The American NGO Human Rights Watch denounced that the regime of the Venezuelan dictator, Nicolás Maduro, is using the actions of the United States government that put pressure on the Chavista leadership as an “excuse” to intensify the repression against dissidents.
This month, the Donald Trump administration imposed a “total” blockade on sanctioned oil tankers arriving in or departing Venezuela. Before that, at the end of August, a military operation had begun against vessels in the Caribbean Sea, near Venezuela, and in the Pacific Ocean that it says are linked to drug trafficking.
The republican accused Maduro of leading the Los Soles Cartel, promised land actions in Venezuela and said that the dictator’s “days are numbered”.
In a statement published by the American newspaper The Washington Post on Thursday (25), Martina Rapido Ragozzino, Human Rights Watch researcher for the Northern Andes, said that the Chavista regime “has used US pressure as an excuse to mobilize the military, label critics ‘traitors’ and arrest dozens of dissidents”.
“It is a policy designed to instill fear among Venezuelans,” said Marino Alvarado, coordinator of the NGO Provea, in a recent interview with CNN. He warned of worsening prison conditions, with overcrowding and punishments inflicted on political prisoners.
Provea said that October was the month with the greatest repression in Venezuela since the most recent diplomatic dispute between Caracas and Washington began, with 54 arrests for political reasons, with the majority of those detained linked to the Vente Venezuela party, run by opposition leader María Corina Machado.
The Committee of Mothers in Defense of Truth announced that at least 99 political prisoners, who had been detained in the repression following the rigged 2024 elections, were released in Venezuela this week, which was confirmed by Chavista authorities.
This is, however, a small portion of the total number of people arrested for political reasons in the country: a report by the NGO Foro Penal showed that as of the 15th, there were 902 people detained for this reason in Venezuela.
