The Reuters news agency reported this weekend, citing 11 different anonymous sources, that the Cuban Communist Party has begun withdrawing its agents from Venezuela, including both “security advisers” and slave doctors.
Years of documented evidence, including testimony from socialist defectors, has indicated that Cuba largely colonized Venezuela during the rule of late dictator Hugo Chávez and his successor, Nicolás Maduro. Estimates from the past decade suggest that, at its peak, Cuba flooded Venezuela with nearly 100,000 operatives, including both military and civilian assets.
“He [Maduro] spent a lot of time in Cuba; it’s the reason the Cubans wanted him to be Chávez’s successor: because he is committed to that model,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, then a senator, explained to Breitbart News in 2019. “But the majority of the people in his inner circle, the key people, the seven to eight people that really hold up the regime, are not ideological, to varying degrees, but not like him.”
The extensive reporting throughout the past decade on Cuba’s colonization of Venezuela appeared to be confirmed on January 3, when a U.S. operation resulted in the arrests of Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores on narcoterrorism charges. The Castro regime verified that 32 Cuban state security agents were killed attempting to defend Maduro during the operation, though the Venezuelan regime has not confirmed any individual deaths.
If confirmed, the exit of Cuban handlers from Caracas would mark the end of an era that would allow the still-existing chavista regime to govern itself for the first time without Cuban intervention since Chávez’s stint in power.
According to Reuters, the Castro regime has been gradually withdrawing its “security advisers,” in part because the current leader of Venezuela, “interim president” Delcy Rodríguez, is refusing to use Cuban bodyguards as Maduro had done. In addition to her personal security team, Rodríguez reportedly is flexing her muscle by removing Cuban agents within Venezuela’s intelligence infrastructure.
In the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM), Reuters reported, “some Cuban advisers have been removed from their posts, according to a former Venezuela intelligence official.”
“Some of the Cuban medical workers and security advisers have travelled from Venezuela to Cuba on flights in recent weeks, two of the sources said,” the report added. Reuters emphasized that Cuban agents were still active within Venezuela, but that multiple sources named Rodríguez for asserting Venezuelan sovereign authority over the country’s government agencies.
Neither the governments of Cuba nor Venezuela offered commentary on the report. The Cuban regime continued its enthusiastic condemnation of American efforts to stabilize Venezuela by arresting Maduro, a wanted accused drug trafficker, and aiding Rodríguez in rehabilitating the nation’s oil industry at the United Nations on Monday. Speaking before the United Nations Human Rights Council, to which Cuba belongs, Foreign Ministry Bruno Rodríguez issued a diatribe claiming that Venezuela was “vilely attacked” by Washington and that America is fully to blame for the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Cuba.
“Can a great power be allowed to try to destroy a small nation of peace, cause a humanitarian tragedy, destroy its national culture, subject a noble and supportive people to genocide under the crude pretext of national security?” Rodríguez asked rhetorically. “The Cuban people will defend with the greatest vigor and courage, in close unity and broad consensus, their right to self-determination, independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and constitutional order.”
The Castro regime’s main objection currently is the passage of an executive order by President Donald Trump in late January that allowed for the imposition of tariffs on third-party nations that provide oil to Cuba. For decades, Cuba subsisted on oil shipments from Venezuela, often offered for little payment, traded for repression expertise or political support. With Maduro out of Venezuela, Cuba was forced to frantically seek other oil suppliers and, following the executive order, has largely failed. Leftist Mexico, which had previously offered some oil to the country, claimed to have stopped after the executive order.
Cuba’s future in Venezuela appears uncertain at press time. While Delcy Rodríguez served as top diplomat to Maduro before becoming vice president and is among the most ideologically radical socialists in the chavista regime, she has also made significant overtures to the United States and Trump has praised her as cooperative. Last week, United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) commander Marine Gen. Francis L. Donovan traveled to Caracas and met with Rodríguez personally, getting an inconceivably warm reception by a regime actively hostile to the United States just three months ago.
“During the meeting, the leaders reiterated the United States’ commitment to a free, safe and prosperous Venezuela for the Venezuelan people, the United States, and the Western Hemisphere,” SOUTHCOM said at the time. “Discussions focused on the security environment, steps to ensure the implementation of President Donald Trump’s three-phase plan — particularly the stabilization of Venezuela — and the importance of shared security across the Western Hemisphere.”
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