Venezuelans self‑censor because of US power: ‘Now I don’t know whether I should fear the CIA’

The phrase is exaggerated, but it conveys a shared feeling: “I used to be afraid of the SEBIN [Bolivarian National Intelligence Service] and now I don’t know whether I should fear the CIA.” An opposition lawmaker utters it on a hot September morning in Caracas, and it reflects a growing fear among politicians, journalists, businesspeople and human rights advocates. The power of the United States in Venezuela and its support for Delcy Rodríguez’s government leaves them bewildered and cautious. Just as repression for saying what you think was beginning to ease, a new fear has arisen: crossing the interests of the world’s preeminent power. Visas, project funding and the risk of ostracism are at stake.

“There’s panic about publishing anything against the United States,” warns a Venezuelan human rights defender in exile. “The fear of speaking extends even to private meetings. Nobody knows who might be an informant,” says the source, who asked to remain anonymous. “The embassy is compiling files on people who have criticized the U.S. tutelage. And it has moved to prevent protests at its premises,” they add.

Since January 3, when Delta Force captured Nicolás Maduro in the early morning hours, Venezuela has lived under Washington’s forced tutelage. Vice President Delcy Rodríguez assumed power with the backing of Donald Trump, and since then there has been greater freedom, some advances in the country’s redemocratization, major oil deals and an opening to the world. But that opening coexists with a paradox: many Venezuelans expected that Maduro’s fall would also hasten the end of Chavismo, yet Trump has decided not only to keep Rodríguez in power, but to prop her up.

The result is a country tutored by the United States, where criticizing a decision by Rodríguez is, in effect, like criticizing Washington. A country where criticizing U.S. oversight can bring a subtle call from the embassy in Caracas. Or worse: direct warnings urging the most critical and influential to tone down their rhetoric.

Years of repression under Chavismo taught Venezuelans a lesson they now apply to the new power: it’s better to stay silent. “At a moment when we’re supposedly in a transition, that’s when proposals on justice and all that remains to be done should be on the table. And those proposals publicly do not exist,” laments the exiled activist.

The clearest example of what angers people yet remains unspoken is the opaque oil agreement signed a few weeks ago. Its terms — largely unknown — have provoked controversy, although both governments defend it, with nuances but without cracks. And many of its critics, such as María Corina Machado, have had to perform extraordinary balancing acts to question it without those criticisms being read as a direct attack on the United States. “The real scope of this agreement is still not known — who signed it, what is actually being signed, who puts up the money, who provides guarantees, how it benefits Venezuelans,” the opposition leader limited herself to saying, directing her reservations at the legitimacy of Rodríguez’s “regime” to negotiate the country’s resources, not at Washington.

Machado is not the only one avoiding a clash with the White House, in whose hands her political future rests. The more moderate opposition is also trying to redefine its message within this unexpected framework. “Is it tutelage or a partnership?” asks the lawmaker who says he is wary of the CIA. “Now you have to rethink how to attack Chavismo: attacking from an anti‑Trump left has no path to victory. You have to do it from the social left,” he explains.

Business leaders have also again measured their comments. After years of silence, January 3 brought new hope of freedom, but it remains difficult for economic actors to speak out by name. “In general terms, everyone feels fear,” one of them says. What do they fear? “That we won’t be taken into account, that we’ll be sidelined or that we’ll have visa problems. There are so many fears that you don’t know anymore. Nobody criticizes the United States at all.”

And they have plenty of reason to feel that way: the U.S. intervention generated huge expectations that have yet to be met. Venezuelans’ economic capacity remains a disaster and even the most privileged have not yet seen reciprocal treatment. “We’re jointly projecting an economy, in quotation marks, that’s growing. But what about the visas?” questions a source in the oil sector. “A Venezuelan professional who needs to go to Houston for business has, at best, to apply for a trainee visa because they won’t give them a proper one. We are an appendage of the United States with many obligations and very few rights.”

Pressure has been explicit in human rights circles. When relatives of political prisoners planned a vigil in front of the embassy, officials from the diplomatic mission called several committees to ask them to refrain from participating. The episode split the movement: the best-known faces from previous years pulled back, and today other faces lead the mobilizations, says an actor involved in those claims.

A State Department spokesperson answered EL PAÍS’s questions: “Those anonymous sources are wrong. The State Department, including our embassy in Caracas, is focused exclusively on advancing the three‑phase plan for stabilization, economic recovery, reconciliation and Venezuela’s democratic transition. From the return of Venezuelans who had been in exile, to the release of former political prisoners, to commercial contracts that will inject billions of dollars into the Venezuelan economy, and the measures recently announced to expand press freedom in Venezuela. The Trump Administration’s plan continues to deliver results.”

“The human rights movement is absolutely self‑censoring for three reasons. One is because we all want to have some channel of communication with authorities in the U.S. to pass messages and nobody wants to put those channels at risk. Another is the fear that your visa will be revoked, which is how Venezuelans travel. And the third is that you won’t be financed,” the activist explains. “So we’ve traded the arepa gag for the hamburger gag,” they say wryly, referring to the nickname used to describe Chavista censorship.

Venezuelan journalists also carry years of having survived as best they could: exile, media closures, jail, censorship. There are still almost 200 internet domains — mostly media outlets — that remain blocked in the country, a figure that has only begun to fall in the past week despite the opening attributed to Rodríguez’s government. On top of that fear, a new one is added. “I haven’t seen levels of self‑censorship this strong in a long time,” a journalist in exile tells EL PAÍS.

While Trump talks about Venezuela as if it were the 51st state, the country remains subject to economic sanctions and is included on the list of partial entry restrictions to the United States, alongside nations such as Burundi. While Trump claims Venezuelans are dancing in the streets with joy, those who fled the country and entered the U.S. now risk being deported to Liberia, as happened to a group of migrants last August. “What is happening with migration policies in places like Doral, Florida, where there is a large Venezuelan community, is unacceptable,” said lawmaker Henrique Capriles, the only politician to comment on the persecution Venezuelans face in the United States. Neither the opposition generally, nor María Corina Machado in particular, nor Delcy Rodríguez’s government have said a word about it.

“More than self‑censorship, it’s that nobody wants to fight with the United States,” Capriles admits to EL PAÍS. “At the start of the year, many people spoke well of Trump because he took Maduro away, but today the question is: where is the oil money? Why haven’t people’s living conditions improved with so many multimillion‑dollar deals? We haven’t yet entered into open confrontation from the opposition, but what is happening in Doral, Florida, with Venezuelans is terrible and we cannot remain silent,” the lawmaker insists. “This is not about confronting the U.S., it’s about raising your voice when it’s appropriate.”

The image of the United States in Venezuela is in crisis, something that worries Trump’s circle as midterm elections in November approach. This was laid bare by a message accidentally sent a few days ago in the U.S. embassy’s WhatsApp group with journalists. The text — an internal summary of media reaction — analyzed Marco Rubio’s interview with Venezuelan presenter Sergio Novelli, who is followed both by the diaspora and by audiences inside the country. Rubio sought to dampen criticism of the oil agreement: he stressed that the pact is with the private NABEP — of Alejandro Betancourt — and not with the “regime,” and he promised free elections with no date.

Rubio became trending topic, but between 70% and 75% of the comments on social media were critical. Most viewed the message as “damage control” and suspected the agreement benefits those close to power rather than the country. The leak confirmed what was already suspected: that there continues to be continuous monitoring of what is said and done in Venezuela.

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