Venezuela: Delcy's Regime Kidnaps a Major Opposition Figure

Well, if anyone was wondering whether it's safe for opposition leaders to return to Venezuela yet, we have an answer. 

On Thursday, the Delcy Rodríguez regime kidnapped and detained Javier Oropeza, a former opposition mayor from Lara state. Oropeza had been living in exile in Spain for the last two years and had been in Venezuela for less than 48 hours. 

Oropeza, who is a member of Venezuela's Voluntad Popular party, was mayor of the Torres municipality. But after the 2024 election that Nicolás Maduro stole from Edmundo González and María Corina Machado, he, like many opposition leaders, fled the country with his family. The Maduro regime had charged him with terrorism and incitement to hatred — some of its go-to charges for political prisoners — and he took his family and got the heck out of there, as did many others. 

Upon arriving back in the country earlier this week, he went to court in Caracas, where the charges were formally dismissed under the amnesty law for political prisoners that the regime enacted earlier this year, presumably under Marco Rubio's guidance. He'd also been barred from holding any kind of political office until 2040 — the same kind of tactic Maduro used to keep Machado from running for president in 2024 because he knew she was so popular that it would be nearly impossible to steal the election from her. The regime also seized his property as it does. 

The next day, he was leaving a local newspaper office when unmarked vehicles intercepted him, and agents scuffled with him and took him away.  

Here's the video: 

#URGENTE | El régimen de Delcy Rodríguez secuestra al opositor exalcalde de Carora y periodista, Javier Oropeza.

Oropeza apenas tenía 48 horas en Venezuela tras volver del exilio.

Los agentes del régimen intimidaron a las personas que estaban presentes y les quitaron sus… pic.twitter.com/Deizx9JHCW

— Orlando Avendaño (@OrlvndoA) September 17, 2026

Other opposition leaders, like Juan Pablo Guanipa, blame the Bolivarian National Intelligence Agency or SEBIN, the country's intelligence and internal security apparatus. SEBIN is typically controlled by the country's vice president, which was Delcy for nearly eight years, up until January 3, 2026, when she took over as "interim president." During her tenure, surveillance, arbitrary detentions, and torture became more prevalent.  

The Human Rights Committee of Venezuela believes that Oropeza was detained by agents of the Criminal Investigation Division (DIP) of the National Police. 

Anyway, people like Guanipa went to the police facility and demanded to know his whereabouts and called for his release. Other opposition parties and leaders, like Plataforma Unitaria and Machado's Vente Venezuela, have issued statements, and several members of the United States Congress have spoken out. 

Just 24 hours before the kidnapping, a United Nations fact-finding mission had released a statement saying that the repressive apparatus in Venezuela remains intact, despite the removal of Maduro and some "limited" improvements. 

Here's part of the statement from Vente Venezuela: 

We Venezuelans are not surprised: Delcy is Maduro. Therefore, not only does it keep its repressive structure operational, but it refused to release more than 344 people and to issue the dismissal of dozens of political leaders and other civilians subjected to precautionary measures and other forms of persecution and judicialization.  

This is how a dictatorship operates. That of Delcy Rodríguez, a dictatorship capable of selling itself as reliable international partner, guarantor of freedom of expression by unlocking independent media that for years could not be consulted from Venezuela, and as the perfect interlocutor of a negotiating table supervised by the United States, while forcibly taking a journalist like Oropeza. 

The statement also makes a plea to the international democratic community to push for his release, along with the release of the aforementioned 344 political prisoners who remain detained (though some say that number is higher).  

All of this just happened on Thursday afternoon, and as I'm writing this on Thursday evening, there's been no word on his whereabouts or any public explanation for why he was detained. 

This comes as there are rumors swirling that Delcy will be in the United States next week for the UN General Assembly and will possibly even meet with Rubio and Donald Trump. 

Actually, I was just getting ready to submit this and have a quick update: The second round of talks regarding a path toward elections took place this afternoon, led by the former president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Dinorah Figuera, who was chosen by the U.S. to represent the opposition, and Jorge Rodríguez, Delcy's brother, who is the head of the current sham National Assembly and represents the regime. 

Figuera did bring up Oropeza’s detention — they actually learned of it during the meeting — and demanded his release. Both sides agreed to take steps to make that happen. Figuera said she would stay on top of it until he is released. 

So, that's a good thing, but the whole situation is just a reminder that there is a ton of work to be done to make Venezuela great again. Getting Delcy and the rest of the regime out of there would be an excellent start. 

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