Nicolás Maduro’s son, Nicolás Maduro Guerra, on Wednesday acknowledged to the German news magazine Der Spiegel that the Venezuelan socialist regime must ask for forgiveness from the country for the “excesses” it has committed against its own people.
Maduro Guerra, also known as Nicolasito (“Lil’ Nicolas”) and “The Prince,” is Maduro’s only son and a current lawmaker in the regime-controlled National Assembly. He is also one of the individuals listed as a co-conspirator in Nicolás Maduro’s ongoing drug trafficking trial at a New York court.
Der Spiegel reports that Maduro Guerra received a visit from the magazine at an office tower in Caracas under the protection of “grim-looking” security guards. Throughout the interview, he acknowledged that the Venezuelan socialist regime committed “excesses” and created “difficult moments” during his father’s rule.
“There were indeed difficult moments, mistakes we made, excesses for which we as chavismo must ask for forgiveness. The responsibility to take the first step lies with us,” Maduro Guerra reportedly said.
Some of the “excesses,” Maduro Guerra detailed, include the actions of the Venezuelan police forces and the regime-controlled judiciary. He admitted to Der Spiegel that the judiciary has “not always” guaranteed fair trials nor the right to defense — something that the deposed dictator’s son described as “very serious.”
For decades, international organizations, human rights groups, and activists have extensively documented the brutally repressive actions and human rights violations committed by the Venezuelan socialist regime against its own people through its repressive law enforcement apparatus.
Under Nicolás Maduro’s rule, Venezuela went through what has been largely described as the worst migrant crisis in the history of the Western Hemisphere. As much as a third of its entire 30-million population fled from socialism and the Maduro regime’s repression over the past decade. Contrary to his other comments, Maduro Guerra claimed to Der Spiegel that many of the Venezuelans who have gone into exile are “harbingers of doom” who “let themselves be poisoned by the international media.”
Maduro Guerra stressed that he “underestimated” the capabilities of the United States and said that the U.S. used technologies “we’ve never seen here before” to arrest his father. He lamented that “we should have done more” to protect Maduro.
Following Maduro’s arrest by U.S. forces on January 3, the Venezuelan regime began releasing a significant number of the hundreds of individuals unjustly kept as political prisoners — hundreds of which still remain imprisoned at press time. President Trump recently told reporters before traveling to China that he will secure the release of all remaining political prisoners in Venezuela.
Asked for comment on the political prisoners, Maduro Guerra claimed — without evidence — that those who are still in prison are “not simply dissidents,” but instead “primarily people who attempted to assassinate” Nicolás Maduro, and that such purported actions are not covered by the amnesty law that the Venezuelan regime passed this year.
Der Spiegel also asked Maduro Guerra if he better understands the families of Venezuelan political prisoners now that his father is in a New York prison, to which he simply responded, “I think so.”
“All I can do is keep his memory alive in the public eye. To say out loud: My family has nothing to do with drugs or terrorists. All of this is a political process. Venezuela is an oil state, not a narco-state. That is why I thank you for listening to me,” Maduro Guerra told Der Spiegel.
“Incidentally, this was another mistake: that we closed ourselves off too much, like turtles in their shells. We need to speak out more often. We need to be open to confrontation,” he continued.
The deposed dictator’s son expressed concerns over the the type of food that Maduro is receiving in prison — making no mention that, under his father’s rule, Venezuela experienced rampant hunger and, in many cases, had to rely on the regime’s subsidized albeit low quality and often rotten CLAP food program. When confronted with this reality, the elder Maduro mocked those suffering malnutrition, calling it the “Maduro diet” and making crude sexual jokes about it.
“My father always ate very healthily. Lots of vegetables, little sugar. Now he mainly eats carbohydrates, highly processed foods, too much salt,” Maduro Guerra said. “On the phone, he tries to convey to us that he’s strong. He’s looking ahead, he says. Don’t let anyone take your happiness away.”
According to Maduro Guerra, his father speaks with him every evening and he is no longer in solitary confinement as of Holy Week, where he was allegedly transferred to a shared cell with 18 other inmates — half of which speak Spanish and talk to him.
Maduro Guerra described the current situation in Venezuela following his father’s arrest as a country that is “opening up to the world” and as a moment of “dialogue and reconciliation.” He emphasized that Venezuela is still ruled by the left and that it has a socialist model, but now the country “must make concessions, negotiate, and conclude agreements to preserve our sovereignty.”
Asked why Nicolás Maduro did not pass any of the reforms that Venezuela has experienced since his arrest, Maduro Guerra said, “I think it was for personal reasons.”
Prior to Maduro’s arrest, his son served as a liaison between the government and pro-regime local religious groups. Maduro Guerra claimed to Der Spiegel that his father reads the Bible “more than ever before” and quotes verses to him via the phone.
“Now I can send him books via Amazon; paperbacks are allowed. I ordered him the Venezuelan Constitution, the complete works of Simón Bolívar, and Metaphysics,” Maduro Guerra said. “My 20-year-old daughter is studying art. My father said, ‘Send me whatever she’s reading right now.’ So I got him Shakespeare — Hamlet — and Aeschylus’ Oresteia.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.