FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
In September 2018, Nicolás Maduro, then president of Venezuela and symbol of the harsh Chavista regime, made a brief stopover in Istanbul. It was not a diplomatic summit, nor a bilateral meeting, just a luxurious dinner at the famous Salt Bae (Nusret Gökçe) restaurant, where he and his wife, Cilia Flores, enjoyed a 1,000-euro steak and 2,000-euro French wine, while millions of Venezuelan citizens urinated and children searched for food in the trash.
Smiling and carefree, he called the dinner "a life experience" and once again demonstrated the deep distance between himself and the tragic reality of the people he claimed to lead.
This was Nicolás Maduro: a bus driver from the poor neighborhoods of Caracas, transformed into an autocrat in the shadow of Hugo Chávez, with the support of Cuban secret services and leftist Latin American organizations.
Maduro built his power step by step – from a simple deputy, to the speaker of the National Assembly, to the foreign minister, and then vice president. When Chávez died of cancer in 2013, Maduro was declared his heir, winning the presidency by a narrow margin and immediately facing accusations of electoral fraud.
During his 12 years in power, he transformed Venezuela into an iron-fisted state with a collapsing economy, rampant inflation, mass exodus, and a population that had lost everything but hope. According to 2018 data, two-thirds of citizens had lost weight due to hunger, while over 80% lived in deep poverty.
Meanwhile, Maduro became one of the most isolated figures internationally. Accused by the US of narco-terrorism, international drug trafficking and systematic repression of human rights, he held power thanks to total control over the army, secret services and judiciary, falsifying elections, suppressing the opposition and censoring any critical voice.
But everything changed on January 2, 2026, when a covert US Special Forces operation, Operation Absolute Resolve, led to his arrest in the heart of Caracas. In the early hours of the morning, with the city lights turned off by cyber-interference and US-coordinated ground, air and naval forces, Maduro was captured without a single shot being fired from the American side.
Today, he is on his way to New York, after passing through the Guantanamo base, where he is expected to face federal justice in the US. From a man who rose to power in the name of the people, he ended up handcuffed, abandoned by the military and hated by millions of citizens who once believed he would save them from poverty.
The story of Nicolás Maduro is the classic tale of a populist leader using the words of revolution to steal, oppress, and rule, until the power he thought was eternal abandoned him in the most public and humiliating way possible.
sa i ngaka RAMES dhe SALIUT