Venezuela is not, and never will be, a protectorate of the United States or any other power.
Venezuela is not, and never will be, a protectorate of the United States or any other power.
By Freddy Ñáñez, Venezuelan Minister of Communication
The following is a statement delivered by the poet Freddy Ñáñez , Minister of Communication of Venezuela, to the World Poetry Movement, on January 11, 2026, published in spanish here. Translation by UWI.
“Every era has its fascism: its warning signs are evident everywhere. (…) It denies citizens the possibility and the capacity to express and act upon their own will. This is achieved in many ways, and not necessarily through fear of police intimidation; but by denying or distorting information, contaminating justice.”
— Primo Levi
I.
From Venezuela, I send fraternal greetings and deep gratitude to the leadership of the World Poetry Movement, and especially to the poet Fernando Rendón, whose active and unwavering solidarity has accompanied the Venezuelan people throughout the entire Bolivarian process. This solidarity has not been mere rhetoric: it has been presence, listening, shared words, and ethical commitment.
Many of the poets who are part of this movement have visited my country. They have walked its streets, shared time with its people, and witnessed firsthand that Venezuela is a peaceful and hospitable nation, cultured and sensitive, deeply committed to the just causes of humanity. They have seen that we pose no threat to any country in the region, much less to a nuclear power like the United States, which in 2015 infamously declared Venezuela an “unusual and extraordinary threat.”
Yes, we are a socialist revolution. And we are also a democracy governed by a constitution born from popular debate and ratified by the people’s vote in 1999 with the support of 71.78% of the electorate, constituting one of the broadest national consensuses in our history. Our democracy is direct and participatory, organized into five branches of government and profoundly different from Western regimes based on forms of indirect representation. In twenty-six years of the Bolivarian Revolution, twenty-eight electoral processes have been held, including two national referendums.
Since 2024, popular consultations have been reactivated to allow communities to directly decide on their development projects. However, from the very beginning of this process, the major corporate media outlets and the political elites that govern Europe and the United States have insisted on portraying Venezuela as an authoritarian and dictatorial regime. This narrative is not political: it is economic.
Venezuela possesses the world’s largest certified oil reserves, vast reserves of gas, gold, coltan, copper, and silver, as well as immense biodiversity, large reserves of fresh water, and a privileged geostrategic position. Since the triumph of our republican independence, led by the great Simón Bolívar, and the subsequent fall of the Spanish empire on the continent, this territory has been one of the most coveted by world powers.
And this is the only reason why for more than two decades there has been an attempt to delegitimize, isolate and criminalize the Venezuelan State: to prepare world public opinion to justify any form of dispossession disguised as democracy, human rights and freedom: the same pretexts that were used to invade Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya to give just 3 examples.
Over the past one hundred years, Hugo Chávez Frías and Nicolás Maduro Moros have been the presidents who most firmly defended national sovereignty and openly opposed the Monroe Doctrine of U.S. imperialism, promoting Latin American and Caribbean integration as a greater homeland of shared development. From this impetus emerged organizations such as CELAC, UNASUR, and ALBA.
Venezuelan history offers a long list of presidents, from different ideological currents, overthrown for this same reason: oil. Cipriano Castro was overthrown in 1908; Isaías Medina Angarita in 1945; the writer and president Rómulo Gallegos, in 1948. Hugo Chávez was overthrown in 2002 and reinstated just twenty-four hours later by the people mobilized in the streets.
President Nicolás Maduro Moros has been the target of economic sabotage, blockade campaigns, coup attempts in 2017 and 2020, an assassination attempt, culminating in his illegal and criminal kidnapping on January 3, 2026.
II.
The criminal bombing, accompanied by cyber and electromagnetic attacks that culminated in the illegal kidnapping of the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro Moros, and his wife, the First Lady and Deputy Cilia Flores, must be understood as the culmination of a long process of interference, conspiracy and sabotage directed by the United States government since at least 2019.
During President Donald Trump’s first term, a policy of open hostility against Venezuela was implemented. Sanctions imposed on the oil industry reduced national revenues by more than 99%, generating a devastating impact on the social life and human rights of the Venezuelan people. This economic siege is one of the structural causes of the Venezuelan diaspora to Latin America, Europe, and North America.
These measures did not act in isolation. They were accompanied by covert CIA operations, USAID funding of right-wing and far-right elements, and multiple assassination attempts against President Nicolás Maduro, including Operation Gideon and the first-ever attack using explosive drones against a head of state: unprecedented events in contemporary political history.
Simultaneously, a parallel government was promoted whose sole function was the illegal plundering of the Republic’s assets: Venezuelan gold held in UK banks, funds blocked in Portugal, and strategic companies such as CITGO in the United States and Monómeros in Colombia.
These events form an integral part of the record of the illegal bombing perpetrated against the city of Caracas on January 3, 2026, which cost the lives of Venezuelan and Cuban military personnel and innocent civilians, left more than a hundred seriously injured, and caused severe damage to health, scientific, and residential infrastructure. I want to highlight the attack on the Dialysis Unit in La Guaira state as a war crime.
What happened that day constitutes one of the most serious violations of the national sovereignty of a Latin American country in recent history and reflects the collapse of international law as a regulatory framework for coexistence among nations. The world is thus entering an era of geopolitical obscurantism, where law is replaced by force, and the barbarity of the most powerful seeks to impose itself as the norm.
With this exposé, we refute the narratives emanating from the same hegemonic centers that for twenty-six years stigmatized the Bolivarian Revolution and that today attempt to justify this atrocity. In Venezuela, there was neither betrayal nor surrender. There was resistance and dignity in the face of an excessive and cowardly aggression.
In the early hours of January 3, 2026, President Nicolás Maduro Moros decided to avert a massacre and confront the aggression through legal, diplomatic, and political means, in strict adherence to international law. It was not a surrender, but a historic act of responsibility.
III.
On August 19, 2025, the United States government shocked the world with a disproportionate military deployment in the Caribbean, mobilizing submarine fleets and gunships in an unprecedented operation of intimidation against the countries of the region and against the sovereignty of Venezuela in particular.
This deployment was accompanied by a weak and implausible narrative that attempted to link the Venezuelan state to the so-called “Cartel of the Suns.” As documents from international organizations and U.S. agencies demonstrate, Venezuela has never been a significant player in international drug trafficking. There are no drug crops, airstrips, or cartel-like infrastructure on its territory. Ninety-five percent of the drugs entering the United States and Europe transit through the Pacific Ocean, not the Caribbean. For more than fifteen years, Venezuela has been an active and consistent country in the fight against illicit drug trafficking. In 2025 alone, 40 aircraft originating from Colombia were intercepted, and nearly 70 tons of drugs destined for U.S. and European markets were seized. That said, it is worth emphasizing that fentanyl, which, according to U.S. health agencies themselves, is the drug with the greatest negative impact on the U.S. population, is not produced in Venezuela—nor has it ever been.
The alleged “Cartel of the Suns” constitutes another false positive, a propaganda and false flag operation aimed at justifying illegal military actions such as those perpetrated against Venezuela, and others that could be carried out against Mexico, Colombia, Nicaragua, Cuba or any country that the U.S. government wants.
The narrative surrounding the Cartel of the Suns has been previously challenged by US agencies and dismissed as a legal case just 24 hours after President Nicolás Maduro Moros appeared before New York courts. High-ranking officials within the US government itself have acknowledged that such a cartel does not exist. Adding to the scandal, the US president has publicly and brazenly admitted that his primary interest in Venezuela is oil.
IV.
As Vice President for Communication and Culture, and as a poet and active member of this organization, I certify that, following the criminal bombing of the city of Caracas, the Bolivarian Government remains in power, upholding the constitutional order. In accordance with the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, it is the responsibility of Executive Vice President Delcy Rodríguez to assume the Interim Presidency, recognizing that the only legitimate President of Venezuela is Nicolás Maduro Moros, who is being held captive in the United States and subjected to a spurious and illegal trial. He and his wife, Congresswoman Cilia Flores, are prisoners of war in the 21st century.
Their release has become a cause for national unity and the primary vindication of our sovereignty and our political rights as a nation. Today, Nicolás Maduro Moros and his wife, Congresswoman Cilia Flores, are symbols of struggle, as Mandela was in his time. Today, we wage alongside them a diplomatic, political, and legal battle that embodies the fundamental cause of our country and that must call for the active solidarity of the Global South, threatened by the new imperial doctrine. Polls conducted in the United States itself show that over 70% of its population rejects the military operations against Venezuela and the kidnapping of its President. This demonstrates that the military operation was a tactical victory and, at the same time, a strategic defeat, since both the false narrative against Venezuela and the accusations against our President have collapsed, revealing the true cause of this political and war crime: it has always been the thirst for oil that motivates the Democratic and Republican governments of the United States to discredit and attack our noble Republic morally, politically, economically, and militarily.
We call upon humanity to understand the gravity of the historical moment we are living through. This time demands active participation and vigilant awareness from all people—and especially from intellectuals, artists, and poets—in the face of what constitutes an act of barbarism against a country and a threat to the world system. Today, Greenland is in the crosshairs.
Venezuela is not, and never will be, a protectorate of the United States or any other power. All the agreements discussed after the attacks had been previously proposed by President Nicolás Maduro Moros, who consistently insisted on dialogue and a political and diplomatic solution to the military threat. It was Donald Trump who, in 2019, imposed oil sanctions and forced American companies to leave Venezuela, as was evident in the most recent meeting at the White House with oil companies. It was Donald Trump who imposed a trade blockade on Venezuela and prevented American companies from operating in our country. It was Donald Trump who, during his first term, refused to recognize republican institutions and shut down dialogue with our government, creating a parallel, puppet government headed by a national agent named Juan Guaidó. Everything that President Trump now tries to portray as a victory could have been resolved with a phone call, as is expected of civilized governments governed by modern values and legal mechanisms. One hundred Venezuelan and Cuban soldiers should not have died, more than one hundred civilians should not have been wounded, dozens of American soldiers should not have been injured, nor should continental peace have been jeopardized. It was supremacist arrogance that prevailed and crossed the red lines of what is morally acceptable and legally tolerable.
Dear poets, these are the facts. This is the truth. The Venezuelan people will never surrender. President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, will never surrender to modern fascism, and we have entered a new phase of our struggle: Bolivarian diplomacy for peace.
The challenge we face today is not only Venezuelan, but Latin American, Caribbean and human: to defend the truth and restore respect for the self-determination of peoples.
It’s time to wake up.