View image in fullscreen Caracas on Saturday morning. Yet now, 13 years after an ailing Chávez passed power to his protege, Nicolás Maduro, the fever dream is real. On Saturday US forces bombed Caracas and seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores – the “empire” of Chávez’s rhetoric made manifest. No UN mandate, no congressional approval, just raw military power. Venezuelans, including the millions who have fled, are about to find out if they have woken from a fever dream or slipped deeper into nightmare.

Source: The Guardian January 05, 2026 07:16 UTC