR, for its part, broadcast images of soldiers training on the beaches with anti-aircraft guns buried in the sand. “Our extremist opposition is making an irreparable mistake by calling for war against Maduro”assures Vladimir Villegas, the famous host of “Entre les Lignes”, on Union Radio, an official media outlet. “For the moment, the American military presence off our coast has succeeded in uniting the Chavista movement, which until now had been fragmented between, on one side, the hard line of Maduro, and on the other, the more constitutionalist line of the faithful of our former leader Hugo Chavez. Not all Venezuelans are Maduristas, but if the Americans attack, they will defend their homeland against aggression.”he concludes.
Meanwhile, in Caracas, Venezuelans are going about their business without paying too much attention to the persistent rumors of war. “We see some troop movements, tanks here and there. But Maduro is very isolated. Even the Russians won’t save him. Venezuelans face daily difficulties. Nine million of them have already fled the country. Those who remained do not want problems and are collaborating with the regime in survival mode”summarizes Milos Alcalay.
