President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele proposed to Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro on Sunday the possibility of sending 252 Venezuelans deported from America and detained in El Salvador back to their home country in exchange for Maduro liberating the same number of political prisoners in Venezuela.
Maduro and several members of his authoritarian socialist regime insist that Bukele has “kidnapped” more than 200 Venezuelan illegal migrants suspected of being members of the Tren de Aragua terrorist organization. These individuals were flown from the United States to El Salvador after President Donald Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. The Venezuelan deportees were sent to El Salvador under the terms of an agreement between Presidents Trump and Bukele.
Over the past weeks the Maduro regime has organized rallies demanding the liberation of the “kidnapped” Venezuelans and condemning Trump and Bukele publicly. Venezuelan officials have also used international organizations such as the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, to denounce the deportations. According to the Maduro regime, the detention of Venezuelan illegal migrants in El Salvador is comparable to the persecution of the Jewish people under Nazi Germany and their imprisonment in concentration camps.
Bukele publicly issued the “humanitarian agreement” request on Sunday evening in a social media statement, clarifying that all Venezuelans in Salvadoran custody were detained as part of an operation against the Tren de Aragua gang in the United States — unlike Maduro’s “political prisoners [who] have committed no crime.”
“Unlike our detainees, many of whom have murdered, some of whom have committed rape, and some of whom had even been arrested multiple times before being deported, your political prisoners have committed no crime,” Bukele’s message reads. “The only reason they are imprisoned is because they have opposed you and your electoral frauds.”
Bukele then proposed to Maduro “a humanitarian agreement that provides for the repatriation of 100 percent of the 252 Venezuelans who were deported, in exchange for the release and delivery of an identical number (252) of the thousands of political prisoners that you are holding.”
Bukele listed several Venezuelan political prisoners of the Maduro regime. Some of the names mentioned by Bukele include Rafael Tudares, the son-in-law of Edmundo González Urrutia, an exiled former Venezuelan diplomat who ran against Maduro in the sham July 2024 presidential election; Venezuelan journalist Roland Carreño; and activist and lawyer Rocío San Miguel, whose arrest and the subsequent international condemnation led to Maduro briefly expelling the staff of the United Nations human rights office in Caracas in February 2024.
Bukele also mentioned Corina Parisca de Machado, mother of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who has been the subject of constant harassment and surveillance by regime officials.
He elaborated:
Also included are the nearly 50 detained citizens of other nationalities: American, German, Dominican, Argentine, Bolivian, Israeli, Chilean, Colombian, Ecuadorian, Spanish, French, Guyanese, Dutch, Iranian, Italian, Lebanese, Mexican, Peruvian, Puerto Rican, Ukrainian, Uruguayan, Portuguese, and Czech.
He added that the Salvadoran Foreign Ministry will issue the formal correspondence.
According to the latest statistical information published by Venezuelan non-government organization Foro Penal dated April 14, the Maduro regime is currently holding 890 political prisoners, 61 of whom the whereabouts are unknown. Foro Penal stated that its list was sent to the Organization of American States (OAS) and the U.N. Human Rights office for verification and certification. Previous Foro Penal reports have been certified by the OAS.
The Maduro regime is imprisoning dozens of foreigners for their political views, including at least six American nationals as of February, according to Richard Grenell, President Trump’s Presidential Envoy for Special Missions. Grenell travelled to Caracas in January and successfully negotiated the release of another group of six unjustly detained American nationals.
The released Americans, the remaining six still unjustly detained in Venezuela, and several dozen other foreign individuals were arrested in 2024. The Maduro regime accused them of being “mercenaries linked to the CIA” that allegedly sought to assassinate Maduro and carry out other “terrorist attacks” in Venezuela. The Maduro regime did not present evidence to substantiate the accusations against any of the foreign detainees.
The Maduro regime responded to Bukele’s request shortly afterward in a statement issued by Attorney General Tarek William Saab, who claimed that Bukele has “accepted” that he maintains 252 Venezuelans “kidnapped” in El Salvador “in condition of forced disappearance in a concentration camp in that country.”
“The statement of Bukele, who makes his world debut as the most faithful exponent of neo-fascism of the present 21st century, shows that these citizens are kidnapped at the unilateral disposal of a subject outside the law who publicly and communicatively expresses to the planet that he tyrannically decides who may or may not enjoy life and freedom in El Salvador,” the statement read.
“As we explained in a letter to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, the treatment Venezuelans are receiving in the United States and El Salvador constitutes a grave violation of international human rights law and is a crime against humanity that mimics the repugnant Nazi practices of the mid-20th century,” the statement continued.
Saab, as attorney general of Venezuela, asked, “What crimes have these Venezuelan citizens committed in El Salvador?” He also asked if the deportees have had access to a lawyer or been allowed to communicate with anyone. Saab further demanded that El Salvador release a list of all of the “hostages” and their judicial status, as well as “proof of life and the medical report of each one.”
“The whole world should be disgusted by the fact that the CECOT is no longer a torture center created by the macabre mind of Bukele to punish criminals in his country, but a place of forced disappearance of innocent Venezuelan nationals (as agreed with his imperial partners) whom, as an expert in human trafficking, he uses to receive millions of dollars in exchange,” the statement read.
“The aforementioned demands that all international organizations demand the immediate liberation of our compatriots today vilely kidnapped by a tyrant and proceed to sanction this criminal proceeding that goes against the most sacred principles of international coexistence, justice and peace,” the statement continued.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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