01/11/2026
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To my friends: will be free, even if you don't like
By: Isaac Nahón-Serfaty
Professor
University of Ottawa
Venezuelans demonstrated in Ottawa for the freedom of their country. In contrast, Venezuelans who still live in Venezuela under a regime of terror cannot go out to protest in the streets. If they do, they risk being detained, repressed, or even murdered by the paramilitary gangs of the Chavista regime. In Venezuela, people live in fear. They are stopped on the streets to have their cell phones checked. Venezuelan National Guard members ask people for five or ten dollars because they say they haven't eaten. Journalists cannot report. If they do, they are detained and threatened. Their work equipment is taken away: cameras, recorders, cell phones.
Venezuela has lived under an autocratic regime for 26 years. Hugo Chávez, the father of this disaster, began the destruction of the country from the moment he took office in 1999. The signs of destruction are visible in every sector of Venezuelan society. What was once an efficient national oil industry, PDVSA, is now a company reduced to ashes. Corruption has reached surreal levels. One of its presidents, Tarek El Aissami, stole 25 billion dollars (yes, I'm not exaggerating; it's a figure acknowledged by the Chavista regime itself). Now he has disappeared. It's unknown whether he's imprisoned or has fled Venezuela. As with everything related to the judiciary, his arrest and supposed prosecution have been opaque.
Venezuela has had thousands of political prisoners. The regime operates a "revolving door" system: it releases some, imprisons others (and also re-imprisons those it previously released). Prisoners have suffered mistreatment and torture. Many have died in prison, murdered by the regime or left to their fate without medical assistance. Others have been blackmailed. They are charged 400 dollars a week to sleep on a mattress and have a fan. There are known cases of political prisoners who have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to secure their freedom.
In Venezuela, a mafia has ruled where military personnel, police, paramilitary groups, Colombian guerrillas from the ELN and FARC, criminal gangs, and politicians are all mixed together. They have trafficked drugs, gold extracted from southern Venezuela (destroying the Venezuelan Amazon), oil on an international black market (charging for their illegal sales in cryptocurrencies). They have trafficked people and maintained prostitution networks.
More than 8 million Venezuelans have left the country. They are scattered around the world, sometimes living in very difficult conditions. 25% of the country's population has left due to the economic and political crisis caused by Chavismo. Venezuela has experienced hyperinflation and the devaluation of its currency. A bolívar today is worth nothing. Prices in Venezuela are dollarized. The vast majority of Venezuelans cannot afford most basic basket products. Some receive a food bag provided by the regime. It has been reported countless times that these foods are rotten and do not meet minimum hygiene and quality standards.
Venezuela is a paradise for money laundering by all the world's criminal groups. Billions from drug trafficking, corruption, and all kinds of shady businesses circulate in Venezuela under the guise of shopping malls, stores, constructions, luxurious Ferraris, and sales of expensive jewelry and watches. In Venezuela, there is a nomenclature that lives like the rich (and calls itself "socialist"), while the vast majority of the poor cannot eat properly or access decent medical services.
In Venezuela, there is no academic freedom. University professors are in prison for expressing their opinions. The system of public autonomous universities has been destroyed. A university professor earns less than 10 dollars a month.
Venezuela has been a country occupied by Russians, Chinese, Cubans, and Iranians. It has also been infiltrated by terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, whose financing networks operate in many businesses that have multiplied in Venezuela, and also on Margarita Island.
And yes, Donald Trump ordered the military attack on Venezuela and the arrest of Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores, accused of narco-terrorism.
Venezuelans tried every peaceful and democratic avenue to escape the shameful Chavista regime. On July 28, 2024, they turned out en masse to vote for Edmundo González as president, in a ticket with María Corina Machado as vice president. The Chavista regime stole the election shamelessly. They never showed the official results. Instead, the opposition was able to collect all the voting records and proved that fraud had been committed. Maduro was an illegitimate president, as is Delcy Rodríguez, his vice president, who has been sworn in as acting president.
Know this, Canadian friends: Delcy Rodríguez and her brother Jorge Rodríguez (president of the Venezuelan parliament) are part of the Chavista mafia. It seems they have now decided to obey the orders of Donald Trump and Marco Rubio. They do it to save their own skin. They don't want to suffer the same fate as Maduro and his wife (the "first lady" is a true mafia boss).
Yes, it's true that Donald Trump is shaking up world politics. I understand that there are many questions and concerns. Venezuelans couldn't wait any longer. It is possible that the U.S. military-police operation on Caracas and other parts of the country is the beginning of the end of the criminal Chavista regime. The vast majority of Venezuelans want it that way. And it could also represent the beginning of the end of the communist dictatorship that oppresses Cubans. Venezuelans want to be free and don't want to live in fear. We've ended up with Trump as an ally. Venezuelans have the right to live a better life.
