“Sometimes, tactical steps are taken. Sometimes, incomprehensible actions may be taken… but, you must know that, just as the enemy has a strategy, we also have one.”
This is how the interim president of Venezuela spoke by telephone, Delcy Rodriguezbefore a group of government officials led by the Minister of Communications, Freddy Ñáñezseven days after the capture of Nicolas Maduro by the US Delta Force.
Delcy’s entire intervention, conveniently filtered for Venezuelan public opinion, revolves around the existence of a plan designed by Maduro himself before his arrest to collaborate with the United States and thus maintain power.
“We are facing a nuclear power,” recalls the president to justify her collaboration, while describing it as unthinkable that Donald Trump decided to bomb Caracas and take Maduro and his wife “as hostages.”
Delcy continually speaks of “strategic prudence”, in a message that, without a doubt, aims to quell rumors of a possible betrayal from within to take over the presidency.
Rumors that have been fueled from the United States, where the Secretary of State, Marco Rubiohas assured that the conversations with Rodríguez go back a long way and that his choice was not at all coincidental and certainly did not involve following any of Maduro’s plans.
The fact that he is speaking to Chavista leaders in a message that sooner or later his followers in the streets were also going to hear makes it necessary to put a certain distance on the veracity of the message.
Delcy may simply be saying what she knows they want to hear and what she senses can keep her in power. Not in vain, he appeals several times to “unity around the revolution.” That is, in this case, the unity around itself.
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Los tres objetivos que, según Delcy, se han fijado durante esta etapa de “resistencia triunfante” son la paz social —en otras palabras, la represión de cualquier pulsión opositora al régimen—, el rescate de los rehenes —en referencia al expresidente y su esposa— y el mantenimiento del poder.
Sin él, Delcy está convencida de que “la revolución desaparecería y sería terrible para los desfavorecidos y los excluidos durante décadas por el puntofijismo”, como conoce el chavismo al régimen de alternancia política anterior a 1999.
Ese aferrarse al poder es lo que habría llevado a Rodríguez a no enfrentarse públicamente con Trump ni con Rubio. No lo considera inteligente. La narración de los momentos posteriores a la captura de Maduro resulta impactante, aunque también un poco confusa: “Nos dieron a Diosdado [Cabello]a Jorge [Rodríguez] and me fifteen minutes to respond. If not, they were going to kill us.”
Delcy assures that from the United States they assured them that Maduro had been killed and this is where the story is unclear. “We told them that we were willing to follow their same fate… and we continue to maintain that now,” he explains.
It is not understood, then, why they said yes to the collaboration. If they were willing to die for the Revolution, why did they resign themselves to American tutelage? What’s more, why do they assure that said resignation is actually a plan woven by Maduro himself?
Delcy’s convenience in Trump’s eyes
The fact that the Trump Administration never considered another option and from the first press conference entrusted Delcy Rodríguez with the management of the country suggests that it was not all that surprising and that the resistance did not require such heavy threats either.
Since then, in fact, and it has been three weeks, there has not been a bad word for the president. On the contrary, Trump does not miss the opportunity to flatter her and thank her for her collaboration.
It’s normal. The United States did not enter Venezuela to restore any democratic order or to fight for freedom. They wanted the oil, as Trump repeated several times during his first intervention, and specifically to finish off Maduro for whatever reasons.
Ideally, Marco Rubio surely wants Chavismo out of power as he wants Castroism out of the Cuba of his parents and grandparents… but “ideal” does not fit much with the mentality of Trump, a rather practical man.
And in that sense, Delcy was a better option than Maria Corina Machado what Edmundo González Urrutia for the mere fact that Delcy, his brother and Diosdado Hair They continue to control the army and, above all, the paramilitary groups that impose their law in the streets.
Placing the opposition in Miraflores would have been the fairest and bravest thing… but it would have required a use of force that the MAGA movement would not have tolerated, since it is drastically opposed to the shedding of American blood in a foreign land.
Delcy Rodríguez, her brother Jorge Rodríguez and Diosdado Cabello.
It is logical, therefore, that Trump, Rubio and the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseththey chose Delcy for the transition… as is logical that Delcy tries to sell a non-existent heroism and distances himself, in front of his base, from the American inference.
The issue is when there can be a democratic process in Venezuela in which all candidates fight on equal terms and the president is elected by the citizens. Not by the paramilitaries and corrupt people, nor by the president of the United States.