The Price of Opposing Maduro’s Power in Venezuela
“I’m the president who was elected by 7.5 million Venezuelans. But I’m also just one more Venezuelan, with a family member abducted by the Maduro government.”
By Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia (Confidencial)
HAVANA TIMES – Rafael Tudares Bracho was abducted on Tuesday, January 7, 2025, at 12:39 pm, while he was taking his two children – 7 and 8 years old – to visit their grandmother, who had recently been operated on. Over two months have passed since that moment and his whereabouts are still unknown. There’s been no information on his physical integrity or on his health.
Rafael is my son-in-law. This is the reality we face following his forced disappearance, but it’s also the story of thousands of men and women in Venezuela.
Despite efforts to locate him, including direct inquiries at detention centers and formal requests to the authorities for information, the Venezuelan government has kept his whereabouts secret, including refusing him the right to a phone call.
I’m the president who was elected by 7.5 million Venezuelans. I recognize that each vote represented a wish for change in my country. But today I’m also one more Venezuelan. I’m living through what thousands of my compatriots have suffered – having a family member abducted by the government. I have a daughter who goes from holding center to holding center, searching for her husband. I have grandchildren who experienced the terror of watching armed and hooded men take their father away, leaving them standing alone right in the street. Those same men, with the same guns and hoods, are now posted every day at the corner by their house, serving as a permanent reminder of those who took him away.
Is this just my story? No. It’s the story of many Venezuelan families who are living in a state of constant uncertainty, threatened and persecuted. Families who – like mine – are pressured and warned to stay silent, not to denounce their situation to avoid more discomfort.
My commitment, together with Maria Corina Machado and other opposition leaders in Venezuela, has been to the struggle for freedom and political change in a context of grave human rights violations. We’ve faced systematic attacks against the population – practices that the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights has classified as “State terrorism,” offering evidence of the magnitude and systematic nature of these crimes.
Since I accepted the bid to run for office as a [presidential] candidate less than a year ago, I’ve been the victim of harassment, persecution and threats, including the risk of being arbitrarily deprived of my freedom. That’s what happens in Venezuela when you stand with the people; when you understand the desire for change that moved nearly eight million Venezuelans to vote for a better future. It’s the risk that any citizen runs if they oppose authoritarianism and the loss of rights and freedoms, and yearn for a decent future. Is that a crime? It is not.
Adding to this panorama is the strategy of expansive political persecution, as Sergio Ramirez described it to me. A persecution that not only seeks to silence government opponents within Venezuela, but also extends its tentacles further out, in an attempt to shut down any dissident voices. The tactics include forced exiles – like mine, that of my wife Mercedes, and that of many others. This strategy also extends to the subjection of relatives and close friends, generating a climate of fear in order to mold a controlled and submissive society.
They’re keeping Rafael in forced disappearance just for being my son-in-law, even though the Venezuelan Constitution establishes that a person’s criminal sanctions cannot be extended to their relatives. You can’t hold a family member as a hostage. Nonetheless, believe me, our loved ones are hostages, chess pieces for exchange or negotiation. Rafael, Jesus, Dignora, Rocio, William, Enrique, Americo, Freddy, Perkins, Magaly Claudia, Pedro and many others, including soldiers, are today being held captive at the hands of the Venezuelan government, awaiting their moment to be exchanged.
In the last few days, we’ve learned from outside sources that Rafael was presented before a judge, in criminal proceedings that were corrupt from the start. In a clandestine trial, they charged him with betraying the homeland, conspiring with foreign governments, and organized crime, the same crimes I’ve been accused of. His defense was in the hands of a public defender imposed by the Government, a common practice for those detained in the post-electoral context.
The persecution of political dissidence in Venezuela isn’t new, but it has greatly worsened since the 2023 primary elections. The State repression of government opponents, political leaders, and their families has intensified, as documented by national and international NGOs, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Fact Finding Mission on Venezuela, and their Working Groups on torture, forced disappearance and arbitrary detentions.
The recent cases all follow the same patterns: arbitrary detentions, hooded functionaries, forced disappearances, prisoners held incommunicado, isolation, denial of the right to a private lawyer, clandestine judges acting without the family’s knowledge, denial of due process, lack of access to health care, and total cut-off from the exterior. This is nothing other than a kidnapping, and I’ve described it in this way to the authorities of the international community with whom I’ve met.
They want to silence us family members, they want to stop our struggle, they want to make us feel guilty when, clearly, the only guilty party is the authoritarian regime and its practices of State terrorism.
Despite the adverse context of risks and pressures I feel as a father, I stand firm in my demand for freedom for my son-in-law, and for all those who – like him – have been unjustly abducted. As the President who was elected in the Venezuelan civic elections of July 28th, I remain committed to the defense of justice, freedom, and human rights in my country.
Article originally published in “La Nacion de Costa Rica.”
Published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.