Venezuela’s international prisoners being used as hostages : NPR

Activists and relatives of prisoners disclose balloons calling for the freedom of political prisoners, in Caracas, Venezuela, April 14.

Ariana Cubillos / AP

hide

tilting legend

Ariana Cubillos / AP

Bogotá, Colombia – Manuel Alejandro Tick lived in a peaceful condo on the outskirts of Bogotá, from where he bicycle at his office in the center of the city several times a week. Now he is in a maximum security prison in Venezuela, where prisoners are rarely allowed to communicate with the outside world.

“We are constantly worried about the way he goes,” said his sister Diana tick, who has lived in the three -room apartment which has been the family’s home for years.

She says that during the first months of her brother’s detention, she had a hard time sleeping, adding that the “emotional toll” of having held him without trial in a foreign prison was immense.

Manual tick, a 32-year-old humanitarian worker is part of an increasing number of foreign nationals held by the authoritarian government of Nicolás Maduro while Venezuela faces economic sanctions and political isolation of the United States and Europe.

The United States now amaling naval forces and even exploding several boats in the South of the Caribbean in an anti-narcotic mission that Maduro described as the start of a potential attack against his government, the relatives of prisoners say that they are confronted with a new level of uncertainty.

“I’m afraid of military pressure,” said Manuel Tick’s father Víctor Manuel. “It could lead to freedom, but it could also mean that Maduro holds these prisoners longer.”

The government of Venezuela accused many foreigners in its prisons of plotting to overthrow President Maduro.

But human rights groups say that these prisoners are mainly tourists, businessmen and humanitarian workers who had nothing to do with Venezuelan policy.

Juan Pappier, deputy director of the Americas at Human Rights Watch, currently says that 89 foreign nationals have been imprisoned in Venezuelan prisons, countries that include Colombia, Spain, Argentina, France and the Czech Republic.

Earlier this year, Venezuela released 10 Americans detained in its prisons in exchange for more than 200 Venezuelan migrants that the United States had expelled to a notorious prison in Salvador.

Pappier says that Venezuela intensified the detention of foreigners after its presidential election in 2024 – a vote that Maduro was largely accused of having stolen.

Dozens of countries have not recognized Maduro’s re-election last year, current White House officials describing the Venezuelan president as a “illegitimate” leader who directs a “narco-terrorist cartel”.

“It seems that the Venezuelan regime holds these foreigners as hostages,” explains Pappier.

“Foreign governments did the right thing by condemning electoral fraud in 2024. And in response, the Maduro regime extorts them by holding their nationals in prison and forcing them to engage with the Maduro regime for their release.”

Manuel tick worked for a humanitarian group called Danish Refugee Council when he went to Venezuela last year. He was asked to deliver a workshop to local aid groups on how to monitor food and medication distribution.

But tick was arrested at a border post when he sought to enter Venezuela, and was not heard for weeks, in what is equivalent to a forced disappearance, according to human rights groups.

“We lost contact with him on September 14 [of last year]”Said his sister Diana tick.” And only made him the news on October 17, when Venezuelan officials spoke about him on television. “The powerful Minister of the Interior of Venezuela, Diosdado Cabello, accused a mercenary.

In one year, tick was only allowed to make two phone calls. He is currently in a prison known as Rodeo One, where prisoners are rarely allowed to leave their cells.

Víctor manual tick keeps a photo of his son Manuel Alejandro tick on his phone. Manuel Alejandro de Bogotá, Colombia, was locked in a Venezuelan prison in the past year.

Manuel Rueda for NPR

hide

tilting legend

Manuel Rueda for NPR

“It’s heartbreaking,” said his father, Víctor Manuel, “because this is a situation that you cannot control.”

Human rights groups say it is not clear what the Venezuelan government wants in exchange for tick, or some other foreigners from Venezuelan prisons.

But some say that as Maduro’s grip on power is under pressure, his government is likely to do more prisoners.

“It is an act of despair,” explains David Guillaume, a Florida nurse who spent four months in Rodeo One – and shared a cell with a tick, where the two detainees faced boredom and anxiety by playing chess with pieces that they made in toilet paper.

Guillaume says he was arrested in September of last year after trying to enter Venezuela as a tourist.

He was released in January, as well as five other Americans, after a Trump envoy met Maduro and discussed any relief from economic sanctions.

“My American privilege made me cool, because I realized that I was not going to be there for a long time,” explains Guillaume. “So I tried to learn the names and nationalities of the people” to relay information to foreign governments and human rights groups.

But although negotiations with free detainees have worked in some cases, they can also worsen things, explains Laura Dib, a lawyer for human rights at the Washington Office on Latin America (Wola), a reflection group and a advocacy group.

“It actually creates a very dangerous environment in which anyone can be detained,” said DIB, adding that the Venezuelan government has realized that there were advantages by keeping international hostages.

“Seeking other ways to put pressure without necessarily negotiating and giving an authoritarian government what they want is very, very important,” she said.

At his home in Bogotá, Víctor manual tick shows a photo of his son Manuel Alejandro, who has been in a Venezuelan prison for twelve months and is owned without trial.

Manuel Rueda for NPR

hide

tilting legend

Manuel Rueda for NPR

DIB stresses that several nations are now traveling travel warnings, telling their citizens not to go to Venezuela following the large number of foreigners imprisoning it without trial.

Back in Bogotá, the tick family says they want the Colombian government to be more expressed on the release of its citizens – and to link commercial and security cooperation to their freedom.

But with the American naval forces which gathered off the coast of Venezuela, the fears intensify what this increasing show of force could mean for prisoners – trapped between fragile diplomacy and the prospect of an armed confrontation.

“What happened to us is an injustice,” said Víctor manual tick. “And that does not help to improve the situation of Venezuela.”