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Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez vowed on Wednesday to continue releasing prisoners detained under former President Nicolás Maduro during her first press briefing since Maduro was ousted in a US military operation earlier this month.
Addressing journalists carpet at the presidential palace, Rodríguez struck a conciliatory tone and said the Venezuelan government was entering a “new political moment.”
She offered assurances that the process of releasing hundreds of detainees, a move reportedly made at the behest of the Trump administration, “has not yet concluded.”
The releases have drawn criticism for being too slow and secretive.
“This opportunity is for Venezuela and for the people of Venezuela to be able to see reflected a new moment where coexistence, where living together, where recognition of the other allows building and erecting a new spirituality,” Rodríguez said.
Flanked by her brother and National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez, and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, she also criticised organisations that advocate on behalf of prisoners’ rights.
She pledged “strict” enforcement of the law and credited Maduro with starting the prisoner releases as a signal that her government meant no wholesale break from the past.
“Crimes related to the constitutional order are being evaluated,” she said, in apparent reference to detainees held on what human rights groups say are politically motivated charges.
“Messages of hatred, intolerance, acts of violence will not be permitted.”
Despite sanctioning her for human rights violations during his first term, President Donald Trump enlisted Rodríguez to help secure US control over Venezuela’s oil sales.
To ensure the former Maduro loyalist does his bidding, he threatened Rodríguez with a “situation probably worse than Maduro,” who faces federal charges of drug-trafficking.
In endorsing Rodríguez, Trump sidelined María Corina Machado, the leader of Venezuela’s opposition who won a Nobel Peace Prize last year for her campaign to restore the nation’s democracy.
After dismissing her as lacking the sufficient support and respect to govern, Trump said he’ll meet Machado in the Oval Office on Thursday for the first time since Maduro’s capture.
The meeting is seen as a key opportunity for Machado to press Trump on her hopes for a democratic transition in Venezuela.
After a lengthy career serving as Maduro’s close confidant and representing the revolution started by the late Hugo Chávez on the world stage, Rodríguez now walks a tightrope, navigating pressures from both Washington and her hardline colleagues who hold direct sway over the security forces.
She did not address human rights groups’ complaints over her government’s lack of transparency and instead criticised such groups as having “tried to sell falsehoods about Venezuela.”
“There will always be those who want to fish in troubled waters,” she said, adding that her speech was as an effort to counter false narratives.
Rodríguez served as Maduro’s vice president since 2018, running Venezuela’s feared intelligence service and managing its crucial oil industry.
A 56-year-old lawyer and politician, Rodríguez was sworn in as interim president two days after the Trump administration snatched Maduro from his fortified compound and claimed the US would be calling the shots in Venezuela.
Additional sources • AP