Brief arrest rocks Venezuela as Maduro targets opposition

Before María Corina Machado was arrested by Nicolás Maduro’s regime in Venezuela Thursday, her reemergence in public offered a powerful reminder of the opposition campaign she led this past summer. 

Her supporters handed her rosaries and shouted chants of “liberty” as she climbed to the top of a truck at an anti-Maduro rally and waved the nation’s flag. It had been more than four months since Machado went into hiding after Maduro’s contested win in the July 28 election.

Minutes later, there was a harsh snap back to reality when her party said she was attacked by the regime while leaving the event. Then, her stand-in candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, said she had been taken by government security forces. 

Though Machado was released within two hours, the arrest marks a significant escalation by the autocratic ruler, who has embarked on the most repressive months yet of his years in power. During that time, her party said weapons were fired and she was forced to record several videos. 

“The fact María Corina is free doesn’t minimise the fact of what happened, that she was violently kidnapped,” González Urrutia said on X.

The incident prompted the first public comments on the disputed election from Donald Trump. The incoming US president, in a post on his Truth Social platform, joined Joe Biden’s outgoing administration in recognising González Urrutia as Venezuela’s rightful leader and said he and Machado “MUST stay SAFE and ALIVE!” 

Machado said later in a post on X that she is now in a “safe place” and that she plans to address the nation on Friday, setting the stage for her to tell her side of the story as Maduro takes office.

At least 17 people were detained during Thursday’s rallies according to Caracas-based human rights group Foro Penal. 

“Everything we’ve built has prepared us for this final stage,” Machado told the crowd earlier Thursday, before her detention. “Have no doubt that tomorrow, whatever they do, marks the start of the end for the regime.”

She hung the handfuls of rosaries from her supporters around her neck, and chanted “we’re not afraid!” Venezuela Sin Filtro, a non-governmental organisation that monitors connectivity, reported that social media networks like X and TikTok were being blocked by internet providers to censor her message.

The 57-year-old opposition leader last appeared in public on August 28, a month after the election the United States, the European Union and other nations say was rightfully won by González Urrutia.

Maduro, who was declared the winner by the electoral authority without presenting evidence, intends to take office Friday despite international condemnation. González Urrutia, who showed proof that he obtained nearly 70 percent of the vote, has vowed to return to the country for the inauguration despite the government’s threats to arrest him upon arrival.

In recent months, Maduro has jailed thousands of his critics and purged what’s left  of the opposition from the country. It’s been Maduro’s attempt to destroy the energised citizen movement Machado created and the once-fractured opposition party she united. 

Regime forces dressed in riot gear used tear gas to try and disperse the crowds elsewhere in Caracas, Maracaibo and Valencia on Thursday, according to local media reports. Crowds held the national banner, honked horns and blew whistles, with some screaming “This government is going to fall.” 

Venezuelans around the world also participated in rallies, including in neighbouring Colombia, where hundreds met in the capital of Bogotá. People carried signs saying “my feet are in Colombia but my head is in Venezuela” and “Venezuela Libre,” while holding tallies of the July vote. 

Among them was Jimmy Torres, a retired army general who in 2014 was imprisoned for five years and three months after taking a photo of an opposition protest. “I’m here to give a voice to all political prisoners in Venezuela because I was one — I was tortured,” he said in an interview. “I’m here because I am convinced Edmundo González [Urrutia] can become our legitimate president tomorrow.”

Other cities to host opposition rallies included London, Amsterdam, Madrid and Miami, with crowds chanting “Until the End,” one of Machado’s mottoes, and other slogans.  

In Venezuela, pro-government motorcycle gangs known as colectivos, which usually cruise around to intimidate people at opposition gatherings, were active Thursday in some parts of Caracas and other cities. Public transportation was scarce, and schools and many businesses were closed.

Tensions have increased across the country in the lead-up to the presidential inauguration, with the regime launching a fresh wave of repression against dissidents. At least two dozen people have been detained since the start of the year. 

Biden’s administration recognised González Urrutia as president-elect in November. The former diplomat spent the last week rallying support for the opposition’s claim to power, meeting with Biden at the White House as well with heads of state in Argentina, Uruguay and Panama before arriving in the Dominican Republic on Wednesday.

From there, González Urrutia intends to fly into Venezuela accompanied by about a dozen former presidents of Latin American nations. Diosdado Cabello, Maduro’s hardline interior minister, said earlier this week the plane would be shot down.

Unfazed by the threat, González Urrutia expressed gratitude for the support he’s received across Latin American. “We’ll see each other very soon in Caracas, in freedom,” he said before meeting Dominican President Luis Abinader earlier Thursday.