José Perozo, a 24-year-old Venezuelan, is behind bars again. In 2024, he was arrested during the crackdown on protests against the presidential election results. This time, he had gone out to fill some water jugs at a reservoir near his home in Mariara, Carabobo state, when a patrol car pulled up beside him. They arrested him, put a hood over his head, and took him away. His mother has searched every police station in town without finding him. “How long will this go on? We can’t even go out on the street!” pleads Yuraima Piñero.

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For months, Venezuela’s Chavista regime prepared to die, but not to emerge badly wounded. Of all the scenarios considered during Donald Trump’s offensive against Nicolás Maduro, the president being captured alive wasn’t on anyone’s radar. “I had never held a pistol or a rifle in my life... and I prepared myself [for] months to face any situation that might arise. But [I didn’t expect] this one,” says a prominent member of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), founded by former president Hugo Chávez, who governed from 1999 until his death in 2013.

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Data on the Venezuelan economy had been kept under wraps. But after roughly a decade of statistical silence — interrupted only occasionally by partial releases — the fog has begun to lift in recent weeks as the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) updates historical series on several key indicators. This measure is crucial amidst the economic recovery efforts undertaken by Delcy Rodríguez’s government since the U.S. military intervention. The newly published figures show that inflation reached 32% in January, 14.6% in February, and 13.1% in March. The year‑on‑year rate last month stood at 649.5%.

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At an elite club in northern Bogotá, some fifty Colombian investors listened last Tuesday to a statement that sums up Venezuela’s current economic situation better than any report. It was uttered by Ángel Cárdenas, infrastructure manager at CAF, the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean: “Among investors in the region, the debate is no longer whether the country represents an opportunity or a risk. The question is whether or not you’ve already been to Caracas.” After years of freefall, the country with the world’s largest oil reserves has returned to the global radar.

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The end of the amnesty law in Venezuela, announced by the acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, last week, has left the country with a balance marked by partial relief, controversy, and a sense that the measure fell short.

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It was a bilateral meeting, but a third country had a major interest in what was being discussed. The encounter on Friday April 24, in Caracas between the acting president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, and the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, wrapped with an important statement: the two countries will draw up joint military plans and open mechanisms to share intelligence “immediately.”

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There are two pairs of eyes that have shaped the lives of Venezuelans for more than two decades. Symbolic eyes, once adorning building facades, t-shirts, and the city’s staircases. They were the eyes of Hugo Chávez: a gaze designed to suggest authority, surveillance, omnipresence. A gaze that, even after his death in 2013, remained, as if power no longer needed a body, only presence.

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On a Saturday evening, in an upscale Caracas neighborhood, a bar fills up. Well-dressed men, smelling of cologne, recount their week. Women with sleek hair and long eyelashes take selfies in the bathroom. People on the street talk on their cell phones, engaging in heated discussions about current events, while a DJ spins vinyl records. There are signature cocktails being served. Everything is in its usual place.

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At 8 a.m., the 20 Marines staying at the JW Marriott in Caracas go down for breakfast. It is a unique spectacle. They are between 30 and 40 years old and almost all of them sport a chevron mustache, Freddie-Mercury-style. The tattoos reach the elbow, sometimes the knees. Caps, shorts and T-shirts are emblazoned with slogans that sit oddly in Donald Trump’s war-mongering era. “No war team,” read one of them last week.

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Bogotá, Colombia – Colombian President Gustavo Petro arrived in Caracas today to meet with his counterpart in Venezuela, Interim President Delcy Rodríguez.

The visit makes Petro the first world leader to visit the South American nation since the United States captured longtime strongman Nicolás Maduro in a military operation on January 3.

Petro and Rodríguez are expected to discuss bilateral issues including energy and security cooperation on their more than 1,300 mile shared border. 

The Colombian president landed in Caracas on Friday afternoon with his Foreign Minister, Rosa Yolanda Villavicencio, and Defense Minister, Pedro Sánchez.

The delegation from Bogotá has been meeting with Rodríguez and her Interior Minister, Diosdado Cabello, alongside Foreign Minister Yván Gil at the Palacio de Miraflores – Venezuela’s presidential palace. 

Petro and Rodríguez were scheduled to meet in Cúcuta, a Colombian city bordering Venezuela, in March but the Venezuelan president cancelled at the last minute citing security concerns.

Then last Friday, the Colombian leader announced he would head to Venezuela, saying, “If Mohammed won’t come to me, I’ll go to the mountain.”

The primary purpose of the meeting is strengthening security cooperation, according to the Petro administration.

“The aim of this meeting is for both governments to make progress on a joint plan to strengthen security and intelligence in the border area,” wrote the Office of the President in a post on X today.

The sprawling frontier is a hotbed for guerrilla activity and is largely controlled by the Colombian National Liberation Army (ELN), a rebel group involved in drug trafficking and illegal mining on both sides of the border.

The ELN was known to have ties to the Maduro regime but the Venezuelan government is under pressure from the U.S. to crack down on the rebel group, which Washington considers a “terrorist organization.”

While the Petro administration maintains the importance of strengthening bilateral cooperation, the meeting has perturbed many in the Venezuelan exile community in Colombia. 

“President Gustavo Petro’s visit to Venezuela, particularly his meeting with Delcy Rodríguez, raises serious concerns among Venezuelans,” Juan Carlos Viloria Doria, President of the Global Alliance for Human Rights and Vice-President of Venezuelans in Barranquilla, told Latin America Reports.

He noted that many Venezuelans do not consider Rodríguez to be a legitimate leader, describing her as “an extension of the regime led by Nicolás Maduro.”

“In this regard, such visits can be interpreted as a political endorsement or a form of international legitimization of a situation in Venezuela that still lacks adequate democratic guarantees,” maintained Viloria.

There has also been pressure in Colombia for Petro to mediate the release of 16 Colombian citizens jailed in Venezuela.

The families of those detained allege the arrests were made “without a court order or evidence” and say their loved ones have faced human rights violations including torture. 

While there has been an easing in repression following Maduro’s ouster, Venezuela remains an authoritarian state and rights groups continue to denounce abuses.

“The least that we Venezuelans expect is that [the meeting] be used as an opportunity to demand concrete progress on human rights and democracy,” said Viloria.

“Any dialogue or rapprochement must be aimed at improving the living conditions of the Venezuelan people and fostering a genuinely democratic transition, not at consolidating contested power structures.”

Featured image description: Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Venezuelan Interim President Delcy Rodríguez at a meeting in Caracas on April 24, 2026.

Featured image credit: @InfoPresidencia via X

The post Colombia’s Petro becomes first head of state to visit Venezuela since Maduro’s ouster appeared first on Latin America Reports.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, are preparing for a second attempt at holding a bilateral meeting. Petro announced that the two leaders are scheduled to meet in Caracas at midday on Friday — the first official visit by a head of state to Venezuela since Nicolás Maduro’s removal, and another step in Rodríguez’s consolidation of power.

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