Venezuela's socialist dictatorship sent out a patriotic civil defense video on social media in recent days for residents of the eastern coastal state of Sucre. It calls for "maximum citizen discipline."
Sucre is the likely embarkation point for the suspected Venezuelan drug-trafficking boats that the U.S. military has been destroying in the Caribbean since last month — resulting in more than 30 deaths and raising accusations that the Trump administration is violating international law by killing rather than arresting alleged narco-criminals.
President Donald Trump now says he’s set to order anti-narcotics military strikes inside Venezuela. So since Sucre could be a prime target, the civil defense video says the state is on "maximum alert."
But on WhatsApp, that’s not how people in Sucre told WLRN they’re feeling. Their mood is more like: maximum conflicted.
They do fear Sucre will be a magnet for U.S. military attacks. That's because, aside from the drug-trafficking activity there, the state has several Venezuelan military facilities — and the Trump administration has designated Venezuela’s armed forces themselves a “narco-terrorist” cartel.
"It makes sense we're a target because we've always been a military zone out here," said a a school teacher in Sucre’s coastal city of Carúpano. (She asked WLRN not to use her name for fear of government retaliation.)
Even so, the teacher and other carupaneros says they want Trump to consider the economic effects of being in his crosshairs.
The teacher concedes many impoverished Sucre fishermen — especially in the remote coastal village of San Juan de Unare, which is controlled for drug warehousing and trafficking by Venezuela's notorious Tren de Aragua gang — have either agreed or been coerced to transport cocaine.
But she also points out that honest fishermen, many she knows personally, are afraid right now to go out to sea — or at least far enough out to make a meaningful catch — for fear that a U.S. military drone might mistake them for drug boats.
“That's why we expect civilian casualties if the U.S. attacks,” she told WLRN, “because we know there were some innocent civilians on the drug boats that have been hit.” Many of the drug vessels that go out of San de Unare, for example, also ferry non-criminal migrants and women being sex-trafficked.
Still, she said, many in Sucre are quite happy to see Venezuela’s brutal dictatorship in a maximum-alert panic.
Carúpano is one of the cities where the regime of Dictator-President Nicolás Maduro — who himself is under indictment in the U.S. for drug-trafficking — has activated the civil defense "training" called ODDI, a Spanish acronym for Organ for the Direction of Integral Defense.
“But it’s more what you’d call political indoctrination than civil defense training,” the teacher said. “They’re using a possible U.S. attack as an excuse to crack down on anti-government dissent.”
READ MORE: Venezuelan gang expert: U.S. risks casualties of innocents with Caribbean military anti-drug mission
Last year, Maduro stole Venezuela’s presidential election, which vote-tally records show he clearly lost to the opposition in a landslide. He jailed thousands who protested his massive fraud; his security forces killed almost 30.
So the possibility of ousting his regime — and fixing their collapsed economy, which has produced the worst humanitarian crisis in modern South American history —explains why folks in Sucre and across Venezuela are as welcoming of a U.S. military incursion as they are worried.
"I believe most of us Venezuelans, like me, want regime change to come in a peaceful way," said the school teacher. "But I can't deny many want the guns to come, too."
“There’s a long ‘gunboat diplomacy’ perception among many Latin Americans that the United States in the end is going to come in and save the day,” notes Florida International University international relations professor Frank Mora, who was the U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS) under President Joe Biden.
Trump has amassed a large military force in the Caribbean since last summer — including eight U.S. Navy warships and as many as 10,000 soldiers and sailors — to confront what he calls "narco-terrorist combatants." They have, he insists, effectively declared war on the U.S. with an "invasion" of drugs from Venezuela and Latin America that is killing Americans.
But Mora, who is also the Defense Department's former point man for the Americas, points out Trump would need perhaps ten times as many troops to stage an actual military invasion of Venezuela to dislodge the Maduro regime.
And even if that were to happen, the U.S. would then be staring at a nation-building mission similar to Panama three decades ago and Iraq two decades ago.
“We fear U.S. military action won’t actually weaken who we really want it to weaken — that the dictatorship could come out strengthened by this.""Patricia," a Venezuelan business executive
At the same time, though, Trump's deployment off Venezuela's coast is inordinately large for the mere anti-narcotics operations the President says it's there for. As a result, says Mora, Trump feels compelled to strike narco-targets inside Venezuela, not just out in Caribbean waters, to justify his investment.
"I think he believes he can declare victory in Venezuela after that," Mora said, "even if Maduro’s regime is left intact."
The problem, however, is where that would that leave Venezuela's democracy movement, which humiliated Maduro at the polls last year and is led by this month's Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado.
Machado partly dedicated her Nobel to Trump for his "decisive support" of her work, and she has voiced backing for U.S. military force in Venezuela. Like her, many Venezuelans have concluded it may be the only alternative left, though polls suggest that sentiment is stronger abroad in Venezuela's diaspora than it is inside the country itself.
Either way, says Mora, “If the United States decides they’re going to bomb a few places, a drug-plane airstrip here and a cocaine lab there, but ultimately not going to achieve regime change — that’s going to deflate the opposition."
"The Maduro regime can then say, ‘We’ve triumphed, we've overcome the yanqui invasion. That’s it!’”
And that, say Venezuelans like a business executive in the eastern coastal state of Anzoátegui, could make the regime even more repressive.
The business executive, who also asked WLRN not to use her name for fear of government retribution, said she’s glad to see the U.S. take action in Venezuela. But she agrees a limited anti-narcotics strike is a risk if it doesn't loosen the dictatorship's grip.
“We fear it won’t actually weaken who we really want it to weaken,” she said. “If the Maduro dictatorship comes out strengthened by this, people will be more terrified each time they hear a knock on their door at night.”
READ MORE: Poll: More Miami-Dade voters oppose than back U.S. military action against Venezuela's regime
But in South Florida’s large Venezuelan diaspora, there’s more optimism.
Trump critics suggest his Venezuela intimidation is little more than a performative campaign to distract Venezuelan expat voters — most of whom opted for him in last year's election — from the fact that he's deported so many Venezuelan migrants this year.
But many of them believe Trump’s anti-drug actions will, in fact, fracture and rattle the Maduro regime effectively enough to make knocking it from power more doable.
“The possibilities are very high that it’s going to work," said Francisco Poleo, a former Venezuelan journalist who today owns a wine business, InBodega, in Coral Gables.
"The possibilities are very high that this will work — the pressure on Maduro will facilitate a transition towards democracy and freedom."Francis Poleo, Venezuelan expat
Poleo points to media reports that Maduro recently offered the U.S. big concessions, like access to Venezuela’s oil reserves, in exchange for Trump backing off. (The Trump administration says it rejected the deal; the Maduro regime denies it ever sought it.)
“This is a regime that works like a mafia," Poleo said. "Each boss has his own criminal turf, and Maduro is the godfather.
"All they're thinking about now is finding a way to keep from going to jail. So I think we can and should expect this [U.S.] military pressure on Maduro to start facilitating a transition towards democracy and freedom.
"They never thought the United States would actually react the way they are doing right now — and they are scared.”
Or as President Trump recently put it:
"I think Venezuela is feeling heat."
For the moment, Venezuelans are left wondering:
How much heat will come? And will whatever comes change anything?
