Venezuela’s worldwide prisoners getting used as hostages : NPR

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Ariana Cubillos/AP BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Manuel Alejandro Tique used to dwell in a peaceable apartment on the outskirts of Bogotá, from the place he would bike to his workplace within the heart of town a number of occasions every week. Now, he is in a most safety jail in Venezuela, the place inmates are not often allowed to speak with the skin world.

"We're continuously anxious about how he is doing," says his sister Diana Tique, who lives within the three-bedroom residence that has been the household's dwelling for years.

She says that throughout the first months of her brother's detention, she had hassle sleeping, including that the "emotional toll" of getting him detained with out trial in a international jail has been immense.

Manuel Tique, a 32-year-old humanitarian employee, is amongst a rising variety of international nationals detained by Nicolás Maduro's authoritarian authorities as Venezuela faces financial sanctions and political isolation from the US and Europe.

With the U.S. now amassing naval forces and even blowing up a number of boats within the southern Caribbean in an anti-narcotics mission that Maduro has described as the beginning of a possible assault on his authorities, relations of the prisoners say they face a brand new stage of uncertainty.

"I am scared in regards to the army stress," says Manuel Tique's father, Víctor Manuel. "It would result in freedom, however it may additionally imply Maduro holds these prisoners for longer."

Venezuela's authorities has accused lots of the foreigners in its prisons of plotting to overthrow President Maduro.

However human rights teams say these prisoners are largely vacationers, enterprise folks and humanitarian staff who had nothing to do with Venezuelan politics.

Juan Pappier, the deputy Americas director at Human Rights Watch, says that at present there are 89 international nationals imprisoned in Venezuelan jails, from nations that embrace Colombia, Spain, Argentina, France and the Czech Republic.

Earlier this yr, Venezuela launched 10 People held in its jails in alternate for greater than 200 Venezuelan migrants whom the U.S. had deported to a infamous jail in El Salvador.

Pappier says that Venezuela intensified detentions of foreigners after its presidential election in 2024 — a vote that Maduro has been extensively accused of stealing.

Dozens of nations didn't acknowledge Maduro's reelection final yr, with present White Home officers describing the Venezuelan president as an "illegitimate" chief who heads a "narco-terror cartel."

"It seems that the Venezuelan regime is holding these foreigners as hostages," Pappier says.

"International governments did the proper factor by condemning the electoral fraud in 2024. And in response, the Maduro regime is extorting them by holding their nationals in jail and forcing them to have interaction with the Maduro regime for his or her launch."

Manuel Tique was working for a humanitarian group referred to as the Danish Refugee Council when he traveled to Venezuela final yr. He had been requested to ship a workshop to native support teams on easy methods to monitor meals and drugs distribution.

However Tique was arrested at a border publish whereas in search of entry into Venezuela, and was not heard from for weeks, in what quantities to a compelled disappearance, in keeping with human rights teams.

"We misplaced contact with him on Sept. 14 [of last year]," says his sister Diana Tique. "And solely received information of him on Oct. 17, when Venezuelan officers spoke about him on TV." Venezuela's highly effective inside minister, Diosdado Cabello, accused Tique of being a mercenary who was in Venezuela to recruit fighters for an anti-government mission.

In a yr, Tique has solely been allowed to make two telephone calls. He is at present in a jail often known as Rodeo One, the place inmates are not often allowed to go away their cells.

<img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/7008x4672+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fa0%2F7b%2F3bf5579040658267f3e07d873c50%2Fpic-one-venezuela-prisoner.JPG" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/7008x4672+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fa0%2F7b%2F3bf5579040658267f3e07d873c50%2Fpic-one-venezuela-prisoner.JPG" class="img" alt="Víctor Manuel Tique keeps a photo of his son Manuel Alejandro Tique on his phone. Manuel Alejandro from Bogotá, Colombia, has been locked up in a Venezuelan prison for the past year." loading="lazy"/> Víctor Manuel Tique retains a photograph of his son Manuel Alejandro Tique on his telephone. Manuel Alejandro from Bogotá, Colombia, has been locked up in a Venezuelan jail for the previous yr. Manuel Rueda for NPR conceal caption

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Manuel Rueda for NPR "It is heart-wrenching," says his father, Víctor Manuel, "as a result of it is a scenario that you just can't management."

Human rights teams say that it isn't clear what the Venezuelan authorities needs in alternate for Tique, or among the different foreigners in Venezuelan jails.

However some say that as Maduro's grip on energy comes beneath stress, his authorities is more likely to take extra prisoners.

"It is an act of desperation," says David Guillaume, a nurse from Florida who spent 4 months in Rodeo One — and shared a cell with Tique, the place the 2 inmates coped with boredom and anxiousness by enjoying chess with items they made out of bathroom paper.

Guillaume says he was arrested in September of final yr after making an attempt to enter Venezuela as a vacationer.

He was freed in January, together with 5 different People, after a Trump envoy met with Maduro and mentioned potential financial sanctions reduction.

"My American privilege sort of made me chill, as a result of I noticed I wasn't going to be there for a very long time," Guillaume says. "So I attempted to study the names and nationalities of the folks there" to relay the data to international governments and human rights teams.

However whereas negotiations to free prisoners have labored in some circumstances, they will additionally make issues worse, says Laura Dib, a human rights lawyer on the Washington Workplace on Latin America (WOLA), a suppose tank and advocacy group.

"It truly creates a really harmful atmosphere through which anybody could be detained," Dib says, including that the Venezuelan authorities has realized there are advantages from retaining worldwide hostages.

"In search of different methods to stress with out essentially negotiating and giving an authoritarian authorities what they need could be very, essential," she says.

<img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/7008x4672+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ffd%2F19%2F49d436c243d885fda5b9fdf0c27a%2Fpic-2-venezuela-prisoner.JPG" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/7008x4672+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ffd%2F19%2F49d436c243d885fda5b9fdf0c27a%2Fpic-2-venezuela-prisoner.JPG" class="img" alt="At his home in Bogotá, Víctor Manuel Tique shows a photo of his son Manuel Alejandro, who has been in a Venezuelan prison for the past twelve months and is detained without trial." loading="lazy"/> At his dwelling in Bogotá, Víctor Manuel Tique reveals a photograph of his son Manuel Alejandro, who has been in a Venezuelan jail for the previous twelve months and is detained with out trial. Manuel Rueda for NPR conceal caption

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Manuel Rueda for NPR Dib factors out that a number of nations at the moment are issuing journey warnings, telling their residents to not go to Venezuela on account of the big variety of foreigners imprisoned there with out trial.

Again in Bogotá, the Tique household says they need the Colombian authorities to be extra vocal in regards to the launch of its residents — and to hyperlink commerce and safety cooperation to their freedom.

However with American naval forces gathering off Venezuela's coast, fears are intensifying over what this rising present of pressure may imply for the prisoners — trapped between fragile diplomacy and the prospect of armed confrontation.