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People around the world — especially Venezuelans — are still processing the events that took place in Caracas a little over a week ago, when Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Floreswere awakened in their compoundin the early hours of Saturday by American Delta Force operatives andtaken into US custody.
The ousted Venezuelan leader and the former first lady arenow in a New York jail,facing drug and weapons charges to which they pleaded not guilty during a first court appearance. President Donald Trump has said the US now "runs" the oil-rich South American country and Maduro's vice president was sworn in as acting president.
Meanwhile, Venezuelan opposition leaders, many of whom have been living in exile, have vowed to return to the country and take back the power they claim was usurped from them.
A lot of questions remain to be answered following the unprecedented ouster of the Venezuelan leader. For Venezuelans, both inside the country and abroad, it's been a mix of emotions and a sense of uncertainty over what comes next.
Here are some key things to know to understand this critical past week:
No real 'regime change'
Despite Maduro's abrupt removal from power, there doesn't seem to have been much upheaval within the government. His vice president,Delcy Rodríguez, was sworn in as acting president Monday, marking a continuation of the Chavismo movement that has controlled Venezuela for decades.
"There are no external agents governing Venezuela," Rodríguez, 56, saidduring a televised speechon Tuesday. "We are here, governing our people. The Government of Venezuela runs this country, no one else."
Maduro's most powerful deputies, includingInterior Minister Diosdado Cabelloand Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, are still doing their jobs, despite the$25 million and $15 million bountiesplaced by the US government on their heads.
The Chavismo movement was established in 1999 when Hugo Chávez, the late Venezuelan president who was Maduro's mentor and predecessor, first took power. During this period, the oil industry was nationalized and a series of constitutional reforms led to the elimination of checks and balances and widespread repression of any opposition voices.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has defended the decision to leave officials of the Chavismo era in power and said the administrationviews Rodríguez as more pragmaticand as someone the US can work with.
Opposition calls for new elections
It's not clear if Venezuela's opposition parties will play a role in this transition. At the moment, they seem to have been left on the outskirts and, in some instances, completely dismissed.
Opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado has been one of the main faces of the anti-Maduro movement and one of President Trump's most vocal supporters.
Many were caught off guard when Trump said he thought it would be tough for Machado to lead Venezuela following Maduro's capture.
"She doesn't have the support within, or the respect within, the country. She's a very nice woman, but she doesn't have the respect," Trump said during a news conference on the day of the US operation in Venezuela.
Machado, 58, spoke to Fox News from an undisclosed location earlier this week. She continued to express her gratitude to Trump "on behalf of the Venezuelan people" and said she plans on returning to the South American country "as soon as possible."
She also referred to Venezuela's current acting president as one of the "main architects of torture, persecution, corruption and narcotrafficking" and a "liaison" for Russia, China and Iran, and called for "free and fair elections."
"We have to move forward," Machado said. "We won the election by a landslide under fraudulent conditions. In free and fair elections, we will win with 90%, I have no doubt."
Machado said on Fox News later in the week that she would like toshare her Nobel Peace Prize with Trump,an award she dedicatedto him in October for his "decisive support of our cause."Trump told reporters on Friday that he would be meeting with Machado in Washington next week. "She might be involved in some aspect" of the country, he said, without elaborating on any details.
Venezuela's last presidential elections were held on July 28, 2024. The opposition claimed to have won the vote based on voting tallies collected around the country, but the government-aligned National Electoral Council (CNE) declared Maduro the winner.
Anindependent CNN analysis at the timefound the government's claim that Maduro had defeated the opposition with 51.2% of the votes was a "statistical improbability" and the CNE never provided data to support the claim.
The oppositionposted its own datashortly after the ballots closed, showing the opposition had won 67% of the votes against Maduro's 30%. The tally included a detailed state-by-state breakdown. International observers from the Carter Center and the Colombian Electoral Observation Mission found the results to be legitimate.
Several countries, including the United States and Spain, had recognized the opposition candidate Edmundo González as the president-elect following the vote.
González, 76, was Machado's hand-picked candidate after she was banned from running. He was forced to flee the country in the months following the election, due to trumped up conspiracy and terrorism charges presented by the government that would have led to decades in prison. He requested political asylum in Spain where he has been living ever since.
Symbolic political prisoner releases bring hope
The Chavismo movement has been accused of jailing political prisoners for decades and holding them in the infamous Helicoide prison, controlled by the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN).
There is no official figure on how many people have been arrested, mainly because the Venezuelan government doesn't recognize the existence of political prisoners. In its latest estimate, Foro Penal, an independent NGO that provides pro bono legal services to people detained arbitrarily, said more than 800 political prisoners were still behind bars.
National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez, who is also the acting president's brother, said this week that the government decided to releasea "significant number of Venezuelan and foreign individuals"in what he described as a "broad demonstration of the intention to seek peace."
Several high-profile inmates, including opposition lawmakers Enrique Márquez and Biagio Pilieri, were released this week. Videos shared on social media showed emotional reunions on the streets of Caracas with loved ones. Four Spanish nationals and a Venezuelan-Spanish activist were also among those released.
"We await the freedom of 'all' political prisoners, not just 'gestures' that are partial and conditional,' Foro Penal President Alfredo Romero wrote on X. "This represents a little more than 1% of the current political prisoners."
Despite these signs of collaboration, the Rodríguez administration published a decree earlier this week authorizing security forces to detain any person involved in promoting and supporting what it has called the "US attack." The National Press Workers Union said dozens of journalists were arrested in the aftermath and later released.
Venezuelans uncertain about future, but most happy Maduro is behind bars
Maduro would regularly organize massive rallies, where his supporters would pack streets in Caracas waving flags and cheering on the strongman. Most recently before being ousted, he was speaking out against a possible US invasion and often mocking the idea in long-winded songs and speeches.
While there has been some show of support for Maduro and expressions of outrage by his remaining government officials, the streets of Caracas and other major cities have mostly been quiet.
The largest concentration of people seems to be at gas stations and grocery stores, where people are stockpiling on basic goods.
"I wanted to fill up my gas tank, but the service stations are already closed. So I took the opportunity to buy food because we don't know what's coming," Jairo Chacin, a mechanic, told Reuters.
Most Venezuelans living abroad have been celebrating the fact that Maduro is behind bars. When news of the US operation broke, celebrations by crowdswere seen in cities around the world, including Miami, Buenos Aires, Madrid and Bogotá, where large concentrations of the diaspora live.
Social media was also flooded with posts sharing the first photo released by Trump on Truth Social of the US mission, showing a handcuffed Maduro in a gray track suit and large sunglasses clinging to his water bottle, accompanied by messages and memes.
"We prayed a lot," Venezuelan citizen María Carrizosa told CNN's team in Bogotá, Colombia. "I hope the people who have made this possible facilitate a peaceful and calm transition. It's what many Venezuelans who are living abroad want."
Nearly 8 million Venezuelans have fled the country due to rampant violence, inflation, politically motivated threats, elevated crime and shortages of food and essential services, according to UNHCR.
Many living in the United States also called on American friends to "ask a Venezuelan" following criticisms about how the Trump administration carried out the operation and questions over the motives and justifications to do so without congressional approval.
"We tried to use negotiations, elections, protests," Freddy Guevara, a former Venezuelan congressman living in the US, told CNN's Erin Burnett this week. "Is this the outcome that we wanted? Of course not. We've been fighting for a negotiated solution for a long time. But Maduro built this path for himself and his cronies (…) Between what we had before and this, I know it may sound surprising, but we Venezuelans prefer this."
The immigration status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans living in the United Statesremains in limbo. The Trump administration ended the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for more than 600,000 Venezuelans last year.
Trump alsoinvoked the Alien Enemies Actlast March to rapidly deport alleged members of the Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang designated as a foreign terrorist organization that the US government accuses Maduro of leading.
Many of those arrested and deported had no proven connections to the gang and no criminal records. A number of Venezuelans who were sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador and subsequently returned to Venezuela have tried to challenge their deportations in US courts.
Sanctioned oil for the US?
Trump said Tuesday the current Venezuelan governmentwould be turning overbetween "30 and 50 million barrels of high quality, sanctioned oil to the United States."
Venezuela is home tothe largest proven oil reserveon Earth, with an estimated 300 billion barrels lying beneath the surface. The oil industry was nationalized when Chávez first took power and has been subject to US sanctions.
The US Treasury Department sanctioned Venezuela's oil company, PDVSA, during the first Trump administration in 2019 and blocked all transactions and crude oil exports to the United States. The US sanctions caused a steep decline in Venezuela's oil production.
In a statement published on social media earlier this week, PDVSA said it is "currently engaged in negotiations with the United States for the sale of oil volumes, within the framework of the commercial relations that exist between both countries."
Trump met with the CEOs of major oil companies at the White House on Friday. Despite his initial optimism,some said they couldn't committo the oil deal.
"It's uninvestible," ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods said. "There are a number of legal and commercial frameworks that would have to be established to even understand what kind of returns we would get on the investment." Exxon left Venezuela in 2007 when the Chavez regime nationalized the oil industry.
Meanwhile, the future of the country and of millions of Venezuelans remains uncertain. Still, it seems Trump is liking some of what is unfolding in the government of Rodríguez, with the US leader saying early Friday that he had canceled a "previously expected"second wave of attacks on Venezueladue to the country's cooperation with the United States. He told reporters that he sees Venezuelaas an ally "right now."
The only thing that is known for sure is that Maduro and his wife are out of the country and in jail. While many see this as just removing the head but leaving the regime in place, others are rejoicing that Maduro is in prison and facing charges after decades of impunity.
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