I’m not saying anything new when I say that January 3, 2026, marked a turning point in Venezuelan history. The problem arises from the different interpretations that have been made of that event. And now, almost six months later, another shocking event has impacted the lives of Venezuelans. In both cases, death has visited the homes of dozens of citizens.
One of the most notable differences is that before January 3, the responsibility for managing the country was exercised by the constitutional government of Venezuela, while the United States put all its economic, military, financial, scientific, political and diplomatic potential into destroying the Venezuelan State in order to seize its wealth.
But now, with the establishment of an irregular protectorate in the country on January 3rd—a status defined by Charles Rousseau in his book “Public International Law,” which states that this status “implies a distribution of powers between the two states concerned”—that situation has changed. Consequently, following the June 24th earthquake, the Venezuelan government immediately began to act—according to its capabilities—to confront this terrible act of nature.
But the other side has failed to fulfill its role. Firstly, it was unable to prevent the chaotic and disorderly influx of people to La Guaira, driven by a noble sentiment characteristic of the Venezuelan people. On the contrary, its communication channels and networks—both in Venezuela and abroad—fueled this chaos. The government, acting swiftly and systematically, took immediate measures: it established a unified registration and control center at the Poliedro de Caracas to organize volunteers and humanitarian aid vehicles, militarized La Guaira state to facilitate rescue operations, and cleared the roads to facilitate the arrival of aid.
In this way, it demonstrated an operational capacity on the ground that the “protecting” power lacks. Thus, conditions were created to unleash the natural and intrinsic solidarity of the Venezuelan people, which has multiplied as never before and as always.
Contrary to what the media has been saying, there is no shortage of supplies in the hospitals, which were immediately stocked with reserves intended for such emergencies. Dr. Mauro Herrera, cardiologist and head of the hemodynamics service at the José M. Vargas Hospital in Caracas, told me that “we are working very hard, and fortunately we have no supply problems, which is the most important thing.” Within this framework, all public health centers were activated to attend to the affected population nationwide, with special emphasis on the states with the highest incidence. Likewise, an agreement was signed between the State and the Association of Private Clinics of the Capital Region for triage, evaluation, and hospitalization of earthquake victims, with these private institutions handling the care while the State covers the costs of treatment.
The United States hasn’t done any of this because it lacks the capacity. While institutions are working behind the scenes, Washington’s “chicks” are fomenting and generating chaos through influencers and TikTokers who try to go to La Guaira to take photos, like the Dutch private company official who can be heard saying “take my picture” while handing over ONE bottle of water. It is the national government that has the capacity to control and manage the situation, which is an important fact for confronting and resolving the current crisis, but also for keeping in mind the future struggles that will arise when the conditions are right to shake off the protectorate.
The force of nature manifested this time as an unprecedented event of two almost simultaneous earthquakes that have hit the country hard and tested its territorial defense system through the joint action of the armed forces, the police, the militia and the popular, communal and social grassroots organizations through the Regions and Zones of Integral Defense that have mobilized to respond to the disaster.
It has become clear that the United States, the supposed protector power, only came to steal Venezuela’s resources. Its president has made this clear: “They are making more money than they have ever made, they have never made the money they are making now. Aside from the earthquake, people are happily dancing in the streets.” You can’t expect more from a pedophile, brothel owner, and child murderer.
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) estimates the damage at $6.7 billion, although the institution warns that the total cost of a catastrophe is usually calculated to be between 1.5 and 3 times the value of the direct damages.
As of today, July 1st, official information indicates that the death toll is 2,295, with 11,267 injured. An additional 12,841 people have been affected. It was also reported that 855 buildings have sustained damage, of which 189 have completely collapsed and 666 have suffered partial collapse or serious structural damage.
Trump has promised $300 million for Venezuela. That, in addition to the $500 million they’ve already given since January, represents only 10% of what has been stolen since the beginning of the year. This is on top of a figure that varies between $4 billion and $22 billion in Venezuelan assets held or seized abroad, depending on the accounting method used, including funds blocked by sanctions.
It has also come to light that Trump sent 900 military personnel, but only 300 of them are rescue workers. Two warships also arrived in Venezuela: the USS Fort Lauderdale and the USS Billings, equipped with considerable firepower but lacking any capacity to confront natural disasters like the one that has struck Venezuela. No one has seen the American rescue workers; their only public presence has been to obstruct the efforts of those actually working, which forced the direct intervention of Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello. In reality, the United States’ interventionist action is linked to the effort to seize and control the Simón Bolívar Airport and the port of La Guaira.
Simultaneously, they have made effective the presence of the 82nd Airborne Division, which, together with the 101st Airborne Division, constitutes the main US interventionist force in the world. Its history shows that it has acted militarily in the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Panama, and Haiti, as well as Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, and Kosovo, among other countries—none of which received humanitarian aid, but rather bullets and shrapnel. Its only experience in disaster management in its 109 years of existence was in Florida during Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and in New Orleans in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina. This means that this is the first time it has formally left US territory for a mission other than an invasion of another country, which, at the very least, is suspicious, given its history.
On the other hand, it has come to light that an Israeli “rescue team” has arrived in Venezuela, which should be expelled from the country immediately if the government has the authority to do so. No one can assume that those who transformed Gaza into a city under rubble with the force of their bombs and who have murdered more than 30,000 Palestinian, Lebanese, and Iranian children have any interest in saving Venezuelan children and helping to rebuild the country. Those damned Zionist murderers should not be welcome in Venezuela because they come with no good intentions.
In another sphere, as is natural to the human condition, while many people are dedicated to building, others are intent on destroying the work of the majority. A network of mass media outlets (as President Putin defined them), like scavengers feeding on decay, shamelessly lie about the disaster in Venezuela simply to increase advertising sales.
It’s notorious how the Spanish fascist newspaper ABC, a propagandist for Franco’s dictatorship and an extreme sycophant of Hitler himself, pretends to represent reason and truth. Meanwhile, the “liberal” New York Times turns yellow to spread disinformation. It’s used to this. It doesn’t matter what the government’s political orientation is: on September 2, 2005, after Katrina, they ran the headline “Criticism of Bush’s Response to Storm,” and on March 12, 2012: “Critics Argue Japan Disaster Was Inevitable.” These know-it-alls, who place themselves above humanity and whose only concern is profiting from human suffering, are part of the modern media garbage and the pernicious scourge that aims to contaminate people’s minds in order to later dominate them.
The truth lies in the facts. We Venezuelans remember the words of our Liberator after the earthquake of March 26, 1812, which destroyed all of La Guaira and a good part of Caracas at that time. That day, after surveying the rubble in the city center, Bolívar said: “If nature opposes us, we will fight against it and make it obey us,” even if—as some say—in this case, nature’s action was motivated by the development of the High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) of the United States armed forces, whose objective is to cause droughts, hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes as a new weapon of mass destruction to be used by the United States’ interventionist policy in the world.