Inside Caracas: Venezuela after Maduro

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The Economist. Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist. I'm your host, Rosie Bloor. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

For decades, he manned Britain. UFO hotline. In a field of wild speculation and fantasy, he set himself up as a man of calm appraisals. Our obitaries editor remembers Nick Pope, who remained open-minded to the very end.

I was recently able to get a visa to Venezuela after many years of trying and came at the last minute and so I got up there and travelled around the country and what I found was quite a striking feeling of optimism a hundred days on, more or less, from the raid by American Special Forces that seized Nicolas Maduro,

then president and strong men of the country. Kinley Salmon is our Latin America correspondent. I tried to get out and about. I got out of the capital Caracas to a town called Okumari del Tui to a political parties meeting, and there were hundreds of jeweller people there. They'd come along, despite this being a traditionally very pre-regime town. And they were all supporters of Maria Corina Machado.

She's the Nobel Peace Laureate and also remained opposition leader. She's out of the country right now, having been in hiding for a long time, and then having snuck out in an extraordinary journal to go and receive that peace prize in Norway.

And the organizers of this meeting told me, they'd all either been essentially in prison or in hiding just months ago before that extraordinary American reign. Before that change of reality for every Venezuela, no one would really have dared to attend these rallies, let alone string up the balloons that were outside the hall. But now with Nicholas Maduro in custody in New York, There were people on stage, the organisers singing lustily.

People told me in the audience we're no longer afraid, we're full of joy, we're eager to keep fighting. One woman I met there was attending a political event for the first time in her life, and she came along with her daughter. And she told me she's finally attended because she wanted to try to help build a better future for her children. So just Clarit. verify what's happened in Venezuela then. Maduro was extracted, but the rest of his repressive regime is still in power, isn't it? So why is there this burgeoning of freedom? Well, this is the remarkable thing, really. I mean, there has been 27 years of rule by this

socialist-turned authoritarian Chavismo movement, named after its founder Hugo Chavez. And they are still in charge. The new leader is Delci Rodriguez, who is Maduro's deputy, and Trump has left her in charge and essentially said, do what I asked or else. And for the most part, she's doing so. But there is a sense that things are changing. I think this optimism comes from that sense that there's less repression. There's less fear now, despite the regime in some form still being in charge. And what role is America playing? Well, they're very focused on foreign investment, frankly, and on oil, which is Trump's overwhelming priority. So the Americans are pushing for changes to laws on investment, which have already happened. They're pushing for the economy to be liberalized

to some degree to advantage American investors. And there's optimism about the economy. I was at the Caracas country club, a pretty different world, sparking pool, tennis courts, and people around that pool were frankly pretty bullish. Businessmen think good times are coming. But there's also been pressure, a little bit of pressure, I think, not as much as on the economy, to liberalize politically. Delci Rodriguez, the new acting president, has dumped some of Maduro's loyalists. She's even arrested at least one of them. She's brought in some of their own loyalists, but also some technocrats, which is building a little bit of optimism as well. So it's a gradual change, but it is some kind of a change under pressure from the Americans. So it sounds like you're

broadly positive about the direction that Venezuela is going in? Well, positive about the direction, certainly, but one shouldn't forget where the country is coming from. I mean, the degree of destruction under this regime of Jullesma is hard to overstay. You know, 8 million people, that's about a quarter of the country that has fled since about 2015. That's, I think, the biggest migration of people outside of a wartime ever.

So this is a desperate situation to be starting from, and those problems still remain. Venezuela had about 600% inflation this February. It has got the world's largest reserves of oil, hence Donald Trump's excitement about it. But it's had decades of poor management that have made it difficult to extract and profit from that. And there are deep challenges still about liberalising, about having the rule of law work,

not just for investors, but for everyday Venezuelans. And the road back is very long. I don't want to understate how challenging what is ahead really is. As you say, Venezuela has such a long history of repression. How is that playing out in daily life now? Or is it still playing out? We should be clear that there have been changes. There have been about 700 political prisoners that have been released since January,

but some 480 are still in prison. I went along to a candlelit vigil outside the feared Heliacoide prison in Caracas. And I spoke with a woman who was crying as she told me the story of her brother who's still in prison. She says he's forced to clean excrement from the floors. Desperate families, they hold photos of their loved ones. They're chanting justice and liberty in Spanish.

And even some of the people that have been released from prison aren't fully free. And I visited the home of Maria Corina Machado's former lawyer, that he's still under house arrest. He has two guards camped outside his door 24 hours a day. They drink coffee that he and his wife provides. They rest on mattresses that they also give them, use their Wi-Fi. And they knock on the door every three out. They knock loudly.

And what they demand is to take a photo to send to their superiors to show that he's still there. His wife laughs to me and says, where is he going to go? We're on the 11th floor of an apartment building. But this kind of grim ritual carries on. And there's no sense speaking to them that they're about to be in a relief from that awful situation. And yet at the same time, people are able to go to these rallies that you attended and announce their support for the opposition. That's right. Fear is falling.

There was still some caution at some of the political meetings that I went to. They were in a hall that had been hired. It was a big venue, but they were checking names at the door to make sure perhaps there wasn't some infiltration. But protests more generally have leapt in number. In January and February, there were about 1,200 protests of some sort across the country. I went along to one, met a retired teacher who told me we're determined not to leave the streets.

So, Kinley, where does Venezuela go next? Well, this is the huge question, to be fair. A lot depends on the Americans. Trump cares about oil and not particularly about elections that would appear. He's praised Delcio Rodriguez, the person running the country now, and has lifted personal sanctions on her. And the regime, I think, is playing for time. They're saying we must focus on the economy.

a journey that fractured a vertebra to go and receive the Nobel Peace prize. But wherever she goes abroad, she gains huge crowds. She was recently in Santiago and Chile, and she drew 17,000 people. She's about to have a big rally in Madrid this weekend. And so she really represents, I think, hope for many people who are looking forward hopefully to her being back in Venezuela soon.

Kinley, thank you. I actually want to focus now on Maria Corina Machado. You have been jet setting, you've not just been to Venezuela, you've also been just last week to Washington, D.C. to actually meet Maria Corina Machado. Tell me what she was like. Well, that's right. I met her in her temporary offices in D.C., which are conspicuously pretty close to the White House. And she is, I would say, above all, formidable. She is clearly an extraordinarily determined person. She is evidently, I'm very brave. As her campaign and her time in hiding and her escape really underline. She was very warm, she was very pleasable and casual in a way, but she also has a hard itch. And at times when challenge, she was willing to

push back pretty vigorously on the premise of my questions. So what was up for discussion? Well, I started by asking her how she understands this very bizarre kind of political moment in Venezuela. This is the moment in which the regime is the weakest in its history, and it's a moment in which our people are closest united and determined that ever. So does she think that there's a chance that there could be an election in Venezuela and she might actually find a way to power? She does, she certainly does. And I asked her, how do you make that happen?

Today is very different. And you know why? Because January 3rd represented a point of inflection. because the regime was faced with a real credible threat that made them understand this time is different. It's all very well saying all of this, but how is she going to make it happen? She can't, can she?

I mean, it's a very difficult road, and I don't think she can make it happen on her own. She needs American support, if not explicitly for her, but for a democratic transition and real elections. But she does think she has some tools in her toolkit that she can pull on. She wants to make the case that postponing elections is riskier for instability than having them. I believe the voice of the people should be heard peacefully, civically and strongly.

And sometimes the voices of those that might be comfortable with the status quo. are the ones that are heard. But that's not what Venezuelan people truly want. And that's very risky. She comes back again and again to the voice of the people, the role of the people being a crucial player. And she sounds like she wants to harness that voice of the people and the support they have for her to add pressure for elections

once she's back in Venezuela. Postponing an election is actually very risky. If people get impatient, these tensions could get out of a civic channel. And having an election will unite the society and give certainty to people and to investors. Is that realistic can lead to expect a democratic election after quite an undemocratic removal of the head of state? Many people find it very difficult to imagine that Delci Rodriguez would hand over directly to Maria Criini Maria Corina Machado because of her strong condemnations of the regime

with great clarity over a long time and because in short they fear her and many people had said to me in Caracas that maybe what's needed as a candidate would be somehow more palatable to the regime who they'd be less afraid to lose to or she was not particularly impressed with that argument one could say.

Well, once again, who chooses? the leadership in Venezuela. Delsi Rodriguez or the people of Venezuela. You know, I've heard that so many times. That was the argument why many did not want me to run in the primaries. I want a primary process with 92% of the votes. So let's forget about what the people think. And let's have business people or the diplomatic community or the regime choose

who should be the president of Venezuela, so much for democracy. In Venezuela, there is this really wide expectation that elections are coming. And you can see even members of the regime or they want to delay, but there's a sort of implication that at some point they'll have to go to the polls.

And some people told me they think the strategy is to try to boost up the economy and then they might even think they can win an election, which seems hard to believe, but that may be the plan. Where does America come into all of that? America is absolutely fundamental. And a lot of the expectation that there will be elections comes from the idea that although Trump may be a bit flaky on the question of elections, there will be

enough pressure. We actually saw very recently Chris Wright, the energy secretary who has visited Venezuela, saying publicly that he hoped and expected elections would happen in Trump's term. That might sound vague, but that's the first specific timing we've really had. So there's a sense that elections are going to come. But there's a big question on the exact time. And she, Mary Okina Maria Corina Machado, wants them to happen really as quickly as possible, but admits there will be some preparations needed. What we have estimated is that from a technical perspective, this would take approximately 40 weeks. So we have to start right away. That's our position. Surely there are still huge risks, though. Countless regimes have found ways to cling on even through supposedly

fair and open elections? That is, of course, a very serious risk, a real possibility. There's a question of having an election that seems moderately fair, and I think there she puts faith in international actors and in getting these kind of technical changes to the electoral body and things to happen before the election. There's also a question of just, will they actually hand over the power? They lost in July 24, the regime, and they just didn't. She's quite concerned about this, and she speaks about still the need for there to be justice

and a counterbody for people in the regime. Certain individuals that are willing to cooperate and facilitate will certainly have different conditions that those that insist in exercise and violence and repression. But she also talks in a way about the need for the regime to fail gracefully to have some easing out. And a lot of people in Caracas talk to me about that as well. So certainly we need to move ahead into a process

in which there are guarantees, and some compromises will be made. Yes. And the Venezuelan people, I'm sure, will agree with those compromises as long as they really trust the leadership who is representing them in those agreements. So, Kinley, I've already asked you what next for Venezuela, but what next for Maria Corina Machado? Well, the big question is when she goes back. Donald Trump has leaned on her to delay,

but she is itching to get back. And that will be a huge moment because people are going to want to come out to see her. The regime is going to be quite possibly in a difficult position of having to repress protests on a big scale in front of the world's media or letting some kind of rally happen and looking impotent and unpopular.

That will be a crunch point. We don't know exactly when it will be, but that could be the beginning of a turn or it could be a beginning of us seeing that actually the American pressure for democracy is not as strong as everyone hopes and believes. Thank you, and I just want to assure you

that Venezuela will be free soon. Machina herself is confident and has what almost feels like a deep faith that things are going to work out. And we'll turn it into a land of grace, that year of grace. which our children will come back. And huge opportunities for all will flourish.

Kinley, thank you very much. Thank you. in Vietnam to meet the passport bros, Western men going abroad seeking relationships with more traditional women. They call it the ultimate life hack, a way to bypass the struggles of modern dating. But online, the movement starts to sound like the angriest corners of the manosphere, where dating struggles morph into broader grievances about Western women. This is a must listen. You'll need to be a subscriber.

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Nick Pope didn't really have a program or a department. What he had was a desk in the bowels of the Ministry of Defence in London's Whitehall. Anne Rowe is the Economist's Obituries editor. And there he looked after all the submissions about UFOs that came in from the general public on what was called the hotline. His colleagues used to make fun of him when they passed him in the corridor they'd hum the theme from close encounters of the third kind

they called him spooky and also they made a lot of references to Fox Mulder the FBI paranormal specialist on the X-Files

but Nick Pope didn't mind that at all because he considered he had the best job in the world which was to go through all these weird messages he got from the British public. Two or three hundred came in every year when he was there and they came in the form of letters, emails, photographs and sometimes bouncy videos. He looked through all of them and tried to work out what on earth they showed him. Apparently there was a giant Manta ray hovering over Scunthorpe. There were balls of fire whistling about in the hedges of Wiltshire,

there were strange lights in the sky, almost everywhere. And so he had to work out which ones to worry about and which ones to ignore. He found that 80% of them had another explanation sometimes quite an easy one. For example, the lights in the sky were often aeroplane lights, white, red and green. On the other hand, there were 20% that gave him a bit more pause.

15% were just too odd for anyone to interpret, even though he could call on the services of astrophysicists and cosmologists, meteorologists, imagery experts, a lot of people around the MOD who were called in if he got really perplexed, but some of them couldn't help much either. At the bottom of it, there were 5% that seemed really inexplicable. And he began to come to the conclusion that there was actually something happening. He thought the MOD ought to be really worried about this. But unfortunately, they were not very worried in inexplicable things.

They were far more worried about Russia or China, things that were easily explicable and not these extraordinary phenomena in space. Eventually in 2006 he had to leave, and soon after that, he moved to America. And both in the UK latterly and in the States when he got there, he was seen as the person to go to whenever there was some strange incident happening, some extraterrestrial image or sighting which really bothered people. He could give a very sober appraisal, which was valuable because it was such a fantastically fantastical field full of wild theories.

And he debunked those very willingly. But always in the end, he had to say he wasn't quite sure what was going on. People would always besiege him with questions. And in fact, interest was growing exponentially all the time. The last great peak in human interest in visitors from elsewhere. came in the 1950s after the crash landing, so it was assumed of an alien craft at Roswell in New Mexico. At the beginning of the 21st century,

a lot more interest started to happen, and he was at the heart of it. There were reports from NASA, which had often rather ignored these things, and there were also, most impressively, a whole clutch of military men who came before Congress and swore. on oath that they had seen most extraordinary things.

The evidence from military pilots always impressed him more than anything else, especially on oath. He felt that this was probably conclusive evidence.

But in the end, even he was not sure. When people asked him, he would say he didn't actually know. Perhaps it was an attack, being brewed by another civilization far away, wanted to attack the earth, or perhaps a civilization that wanted to monitor the earth and was somewhat concerned by the way technology was speeding ahead on Earth sometimes rather carelessly. In the end, perhaps it might come from another dimension altogether

because there were hidden and other dimensions which theoretical physicists had to posit in order to make their equations work And it was in these completely invisible places that perhaps the visits had originated. So in the end, he was left, rather like the general public, looking up at the sky and asking the eternal question, are we alone? And that was the most profound,

and he believed the most urgent question humans could ask. Anne Rowe on Nick Pope, who has died age 60. That's all for this episode of The Intelligence. The show's editors are Chris Impe and Jat Gill. Our deputy editor is Sarah Larnuke and our sound designer is Will Rowe. Our senior development producer is Rory Galloway and our senior creative producer is William Warren. Our senior producers are Henrietta McFarlane and Alise Jean-Battiste. Our producers are Anne Hannah and Jonathan Day and our assistant producer is Kunal Kash Patel. We'll all see you back here for the Weekend Intelligence tomorrow.

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