The new chapter of Venezuela's transition revolves around political prisoners, a chapter in which I myself almost ended up writing my own page. According to the regime, nearly 1000 prisoners have been released from various detention centers across the country, but the real number is closer to 200. Many of them have been let out in mostly good physical health (mentally, only God knows), but some have exhibited patent signs of torture such as the inability to walk by themselves or even recognize their relatives. Quite a few must likely be dead by now.
A couple of days after my release, acting president Delcy Rodríguez announced that El Helicoide, the largest torture center in Latin America and the place where I was held for two days, would be shut down, and last week, after Alex Saab and Raúl Gorrín (the most disgusting retainers of the regime) were imprisoned in that same place in a joint operation between the FBI and SEBIN, the regime's secret police, the National Assembly approved a draft of a sweeping Amnesty Law that leaves a lot to be desired, especially because it doesn't invalidate the other laws that were used as excuses to repress, kill and imprison citizens for years, and seeks to protect those responsible for those abuses. Jorge Rodríguez, head of the Assembly and brother of Delcy, visited a detention center from which no prisoner has been released yet and set up a propaganda skit with some people playing the role of journalists and relatives of political prisoners, who were instructed to embrace and take selfies with him, which was quickly denounced by the real relatives. On Sunday, February 8th, about 30 prisoners were released, among them some very high-profile political activists, notoriously Juan Pablo Guanipa, who didn't waste time to make his own propaganda skit and without going home to spend at least one night with his family, decided to call for a caravan of motorcycles and ride to other detention centers. Within hours, he was kidnapped again by regime forces and then put under house arrest this Tuesday.
On Wednesday, regime cronies like former foreign minister Jorge Arreaza, former prisons minister Iris Varela and current culture minister Ernesto Villegas (all of them just as responsible for the country's disgrace as these guys) had to face up to journalists and to the people for the first time in over a decade, as the relatives of political prisoners, mostly their mothers, were admitted into the National Assembly to demand for the release of their loved ones. The criminals cling to their lies as if they genuinely believed them, trying to spin reasons to justify all of the kidnappings, tortures and deaths in the country's prisons, and why their hostages haven't been released; they seem unable to grasp the fact that the situation is very far removed from the time when they enjoyed nigh-complete immunity to scrutiny, we'll see them in an even worse shape as the days and weeks elapse.
The presence of U.S. officials in Venezuela has made all the difference, the regime doesn't dare to repress citizens now and, for the first time, demonstrators can set up rallies in downtown Caracas, which was off-limits for any anti-regime protests since the riots of 2002. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright arrived on Wednesday to meet with Delcy Rodríguez, no doubt to lay out operational demands that the regime is scrambling to satisfy. Senator Rick Scott, Foreign Secretary Marco Rubio and other members of the Trump administration have stated that a second raid is a possibility because, despite the Rodríguez's groveling attitude, they're still attempting to retain control, and Diosdado Cabello in particular has continued to antagonize the U.S. government in public, since he no longer has any more cards to play. If there's a new attack, he's likely the next target.
The process of chavismo's end as a political force and of Venezuela's transition towards an open country is well underway, it'll take a bit longer to recover the seats of power sequestered by these gangsters, and a lot more nerve from us to verify and accept the true extent of the damage that they caused in the past 27 years, but be that as it may, everything points to a fast-tracked resolution.