The interim Venezuelan government has offered a token trickle of freedom to opposition prisoners since the capture of former dictator Nicolas Maduro, but hundreds remain imprisoned.
Aracelis Del Carmen Balza Ramirez, a leader of the Vente Venezuela opposition party that was arrested in October, was released from prison on Friday. While supporters cheered her newfound freedom, she is only the ninth imprisoned opposition figure to be let go.
Jorge Rodriguez, brother of acting Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, called the release of eight individuals on Thursday a “gesture by the Bolivarian [Venezuelan] government, which is broadly intended to seek peace.”
There is still a long way to go — as many as 800 political prisoners are believed to still be in the custody of the Venezuelan government.
President Donald Trump’s administration continues to praise the Venezuelan government for its cooperation, but U.S. demands for mass amnesty will likely be met with slow progress as Caracas seeks a balance between its supporters and Washington.
Jason Marczak, vice president and senior director at the Atlantic Council’s Latin America Center, told the Washington Examiner that Venezuelan leadership is pressured internally to resist U.S. demands.
“This is a continuity of the Venezuelan regime with a different leader and with a different set of motivating factors,” Marczak explained. “She has to balance the defiance that is critical internally for her survival with the cooperation that is externally critical to survival, and that is the political tight rope that she’s having to walk.”
The scattered releases seem to have at least bought Delcy Rodriguez more time. Trump announced on Thursday that he was pleased with the “important and smart gesture.”
“The U.S.A. and Venezuela are working well together, especially as it pertains to rebuilding, in a much bigger, better, and more modern form, their oil and gas infrastructure,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Because of this cooperation, I have cancelled the previously expected second Wave of Attacks, which looks like it will not be needed, however, all ships will stay in place for safety and security purposes.”
Trump is set to meet with the preeminent leader of the Venezuelan opposition, Maria Corina Machado, next week at the White House. Machado, who is living in exile, has done her best to ingratiate herself with the administration, even offering to give her Nobel Peace Prize to the president.
However, the White House has rebuffed Machado’s aspirations to oversee a transition of governance in Venezuela, with Trump claiming she doesn’t have the necessary “support” or “respect” inside the country.
Marczak told the Washington Examiner that the Trump administration sees the current government — decapitated by the abduction of Maduro — as sufficiently subservient and the complicated process of regime change as too costly.
“It’s going to be an easier lift to keep the basic structure in place and take steps to force the regime to dismantle in some in various areas, rather than coming in and trying to have a full-fledged reboot of the country,” he said.
VENEZUELAN OPPOSITION LEADER MACHADO TO VISIT WHITE HOUSE: TRUMP
Venezuela announced Friday that it is initiating an “exploratory process of a diplomatic nature with the Government of the United States of America, aimed at the re-establishment of diplomatic missions in both countries.”
The same day, an envoy of American diplomats was reportedly in Caracas to discuss reopening a U.S. Embassy.