Heavily armed militia on motorbikes roam the deserted streets of the Venezuelan capital in packs, hunting for traitors.
Citizens leave their homes only if they have no choice. Each time they do, they risk kidnap, torture and death in the regime’s El Helicoide, the brutalist prison that looms menacingly over the city.
Those venturing outside hold their breath at every turn, praying another checkpoint does not appear – at which a single ‘anti government’ message discovered on their phone will be enough to be ‘disappeared’.
Meanwhile, members of the national guard have shed their uniform and mingle with civilians, listening for collaborators.
A week after the dramatic capture of dictator Nicolas Maduro by US special forces from his tightly guarded compound, the shock and awe has not given way to a bright new dawn.
Instead, an insidious paranoia grips Caracas. It possesses everyone and everything, spreads out across the country, and flows over its frontiers to border towns where the secret police ‘mark, identify and track’ members of the foreign Press to their hotels.
It haunts the presidential Miraflores Palace, too. Within hours of the raid, desperate to shore up her reign, hastily inserted interim leader Delcy Rodriguez invoked constitutional rights usually reserved for natural disasters.
She swiftly deployed the full force of the omnipotent, militarised state she had freshly inherited to ‘search and capture… any person involved in promoting or supporting the armed attack of the US’.
Militia men now roam the deserted streets of the Venezuelan capital in packs, as citizens fear kidnap if they leave their homes
Those that venture outside hold their breath at every turn, praying another checkpoint does not appear
But she herself is suspected of collaborating with the ‘gringos’ to betray Maduro. Why else would Donald Trump give her leadership his blessing?
Around Ms Rodiquez, ruthless rival factions within the regime – who each control forces capable of unleashing untold chaos – weigh up each other carefully.
United solely by their lust for power, they are held in check now only by the threat of another Delta Force raid from the skies.
But should that risk fade – with Mr Trump’s attention drawn elsewhere – this land, which crawls with narco gangs and private armies, risks exploding into bloody conflict.
An estimated six million firearms are in circulation, and there would be little to stop the bloodshed spreading to Colombia on Venezuela’s porous western border, where a deadly guerrilla war is already raging.
Meanwhile, with every day Ms Rodriguez remains in power, the people fear that the euphoria of Maduro’s removal was a mirage – a deft sleight of hand by Washington to sell out their democratic ambitions in exchange for the country’s vast oil reserves.
Of course, Venezuelans have become grimly accustomed to living in one of the most militarised and surveilled states in the world.
They are used to the guns, tanks and missiles that have enforced the feared and loathed Bolivarian regime ushered in by ‘El Comandante’ Hugo Chavez in 2002 and preserved on his death in 2013 by Maduro, his chosen successor.
Colombian soldiers pictured patrolling near the border with Venezuela in Cucuta this week
A military guard at La Parada border crossing in Cucuta, Colombia, observing the flow of civilian traffic crossing the bridge from Venezuela
But at 1.50am last Saturday, the greatest humiliation imaginable befell the Marxist tyrants who rule this once vibrant and beautiful country on the Caribbean coast. ‘The gringos arrived, and it seems the full moon was the only one who saw them enter,’ a journalist in Caracas, who cannot give their name for fear of reprisals, says, summarising the mood on the street.
‘No radar worked, no alert was issued. They arrived, they bombed, they touched down, they took Nicolas and [wife] Cilia away, and they left practically without a scratch. Citizens are wondering – how on earth was this possible?’
My source says there appear to be just two possibilities.
‘Option one: the Venezuelan government was always bluffing, and the regime was completely unprepared for any attack,’ the journalist tells me. ‘Or option two: betrayals, negotiations, pacts.’
William Rodriguez, whose socialist party PODEMOS is allied to the ruling administration, adds: ‘There must have been an informant and, therefore, betrayal. There must be an explanation as to why the armed forces were taken by surprise.’
American Secretary of State Marco Rubio has insisted it is all part of a carefully scripted plan.
First, America will work with Ms Rodriguez to stabilise Venezuela by tightening control over the country’s oil before granting Western firms access to a rejuvenated market.
Then Venezuela will transition to a more representative democratic government – and charismatic exiled leader Maria Corina Machado will return for elections.
The Trump administration has put a £37million bounty on Maduro’s head, indicted him on drug-trafficking charges, and made clear that should he not help Ms Rodriguez maintain order, the same fate Maduro suffered awaits him
But Benigno Alarcón, a political analyst in Caracas, warned the plan appears to be an ‘unprecedented experiment’ born from the scars of America’s failures in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan.
They are ‘seeking to have the outgoing regime’s own actors dismantle the system that sustained them, a high-risk manoeuvre that seeks stability through total control of resources’.
It is certainly unorthodox. Washington has put all its eggs in Ms Rodriquez’s basket, says political consultant Edward Rodríguez.
‘She holds the keys to a devastated economy and, most importantly, knows every crevice of the Chavista apparatus: its loyalties, fears and networks,’ he adds.
‘Trump doesn’t need an idealist; he needs someone capable of pressing a button and making the machinery – or what remains of it – obey.
‘Is it a risky bet? Undoubtedly. But it comes with a brutal insurance policy: comply or it will go worse for you than for Maduro. It is the crudest pedagogy of power.’
Residents in Caracas, left powerless to see how it plays out, say the feeling since last Saturday has been one of ‘total sleeplessness’. One, whose home was hit in the deafening US raid, said when they woke, their building was ‘shaking side to side’.
‘Everything slowed down,’ they added. ‘As the curtains moved, the room lit up with an explosion – it was red, a war red, a blood red. Outside, there was a fire. ‘It’s happening. It’s really happening,’ I thought.’
Maduro pictured in handcuffs after landing at a Manhattan helipad, escorted by armed US federal agents as they made their way to court on January 5
But instead of the regime removal Venezuelans dreamed of, the Americans left as quickly as they had arrived, while – Maduro aside – the oppressors who ruled over them remained intact.
Alarmingly, Ms Rodriguez is by no means the only autocrat in town. ‘We have to see to what extent radical sectors of Chavismo will allow it,’ says Caracas-based political scientist Pablo Andrés Quintero of the US plan.
And already there are warning signs. Within hours of Ms Rodriquez being sworn in on Monday, hardline interior minister Diosdado Cabello slung a rifle over his shoulder and began marching the streets of Caracas.
Surrounded by gun-toting members of his ‘Colectivos’ – the fearsome paramilitary force of 7,000 heavily armed men that control the streets of Venezuela – Cabello raised his fist in the air and led a chant railing against ‘traitors’.
His co-operation is essential to Ms Rodriquez’s survival. Cabello, a former army captain, was a close ally of Chavez. For some hardliners it should have been him, not Maduro, who took over in 2013 – and there is no doubt that, given the chance, he would like to seize the reins of power.
The Trump administration has put a £37million bounty on his head, indicted him on drug-trafficking charges, and made clear that should he not help Ms Rodriguez maintain order, the same fate Maduro suffered awaits him.
For now, Cabello is just about complying. But this would change rapidly if he senses he is being isolated. ‘While the armed forces’ commander in chief is Delcy Rodriguez, Mr Cabello can use his Colectivos and paramilitary groups to create chaos,’ says Hernán Lugo, a Venezuelan journalist.
‘He can destabilise the country, start riots and ultimately make it so that nobody can rule the country.’
Pictured: people crossing the border into Colombia from Venezuela. A week after the dramatic capture of dictator Nicolas Maduro by US special forces from his tightly guarded compound, the shock and awe has not given way to a bright new dawn
Today, under Cabello, the Colectivos control more than a quarter of a million streets across Venezuela. They have been whipping up anti-American sentiment, plastering the streets with signs reading: ‘Hands off the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Yankee!’
‘Right now the Colectivos are in survival mode, because they completely depend on the government,’ Mr Lugo says.
‘If the regime falls, then they fall.’ Another key figure is defence minister Padrino Lopez, a close ally of Chavez.
He effectively stands at the head of the National Bolivarian Armed Forces of Venezuela (123,000 active personnel and 8,000 reservists).
They are bolstered by the Bolivarian Militia, which integrates up to 300,000 civilian volunteers into the military.
While Ms Rodriguez is seen as a pragmatist, willing to swallow American imperialism so long as she clings to power, Lopez and the military forces are not so inclined.
They have long benefited from the oil and drug markets and surely will calculate that Mr Trump is desperate not to get bogged down on the ground in a mountainous country, twice the size of Iraq and thick with jungle.
At any moment, any one of these factions could move.
A simple calculation alarms Mr Lugo. While the Venezuelan population voted overwhelmingly for the opposition in last year’s stolen presidential elections, the hardline elements of the regime are the only ones with the weapons.
‘They have been preparing themselves, they have been waiting for the war,’ he says. ‘Not only against the opposition, but against any external force.’
Should they do so, it would light the touch paper across the region.
Ivan Lozada, the commander of the feared Colombian far-Left guerrilla group FARC, has called for insurgent commanders across Colombia and Latin America to convene in response to the ‘interventionist threat from the US’.
Colombia has moved 30,000 troops to its border. All the while, the combustible, paranoid factions in Caracas assess their options.
‘These Colectivos and commanders are just waiting,’ Mr Lugo says. ‘They created all these structures. For them, they will be pleased if there is fighting.’
Trump stunned the world with his surgical strike – but what comes next may be infinitely more challenging.
