In the era of instant communications, the first thing to be sacrificed was truth, to be replaced by narrative. That is, as it is not possible to deceive anyone with a story constructed from the editorial desks of the most influential newspapers, because raw information arrives immediately to anyone's cell phones, if you want to distort the truth of what is really happening, it is enough to build “a narrative” and bombard it by all available digital media, and “the truth” will be the result of what emerges from the side that has greater penetration, audience and credibility.
Where is the truth of what happened to the hostages of the regime of Nicolás Maduro Moros, locked up for more than a year in the residence of the Argentine Embassy in Caracas, in what the mass-media of the opposition says or what the regime says? Each person in Venezuela, depending on his political orientation, unfortunately already decided “what happened”, according to the narrative of “his side”, without stopping at any reasoning. But this writer, who has never been carried away by the technologies that support anyone's mass-media, has not decided yet, because there are still some fundamental facts to corroborate one version or the other.
Some avaricious opponent will tell me: “The rescue announcement was made by the US Secretary of State himself, Marco Rubio, in his X account”. But the fact is that the same Secretary of State is one of the parties to this narrative confrontation, or the Argentinean government itself, a fundamental ally of the US, who also pronounced itself in the same sense. Not to mention the local political interests in Venezuela. But neither could it be 100% certain that there was no such extraction given the very sophisticated methods at the disposal of the intelligence agencies mentioned by the opposition mass-media.
Almost 50 years ago, when there were no social networks, people did not find out about any event in the world until many hours later. In 1976, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) mounted an operation to extract the hostages kidnapped by the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin at Entebbe airport: “The rescue operation was executed at night, when one hundred elite Israeli commandos were airlifted more than 3500 km to Uganda. The operation, which was planned for a week, lasted fifty-three minutes and one hundred and three hostages were rescued. Five Israeli commandos were wounded and another, the commander of the assault unit, Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu, was killed during the operation. All of the hijackers, three hostages and forty-five Ugandan soldiers were killed and eleven Soviet-made MiG-17s were destroyed on the ground. A fourth hostage was killed by Ugandan army personnel in a nearby hospital” (see Wikipedia, Operation Entebbe, en https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operaci%C3%B3n_Entebbe).
Despite all these years and a communications technology that is backward compared to today's, the information delivered to the world after hours of such an event in a place as remote as Uganda, was very accurate, and there was no doubt about the truth of what happened in Entebbe. Even in the operation, the Israelis brought with them, in one of the troop planes, a replica of the presidential car used by the Ugandan dictator, which was part of the strategy of deceiving semi-literate Ugandan troops, in order to distract the armed commandos from accessing the airport where the hostages were being held.
With all this maneuver, executed with surgical precision, against forces that could not be compared to those of the IDF, the Israelis suffered important casualties, such as those of the brother of the current Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. It is not for nothing that he knows very well what the fight against terrorism is all about.
With the above I wish to clearly mean that it is very difficult to establish that a “rescue” really took place in a place heavily guarded by the regime, by forces that do not compare precisely with the semi-literate soldiers that Idi Amin had in Entebbe, without leaving aside that this rescue included Mrs. Corina Parisca de Machado, a sick and elderly person, with the very high risk that such an operation would involve.
Nor can the existence of official safe-conducts to get the hostages out be argued as proof that there was no negotiation. The American hostages were handed over by the regime to the American negotiator Richard Grenell, bathed, dressed and in his plane, before leaving for the U.S., after his conversation with Nicolás Maduro Moros. Such juridical and diplomatic delicacies do not exist when the regime's high politics decides to hand over someone it keeps in its dungeons, in exchange for something.
So, was there or was there not an extraction? As I see it, the real bottom line of this discussion lies in the following: if it turns out to be an extraction -or the narrative that points in that direction wins-, then the opposition is “beating the regime” and corroborates that it is indeed doing something when everybody is waiting for some movement that indicates that we are moving towards its eventual exit. In other words, the US and its allies are truly helping María Corina Machado (MCM) and Edmundo González Urrutia (EGU), keeping alive the hope of the people opposing that leadership, and indicating that it is still worth “waiting” for the rescue of the rest of the Venezuelan population that still remains locked up in the country, which is the largest prison in the world.
If, on the contrary, it is proven that it was a negotiation, then the regime is maintaining its position and is releasing the hostages it has in the country, in accordance with its plan to consolidate its hold on power. This would correspond to a possible negotiation between the US and Russia, which would be reported by Putin to Maduro, in his current trip to Russia, which would force him to change his inflexible policy against his opponents, especially the hostages of the MCM, in exchange for remaining in Miraflores.
This is the real fight that is being waged in the digital media for the credibility of the people because of this event, but which is not aimed at solving the real problem of Venezuela, but at solving the continuity of the political leadership of the winning party and the surrender -or not- before that, of the Venezuelan people.
It cannot be denied that these coups have a very important effect on the opposition, because at the end of the day a serious situation of violation of Human Rights against some brave Venezuelans who have resisted imprisonment in inhuman conditions has ceased, but it does not define the reality in the long term, nor can it hide the truth of what has happened. If it is proven that the US negotiated with the regime -read well NOT the MCM opposition- the exit of the hostages from the embassy in Argentina, in exchange for something, we will know very soon. Not because of what Marco Rubio, MCM or the regime says, which in the end is not important, but because of what actually happens in relation to the continuity of Nicolás Maduro Moros in power.
The first of them we will see next May 27, when the extension of Chevron's operations in Venezuela expires: “This Friday, May 9, General License 8 expires. Therefore, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) will decide in the coming hours whether there will be a new extension or simply allow it to expire. This decision will also give a signal as to what will happen with General License 41, which has allowed Chevron to operate in Venezuela, which currently has an extension until May 27” (see PanamPost, Rescue or Negotiation? The answer is in the licenses that are about to expire, in https://panampost.com/jose-gregorio-martinez/2025/05/07/rescate-o-negociacion-la-respuesta-esta-en-las-licencias-petroleras-proximas-a-vencer/).
If Venezuelans see that after all this, the regime still remains in power indefinitely because they were given oxygen in the U.S., what the mass-media says about anyone will be worthless, and it will matter little if they were extracted or negotiated. What will prevail will be the suffering of all of us who survive in the country, even if we are glad that some have left. And then we will have to truly explore other alternatives far away from deceit and half-truths...
Caracas, May 8, 2025
Blog:
TIC’s & Derechos Humanos, https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
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