I've often been asked if current events in Venezuela bring me satisfaction. My response is not simply to counter others. I seek to invite deeper understanding. This is more than a personal feeling; it is about what many Venezuelans are truly experiencing and need.

When Venezuelans express relief at the idea of Maduro no longer being in power, it is often met with immediate correction: "This isn't about freedom, it's about Trump and oil." Don't worry — we know about that reality. We are not naive about geopolitics.

We also know the United States is not alone. Other countries already have deep economic and strategic stakes in Venezuela. We have watched as the government gifted or sold oil at preferential rates to favoured countries, at our loss. No one seemed to oppose this, or perhaps few people knew. 26 years of suffering and injustice in Venezuela have been reduced to one topic: OIL.

We're frequently reminded that foreign interference violates international law. We know this and don't dispute it; we would have much preferred, as we have tried for so long, a legal solution from within.

We're also warned that things could get worse; we know this and live with that fear daily. We know the U.S. history of intervention in Latin America. We studied it.

It is difficult to hear that Venezuela's collapse is said to be solely the result of sanctions and embargoes. That narrative is incomplete and factually inaccurate. But I am not talking about statistics; I am talking about humanity. If sanctions alone were to blame, it would be comforting, as it would allow us to place all the responsibility outside ourselves. But the truth is more painful. Venezuela's collapse began long before the sanctions. By the time they were implemented, part of the 7.7 million Venezuelans, nearly a quarter of the population, had already fled. This is not conjecture; it is lived experience.

What we are witnessing is the result of authoritarianism, unchecked power, ideological rigidity, ego, and the deliberate weaponization of social resentment. It is poor leadership, poor strategy and a profound misreading of Venezuela's geopolitical reality — one that ignored well-documented facts from Latin America's own history.

It's complicated and painful to be considered a suspect for wanting freedom from a dictator.

Fair analysis is far more complex. It is essential to distinguish between the illegality of foreign interference and the unbearable reality of internal tyranny. Both truths — external intervention being illegal and internal oppression being intolerable — can coexist and must be separately recognized.

Throughout our 26-year history of Chavismo, there have been various opposition leaders with different views and strategies. One person's position or opinion today does not represent an entire nation. Most Venezuelans want Maduro out, but that does NOT mean endorsing foreign intervention or sacrificing sovereignty or principles. However, after twenty-six years of repression, hunger, fear, and loss, people may long for freedom by any means. When survival is at stake, ideology and legality fade. People make imperfect, risky, morally fraught choices — not out of a lack of love for country, but because desperation narrows the options. When the force suffocating you comes from your own government, it cuts deeper. It fractures trust, dignity, and hope at the most intimate level.

If you hope to understand Venezuela more deeply, I invite you to research and reflect on what has happened in our country over the past 26 years. The story is long and complex:

  • Thousands of protests and marches met with violent repression
  • Student-led demonstrations crushed with lethal force, leading to arrests, disappearances, and deaths
  • Elections systematically manipulated
  • Constitutional changes designed to entrench power
  • Political opponents imprisoned, tortured, exiled, or killed
  • Protester deaths at the hands of state forces
  • Widespread political repression by security and intelligence agencies
  • Massive government and military corruption
  • Journalists silenced, jailed, killed, or forced into exile; independent media dismantled or absorbed by the state
  • One of the world's most significant displacement crises: over 7.7 million Venezuelans forced to flee hunger, persecution, and violence

And what is most dangerous, in my opinion, is divisive rhetoric deliberately weaponized to fracture society from within.

Yes, the history is imperfect. Yes, the opposition is imperfect. And yes, the grief and loss are real.

Today, Venezuelans live in a constant emotional paradox: relief, skepticism, fear, anguish, and a slight ray of hope coexist. We carry pain because we understand the stakes; we hurt for the internal division and the unknown road ahead. Any fair analysis must distinguish between suffering imposed by illegitimate foreign interests and suffering generated from within, giving due consideration to both.

Venezuelans tried repeatedly to resolve this crisis through democratic means: elections, peaceful protests, negotiations, and international mediation. The goal was always to avoid direct foreign intervention. Yet the regime's intransigence, refusal to engage in internal dialogue, and refusal to relinquish power, illegitimately upheld, ultimately handed the country, its legitimacy, its sovereignty and its resources to the very forces they claimed to oppose and despise.

Venezuelans do not know what is to come, but we are well aware that it is rocky and risky, and that we may have much to lose. We worry because Venezuelans know and feel that we are pieces in a larger global game, that our own government has weakened our agency, and that our reality has been reduced to competing narratives that serve interests beyond our people.

Please recognize our core plea: Venezuela is not a case study, but a home to people who want to survive, return, and live in dignity. Our argument is grounded in humanity and lived experiences, not theory.

We have been through much, but we do not lose hope.