On Sunday, July 27, as Venezuela woke up under the silence of empty ballots and the deafening noise of public apathy, General Vladimir Padrino López —that Defense Minister with the air of a weary actor— emerged with a solemn accusation: a US spy plane, he claimed, had violated the country’s Flight Information Region (FIR). Such a statement would have previously sparked diplomatic tensions, protests from OAS governments, and even emergency meetings at the Miraflores Palace. But not this time.
This time, everything felt staged.
The regime, adept at masking its weakness with grand gestures, was in desperate need of a distraction. The country had not voted —civil resistance— and the designation of Nicolás Maduro as the head of a narcoterrorist organization by the US Department of Treasury had left the power elite exposed, much like the emperor in that fable who wore no clothes. They needed to cover the shame with a flag, an external threat, a classic enemy: Yankee imperialism. Thus, the RC-135 plane became the new lead character in a tired script.
As often seen in Latin American authoritarian histories, those in power turn to theatrics when reality overwhelms them. It doesn’t matter if the US apparatus didn’t violate sovereign airspace or if its presence lies within the ambiguous margins of the FIR, regulated by international agreements. What matters is the narrative. The regime’s dramaturgy demands a villain and a hero facing off—loyal military, brave commander, revolutionary state. Everything else is merely set decor.
Yet, the stage has cracks. General Padrino’s accusation not only aims to unite a Bolivarian National Armed Forces fractured internally —and increasingly uncomfortable with the stench emanating from the Cartel of the Suns— but also distract a wearied populace. Venezuela no longer believes. Not in the elections organized by the regime, nor in foreign threats, nor in the promise of a new homeland that has rotted among cocaine, corruption, and repression.
Dictatorships rely on systematic lies and disguised fear. What we witnessed that Sunday was exactly that: a lie served as rallying cry and half-confessed fear. Because what the Maduro regime fears isn’t the incursion of an intelligence plane, but the advance of a deeper strategy: a silent war fought not with tanks or invasions, but with courts, sanctions, surveillance, and intelligence.
Washington has made it clear that it doesn’t need bullets to corner chavismo. It just takes designating, accusing, and documenting. Every move is surgical. It’s not about invasion, but leaving the enemy without options. Like in a game of chess or Go —that ancient Chinese territorial duel— where the focus isn’t immediate capture, but gradual suffocation. And in this, Venezuela finds itself surrounded.
The tragedy is that, as the world watches, the regime digs in behind a military elite increasingly involved in crime, and ever more suspect. The theater can carry on for a while longer, but the farce has an expiration date. The play can extend, yes, like a mediocre performance held up by exhausted actors, but even the most obstinate representation has its final curtain. Regimes built on narcotrafficking —and worse, on terrorism— know no happy endings: their protagonists end sitting on benches in foreign courts, buried in nameless graves, or wandering spectrally in glories exile. For no masquerade can withstand the test of time, nor propaganda suppress that deep, inner tremor that betrays the guilty when the curtain falls.
In conclusion, the maduroism no longer governs: it entrenches itself. It no longer persuades: it improvises. And it no longer deceives: it acts for itself, like a regime that has lost the country but still retains the curtains. The accusation of the plane wasn’t a defensive response, but a reflexive act of a cornered power that needs enemies to hide its true nature. But this time, the enemy isn’t outside: it’s in the judicial file that labels it a narcoterrorist cartel, in the civil resistance that delegitimizes it, and in the barracks where silence becomes unbearable. Venezuela needs no more chants or sets. It needs the end of the play. And that ending —no matter how long it takes— has already begun.
Executive Director of Inter American Trends
@antdelacruz_