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“We Will Never Again Be Slaves”: Speech by Venezuela’s Interim President Delcy Rodríguez

Statement by Interim President Delcy Rodríguez alongside the National Defense Council of Venezuela, on January 3, 2026, following the U.S. aggression and the kidnapping of the Venezuelan President and First Lady, Cilia Flores.

As the people of Venezuela and the international community are well aware, today, at exactly 1:58 a.m., the government of the United States launched an unprecedented military aggression against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. This constitutes a grave stain on the development of bilateral relations.

During this military operation, President Nicolás Maduro and the First Lady, First Combatant Cilia Flores, were captured. We had already warned that an aggression was underway under false excuses and false pretexts, and that the masks had fallen. This aggression had only one objective: regime change in Venezuela, in order to enable the seizure of our energy resources, our mineral resources, and our natural resources. That is the true objective, and the world and the international community must know this.

We have convened this National Defense Council, in which the public branches of the Venezuelan State are participating. We are joined by the President of the Legislative Branch of Venezuela, Dr. Jorge Rodríguez; the President of the Judicial Branch, Dr. Carilia Beatriz; and the President of the Moral Branch, Attorney General Tarek William Saab. We are also joined by the Minister of Defense; the head of the CEO [Strategic Operational Command of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (CEOFANB)]; the Vice President for Citizen Security; the Council of Vice Presidents; and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, as well as special guests whom we have convened for this National Defense Council.

From here, we demand the immediate release of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, the only president of Venezuela: President Nicolás Maduro. Here stands the highest leadership of the Venezuelan State: the military high command, the state high command, and the high command of the Council of Vice Presidents.

All the political factors of national power in Venezuela are united. And in the streets of Venezuela, there is also a people that has mobilized in response to the call already issued by the President of the Republic. He warned that if anything were to happen to him, the people would take to the streets; militant forces would mobilize at their workplaces; the Bolivarian National Armed Forces would be activated and deployed throughout the national territory; and citizen security agencies would be activated. All of Venezuela’s national power mobilized to reaffirm what we are by inheritance, as sons and daughters of Simón Bolívar. By inheritance, we have the sacred duty to protect our national independence, our sovereignty, and our territorial integrity, which were savagely attacked in the early hours of today.

The international community has rallied and raised its voice in support of Venezuela. From China, Russia, Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia, governments around the world are simply shocked that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has become the victim and target of an attack of this nature, which undoubtedly bears a Zionist imprint. It is truly shameful.

Our liberator father said it in the Letter from Jamaica [1815]: “The veil has been torn; we have already seen the light, and they want to return us to darkness. The chains have been broken; we have already been free, and our enemies seek to enslave us once again.” If there is one thing the Venezuelan people and this country are absolutely clear about, it is that we will never again be slaves, that we will never again be colonies of any empire, of any kind.

I echo the words of President Nicolás Maduro, who just two days ago, publicly, in a television interview, reaffirmed this government’s willingness to maintain dialogue in order to pursue a constructive agenda. And the response has been this aggression, which flagrantly violates Articles 1 and 2 of the Charter of the United Nations.

President Maduro extended his hand to the people of the United States. As a true head of state, he reaffirmed what diplomatic, political, and institutional channels of communication must be: those of a true state — a state that conducts international relations for the well-being of peoples, for friendship, for cooperation, and for relations grounded in respect for international law. That is who we Venezuelans are.

And therefore, we call on the Venezuelan people to remain calm, so that together, in perfect national unity, we may confront this moment, so that this fusion of police forces, the military, and the people becomes a single body, and that we may emerge from this extraordinary stage of defending our sovereignty and our national independence, united as one body to defend our beloved Venezuela.

That Venezuela we inherited from the greatest man known to universal history. That Venezuela we inherited from Bolívar, from Simón Bolívar, from [Francisco de] Miranda, from [Rafael] Urdaneta, from [the Battle of] Ayacucho, from our heroes, from our heroines, from the martyrs who have been sown in this sacred land to defend the dignity of a people who do not give in, a people who do not surrender, and who will never again be a colony of anyone — neither of ancient empires, nor of new empires, nor of empires in decline. We are determined to be free.

What is being done to Venezuela is barbarism. To besiege it, to blockade it, is barbarism that violates all the mechanisms of the international human rights system. It violates them and constitutes crimes against humanity. We have already demonstrated what the year 2025 was like, with our people — our workers, our businesspeople, our communal members, our farmers, our fishermen — struggling. All of Venezuela united under a single productive vision to guarantee goods and services for our people, to guarantee food, to guarantee medicines, to guarantee essential goods. And so, we are calling for the defense of life.

Let not a single Venezuelan man or woman be left behind. For the extremists who have promoted this armed aggression against our country will be made to pay by history and by justice. Of that, we have no doubt. The Venezuelan people have already placed them where they belong: in the dustbin of history. And the conscious Venezuelan people — the Venezuelan people with the sacred fire of the homeland burning — are outraged by the illegal and illegitimate kidnapping of the president and of the first lady, first combatant, Cilia Flores.

All of Venezuela is mobilized. And the decree that has already been signed by President Maduro — the sole president of Venezuela, for there is only one president in this country, and his name is Nicolás Maduro Moros — is now being forwarded by this National Defense Council to the president of the Supreme Court of Justice for the corresponding constitutional endorsement by the Constitutional Chamber. Everything is being done within the framework of the Constitution.

We learned this from Commander Chávez, in the face of adversity, in the face of coups d’état, in the face of oil sabotage. We are ready to defend Venezuela. We are ready to defend our natural resources, which must serve national development. Today, the Venezuelan people are fully aware of the significance of their hydrocarbons and of their energy resources.

Accordingly, this National Defense Council has been activated. It has now been constituted and awaits the decision of the Constitutional Chamber, which we hope will be issued in the coming hours, to endorse the decree of external commotion issued and signed by President Nicolás Maduro, so that everything provided for in that decree of external commotion may be implemented as of this moment.

To our Venezuela, to our people: here stands a government of clarity. And I repeat, and repeat again, the words of the president — I take them up once more. We are open to respectful relations. We are open to relations within the framework of international law and the laws of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. This is the only kind of relationship we will accept after our beloved nation — and the capital that witnessed the birth of our liberator father, Simón Bolívar — has been attacked and militarily aggressed.

In national unity, the Venezuelan people will find the path to peace and tranquility. Those who resort to the use of force, those who resort to violence under the guise of international legality, are not guided by reason. We are guided by historical reason and moral reason to remain firm in defense of peace, of tranquility, of Venezuela’s right to a future, of the Venezuelan people’s right to their homeland, and of the right to a future and to social happiness for our people.

Riding alongside our liberator father in Angostura, we ride with him in the Admirable Campaign. We ride to liberate the great homeland. And we call on the countries and peoples of the great homeland to remain united, because what was done to Venezuela today can be done to anyone. That brutal use of force to bend the will of peoples can be inflicted on any country. Today, it was inflicted on the people of Bolívar.

And be assured that the Venezuelan people — wise, patient, and endowed with strategic patience — will know how to find the path to defending peace, defending tranquility, and defending the homeland.

Thank you very much to all Venezuelan men and women.

[Translation by Alain Marshal. Courtesy: Alain Marshal on Medium, an American online platform.]

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‘Let No One Fall into Enemy Provocations’

Diosdado Cabello

[Diosdado Cabello has put the country on alert with a warning that after the kidnapping of President Maduro, the United States is moving to a second stage aimed at dividing the revolutionary movement. He cautions over “playing into the hands of imperialism” and emphasizes the ‘monolithic unity’ of the revolutionary forces.

In an audio shared on Sunday, the PSUV General Secretary and Minister of Interior urged the party militancy to not fall for the enemy’s provocation, following the January 3 attack.]

From our party and from the Great Patriotic Pole, I send you a big hug. Let us not fall into their game.

Look, before yesterday’s events, remember the huge campaign that existed to divide the Armed Forces, to divide the revolutionary movement. They have not been able to do it. This first stage failed. They kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro and now they are going for the second stage. Let no one play into the hands of imperialism.

Let no one start spreading rumors. Here, the unity of the revolutionary forces is more than guaranteed, and here there is only one president, whose name is Nicolás Maduro Moros, elected by our people. There is no debate about that—no debate at all. Our sister Delcy has made that clear, and so have all of us: the high military command, the police forces, and all our people.

We have made it known to the entire world. The president of Venezuela is Nicolás Maduro Moros, and we demand that he be returned to us safe and sound, that he return to his country.

Even with the mobilization team, I have told them that we must carry out a series of activities that are necessary to maintain mobilization—maximum mobilization. Nerves of steel. A firm stance.

A firm stance. Let no one panic. Calm and clear judgment. Let no one fall for the enemy’s provocations. Notice something—how strange. Or maybe not strange at all. Like that time when they overthrew Commander Hugo Chávez. Someone asked the question on April 11: how strange that a dictator would be applauded by the people, that the people would come out into the streets to demand his return.

What a strange dictatorship there is in Venezuela! A dictatorship of the people. The people who are in the streets are the Bolivarian people, the people who support Nicolás Maduro, the people who support peace. And today Venezuelans are outraged, regardless of their political color. Today we are outraged because in the end everything has been revealed. It has been revealed that all they want is our oil, that they care about absolutely nothing else.

We maintain our monolithic unity—a rock, the Rock of Christ. The Rock of Christ protects us and will help us move forward, to move forward. I have no doubt that this will be so. I ask you all to take care of yourselves. We need to be present to wage this struggle, each person taking care according to their responsibility.

Be certain that today more than ever, the political–military high command is more united, and united in accordance with the instructions left by our president Nicolás Maduro. The popular–military–police fusion is a reality. We do not see anyone from the opposition; they do not appear in the streets. What appears is the people demanding the presence of our president.

I wanted to speak here to greet you all, to express my respect, my admiration for this people, my deep love for this people—for this people with whom we have fought so many battles together, and those still to come. And with certainty—certainty that I want to remain in our souls: Commander Chávez is gone, and we continue forward.

We are going to rescue Nicolás. But if something happens to any one of us, we must continue forward and raise his banner for peace, for independence, for sovereignty, for life. Well then, a big hug to you all, and remember—remember, as you already know—that whatever happens, and under any circumstances, we will prevail.

[Courtesy: Kawsachun News, an online news platform based in Bolivia that provides news reporting and analysis on Latin America.]

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Venezuela’s Revolution Still Stands: Debunking Trump’s Psyop

Manolo De Los Santos

The events of the past 72 hours represent a qualitative escalation in the 25 years of regime change operations by the US government against the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela. The United States’ execution of “Operation Absolute Resolve”, a targeted bombing raid and the illegal abduction of President Nicolás Maduro, has created a moment of profound crisis but also profound clarity. For revolutionary forces globally, a concrete analysis is required to cut through the disinformation, understand the objective balance of forces, and chart a path forward.

The objective conditions of the US military intervention

In the wake of the operation, there has been great talk of the unmatched military capabilities of the US Empire. But Marxists should begin with an understanding of the political relationship of forces. Under closer examination, that the Trump administration had to carry out an operation in this fashion is also proof of imperialism’s political weaknesses – in Venezuela, internationally, and at home.

The decision by the Trump regime to undertake this operation, rather than a full-scale invasion, is a testament to the power of organized popular resistance. Two primary factors constrained US options:

1. Mass mobilization in Venezuela: President Maduro’s call to massively expand the Bolivarian Militias saw over eight million citizens arm themselves. Combined with Venezuela’s professional military, which has not fractured, this created a scenario where any ground invasion would degenerate into a protracted people’s war, with unacceptable political and material costs for the United States. There remains a strong base of support for Chavismo and the Bolivarian Revolution, which the Trump administration tacitly admitted when it said there must be “realism.” They admitted that the Venezuelan right wing lacks the support to lead the country.
2. Domestic US Opposition: Widespread public rejection of military intervention, spanning the political spectrum, including significant sectors of Trump’s own base, made a large-scale deployment politically untenable.

Faced with these deterrents, the White House pivoted to a strategy of decapitation: using its overwhelming technological and military superiority to sever the head of the revolutionary state while avoiding a quagmire. In deciding to utilize a “surgical” strike, involving over 150 aircraft and elite Delta Force units, rather than a war to destroy the Venezuelan state, they are tacitly recognizing that it is here to stay. The US has, in the aftermath of two failed and costly military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, sought the path of least resistance, preferring bombing campaigns and abductions that can serve as political “trophies.” But underneath the hyper-emotional style of Trump and the hyper-aggressive military tactics – recalling prior eras of “gunboat diplomacy” in Latin America – there is also a reluctance to go all the way to a regime change war. It is a return to a 19th-century gangster imperialism, forcing concessions at gunpoint; this is what Trump really means by “running” Venezuela.

The asymmetry of power and the question of “betrayal”

Although the Venezuelan masses, party, and state were prepared to counter a full-scale US invasion in a decentralized people’s war of resistance, no country on the planet has the preparation or the capacity at present to prevent the overwhelming and brutal force of a US special operation such as the one conducted. No nation, no matter how morally justified, popularly mobilized, or militarily capable, can presently match the concentrated, high-tech lethal force of the US war machine in this respect. The coordinated mass bombing, disabling of communications, electricity, and anti-air defenses, followed by the raid on President Maduro’s secure residence, was an application of this asymmetrical power. The heroic resistance of the security detail, comprising Venezuelan forces and Cuban internationalists, resulting in 50 combat deaths, confirms this was an act of war, not a “surrender” – despite all earlier claims.

This clearly disproves the notion that multipolarity at the present stage can serve as a mechanism for protecting the sovereignty of Global South states. The US, with the world’s largest military budget, the most extensive network of military bases, and technological superiority, has reasserted its unipolar hegemony in the field of military power.

The subsequent psychological warfare operation has sought to sow disunity by alleging “betrayal” or “treason” within the revolutionary leadership, particularly targeting Vice President Delcy Rodríguez. This narrative lacks any evidence, appears totally false, and is also a classic tactic in US military strategy and psychological operations.

The Rodríguez family’s revolutionary credentials are etched in struggle. Their father, Jorge Antonio Rodríguez, a leader of the Socialist League, a Marxist-Leninist organization, was tortured and murdered by the Punto Fijo regime in 1976. Both Delcy and her brother Jorge (the President of the National Assembly) emerged from this tradition of clandestine and mass struggle for socialism. President Maduro himself was a cadre of the same organization. To suggest betrayal among them or capitulation born of cowardice or opportunism ignores four decades of shared political formation, persecution, and leadership under relentless imperialist aggression and the class character of their revolutionary leadership.

The resilience of the Bolivarian State and the tactic of retreat

In the immediate aftermath, the Venezuelan state demonstrated its rootedness and stability. Contrary to decades of US propaganda proclaiming its collapse, the political and constitutional chain of command remained intact. Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, alongside Diosdado Cabello (Minister of Interior), Vladimir Padrino (Minister of Defense), and the core leadership of the PSUV and the armed forces, sought to stabilize institutions, reclaim public space by calling the masses to mobilize in protest, and demand proof of life from President Maduro. While Trump initially asserted the US would “run the country,” Marco Rubio was forced to walk this back. The functional continuity of the PSUV leadership forced this rhetorical retreat. Delcy Rodríguez, acting as interim leader, countered the US narrative: “There is only one president in this country, and his name is Nicolás Maduro Moros… we will never again be a colony of any empire.” In his hasty retreat, Rubio went so far as to publicly discredit their handpicked opposition figure, María Corina Machado, thereby de facto recognizing the Bolivarian state as the sole governing entity.

The subsequent statements from Caracas calling for dialogue and negotiations with the US must then be understood not as capitulation, but as a retreat under duress. The objective conditions are severe. Right-wing shifts in Argentina, Paraguay, Ecuador, El Salvador, Peru, and Bolivia, and vacillation by progressive governments in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, mean that Venezuela faces political isolation in Latin America. The material and political support it has received from allied governments in Russia and China clearly is not enough to deter US imperialism from another aggression. The continued naval blockade and the demonstrated existential threat posed by further US military action remain the most significant challenges.

In his first statement on January 3, Trump implied that Delcy Rodriguez had expressed a willingness to cooperate with the US and meet its demands. Some on the left believed him, interpreting this as a sign of Delcy’s capitulation. Her press conference that same day reaffirmed Venezuela’s sovereignty and its own demands to the US, including the release of President Maduro. The next day, Delcy, after leading a meeting of the party leadership and government ministers – during which the unity of the party, the masses, and the military was reaffirmed – published a message to the world, clearly directed at Trump and the United States government. She called on the US government to work together with Venezuela towards peace and development, but on terms of sovereignty and equality. This should not be interpreted as either betrayal or capitulation. In fact, this statement echoes every statement made by Maduro over the last three months and throughout the years of tensions with the US. Maduro himself consistently called for diplomacy and negotiation to avoid an all-out war, and had already offered to negotiate comprehensive economic agreements with the US for Venezuela’s oil and mineral resources. If the Venezuelan state were to sign such deals going forward – now with Maduro kidnapped – it would not constitute treason.

In 1918, Lenin and the Bolsheviks famously signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ceding vast territories to imperialist Germany to save the infant Soviet Republic from annihilation. He was accused of selling out the revolution by the “left communists” in his party, but he compared such a compromise to that of giving up your wallet to an “armed bandit” in exchange for your life. This concession led to the breakup of the alliance with the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries who accused him of “treason.” The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries took up an armed struggle against the Bolshevik government, including an assassination attempt on Lenin as a “traitor to the revolution” that left him badly wounded in September 1918. Two months later, Germany surrendered and the Soviet Republic regained all the territory lost at Brest-Litovsk.

Today, Venezuela faces a similar “Brest-Litovsk moment.” Isolated by right-wing regional governments and facing a near-total blockade, the revolutionary core is prioritizing the survival of the state as a rearguard base for future struggle. In this context, the priority of the PSUV and the Venezuelan government is the preservation of revolutionary state power. As the late Comandante Hugo Chávez reflected after the failure of the 1992 rebellion, “We must retreat today to advance tomorrow.” This may involve open negotiations with the US government that allow for US corporations to have greater shares and access to Venezuela’s oil production under conditions that greatly benefit US interests, among other temporary concessions in the economic sphere, to secure political space and prevent total annihilation. The goal is to maintain Venezuela and Cuba as indispensable rearguard bases for socialism and anti-imperialism in a period of retrenchment of socialist forces in the Global South.

Trump is claiming victory – that “we’re in charge.” He’s doing so chiefly for domestic political purposes. But that does not make it so. Unable to carry out actual regime change, he is essentially using words to falsely declare “the regime is changed.” The New York Times and other corporate-owned media are running misleading headlines and articles that back up Trump’s narrative that he “picked” Delcy Rodriguez as “pliant.” No socialist should have a knee-jerk reaction accepting bourgeois propaganda.

The revolution has suffered a severe blow, but its hold on state power persists. Though the coming period will test its cohesion and strategic creativity, it has consistently demonstrated a remarkable capacity to navigate and overcome major crises. Our role from within the United States is to continue to grow domestic opposition to the Empire’s plans, to counter disinformation campaigns, and do our part to shift the correlation of forces so that revolutionaries of the Global South have the space to chart their own course free of threats and coercion. The revolution is not a person; it is a social process and mass phenomenon. President Maduro is in a prison cell in New York, but the Bolivarian project remains in the streets of Caracas and in the Presidential Palace of Miraflores.

[Manolo De Los Santos is Executive Director of The People’s Forum and a researcher at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. His writing appears regularly in Monthly Review, Peoples Dispatch, CounterPunch, La Jornada and other progressive media. He coedited, most recently, Viviremos: Venezuela vs. Hybrid War (LeftWord, 2020), Comrade of the Revolution: Selected Speeches of Fidel Castro (LeftWord, 2021), and Our Own Path to Socialism: Selected Speeches of Hugo Chávez (LeftWord, 2023). Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch, an international media organization with the mission of highlighting voices from people’s movements and organizations across the globe.]