References PRIF Spotlight 12/2026
The Conflict Endures. Venezuela after the Intervention
by Vanessa Elechiguerra Labarca | To the publication
1 On the timing of the two earthquakes, see U.S. Geological Survey, event pages for the magnitude 7.2 earthquake (https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us6000t7zc) and the magnitude 7.5 earthquake (https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us6000t7zp) near Yumare, Venezuela, 24 June 2026; see also "Venezuelan earthquakes of 2026", Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/event/Venezuelan-earthquakes-of-2026.
2 On the exclusion of the Communist Party from the political settlement of 1958, see Rómulo Betancourt, Discurso del ciudadano Rómulo Betancourt, presidente de la República... al asumir el poder constitucional el 13 de febrero de 1959, Caracas, Imprenta Nacional, 1959, where he stated that the party had been excluded "por decisión razonada de las organizaciones que lo firmaron" on the grounds that its philosophy was incompatible with Venezuela's democratic structure. The exclusion became formal with Decree No. 752, issued on 9 May 1962 after the Carupanazo uprising, which suspended and banned the Communist Party of Venezuela and the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria, citing their involvement in the rebellion and their stated aim of overthrowing the government by force. República de Venezuela, "Decreto N.º 752", Gaceta Oficial de la República de Venezuela, n.º 26.843, 9 May 1962.
3 On the Caracazo as a revealing moment of social fracture and institutional weakness, see Margarita López Maya, "The Venezuelan Caracazo of 1989: Popular Protest and Institutional Weakness", Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 35, no. 1, 2003, pp. 117–137.
4 Just as the Pact of Punto Fijo and Decree No. 752 excluded the communist left from the political system, the collapse of AD and COPEI in the 1998 presidential election, in which the two parties together won only 11.2% of the vote, pushed to the margins the parties that had governed Venezuela for four decades. See Jana Morgan, Bankrupt Representation and Party System Collapse, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011, Consejo Nacional Electoral, 1998 presidential election results.
5 On contested elections, see U.S. Department of State, statement following the 2018 presidential election, and the Carter Center’s 2024 election assessment, discussed in note 6 below. On the sidelining of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, see "2017 Venezuelan constitutional crisis" and Nicholas Casey, "Venezuela Muzzles Legislature, Moving Closer to One-Man Rule", The New York Times, 30 March 2017. On the imprisonment of political rivals, Foro Penal recorded more than 18,000 political detentions in Venezuela between 2014 and 2025.
6 The National Electoral Council never published results disaggregated by polling station. The Carter Center concluded that the election "did not meet international standards of electoral integrity and cannot be considered democratic" (Carter Center, Statement on Venezuela Election, 30 July 2024; Final Report: Observation of the 2024 Presidential Election in Venezuela, February 2025). Parallel tallies based on original voting records (actas) collected by opposition volunteers and published at resultadosconvzla.com showed a clear victory for Edmundo González Urrutia.
7 Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Spain and Uruguay issued a joint statement on 4 January 2026 expressing their "profound concern" and firmly rejecting "the military actions undertaken unilaterally in Venezuelan territory" by the United States. See also Reuters, "Condemnation and applause in Latin America after US seizes Venezuela's Maduro", 3 January 2026.
8 Intractable conflicts are prolonged disputes whose structural, relational and psychological dynamics become mutually reinforcing and resist conventional efforts at resolution. Smilde and Ramsey applied this lens to Venezuela, while Vidaurri more recently explained repeated negotiation collapse through polarisation, fragmentation and incentives to preserve the crisis. This analysis places greater emphasis on the relational, emotional and institutional patterns that reproduce intractability beyond the negotiating table. See Coleman, The Five Percent; Bar-Tal, Intractable Conflicts; Smilde and Ramsey, “International Peace-making in Venezuela’s Intractable Conflict”; Vidaurri, Venezuelan Negotiations.
9 Coleman distinguishes between rapid changes in behaviour and the much slower formation and transformation of the underlying patterns that sustain a conflict. See Peter T. Coleman, The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts, PublicAffairs, 2011, p. 83.
10 Bar-Tal describes the ethos of conflict as a shared system of beliefs, narratives and emotional orientations that develops during prolonged conflict, helps societies interpret confrontation and, once entrenched, makes compromise and peaceful transformation more difficult. See Daniel Bar-Tal, Intractable Conflicts: Socio-Psychological Foundations and Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 174–176.
11 Author’s online survey on attitudes towards negotiation and political conflict in Venezuela, conducted between February and June 2026. The final sample included 236 Venezuelan respondents.
12 On the distinction between anger and contempt, Fischer and Roseman argue that anger is directed at harmful behaviour and may seek to change the other person’s actions, whereas contempt involves a more global negative judgment of the person and tends towards exclusion or rejection. See Agneta H. Fischer and Ira J. Roseman, “Beat Them or Ban Them: The Characteristics and Social Functions of Anger and Contempt”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 93, no. 1, 2007, pp. 103–115.
13 On the Madrid rally and the chant "fuera la mona", see Catherine Ellis, "Backlash over chants calling Delcy Rodriguez a 'monkey' at Venezuela opposition rally", Latin America Reports, 20 April 2026, https://latinamericareports.com/backlash-over-chants-calling-delcy-rodriguez-a-monkey-at-venezuela-opposition-rally/14289/
14 Chavismo refers to the political movement founded by Hugo Chávez, which combines Bolivarian nationalism, participatory and redistributive ideals, and a strong role for the state, and which has remained the governing political tradition under Nicolás Maduro. See “Chavismo”, Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/chavismo.
15 Diosdado Cabello, quoted in "Diosdado Cabello descarta negociar con la oposición mayoritaria y con María Corina Machado", El Nacional, 8 June 2026, https://www.elnacional.com/2026/06/diosdado-cabello-descarta-negociar-con-la-oposicion-mayoritaria-y-con-maria-corina-machado/
16 Delphos, “Prospectiva Venezuela 2026: II Semestre”, presented at the UCAB forum “Prospectiva 2026-II Semestre”, Caracas, June 2026, https://politikaucab.net/2026/06/19/prospectiva-2026-ii-semestre-estabilizacion-economica-sin-democratizacion-politica-seria-el-escenario-mas-probable-en-los-proximos-meses/
17 U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control, “Venezuela-Related Sanctions”, https://ofac.treasury.gov/sanctions-programs-and-country-information/venezuela-related-sanctions; U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control, “Issuance of a New Venezuela-related Executive Order and General Licenses; Venezuela-related Designation”, 28 January 2019, https://ofac.treasury.gov/recent-actions/20190128
18 On the U.S. naval deployment in the Caribbean from August 2025 that preceded the intervention, see "A surprise US Navy surge in the Caribbean", The Economist, 26 August 2025, https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2025/08/26/a-surprise-us-navy-surge-in-the-caribbean
19 United States. (2026, March 11). Statement of interest of the United States of America. In Stansell v. Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), No. 16-mc-405 (LGS) (SN) (S.D.N.Y.), ECF No. 621. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/8431633/stansell-v-revolutionary-armed-forces-of-colombia-farc/
20 The White House, “Safeguarding Venezuelan Oil Revenue for the Good of the American and Venezuelan People”, Executive Order 14373, 9 January 2026, sections 4(b)–(c) and 5(a), https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/01/safeguarding-venezuelan-oil-revenue-for-the-good-of-the-american-and-venezuelan-people/
21 Secretary of State Marco Rubio described this three-phase approach, immediate stabilisation, economic recovery, and eventual democratic transition, in congressional testimony. See U.S. Department of State, "Secretary of State Marco Rubio Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on U.S. Policy Towards Venezuela", 28 January 2026, https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/01/secretary-of-state-marco-rubio-before-the-senate-committee-on-foreign-relations-on-u-s-policy-towards-venezuela
22 U.S. Department of State, “Supporting an Institutional Democratic Transition in Venezuela”, Office of the Spokesperson, 18 June 2026, https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/06/supporting-an-institutional-democratic-transition-in-venezuela/
23 Jonas Wolff argued that the European Union should move away from a democracy-centred framework and approach Venezuela through a conflict-resolution lens, treating it as a long-running intrastate conflict rather than as a straightforward case of democratic breakdown. See Jonas Wolff, “A New Framework for Dealing with Venezuela: From Democracy to Conflict Resolution”, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 17 March 2021.
24 Council of the European Union, “Venezuela: Council Renews Restrictive Measures by One Year”, 15 December 2025, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2025/12/15/venezuela-council-renews-restrictive-measures-by-one-year/
25 Instituto Nacional de Estadística, “Estadística del Padrón Continuo. Población por nacionalidad, sexo y año”, datos a 1 January 2024, https://www.ine.es/dyngs/INEbase/es/operacion.htm?c=Estadistica_C&cid=1254736177012&menu=ultiDatos&idp=1254734710990
26 European Union Agency for Asylum, “Venezuela: New EUAA Report Highlights a Fluctuating Political Situation”, 6 July 2026, https://www.euaa.europa.eu/news-events/venezuela-new-euaa-report-highlights-fluctuating-political-situation
27 European Commission, “EU Provides EUR 20 Million in Humanitarian Funding Following Earthquakes in Venezuela”, 15 July 2026, https://civil-protection-humanitarian-aid.ec.europa.eu/news-stories/news/eu-provides-eur20-million-humanitarian-funding-following-earthquakes-venezuela-2026-07-15_en
28 Frances Robles, Julie Turkewitz and Adriana Loureiro Fernández, “‘Let’s Go to La Guaira’: The Voices of Venezuela’s Rescue Workers”, The New York Times, 17 July 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/07/17/world/americas/venezuela-rescue-workers.html
29 European Commission, Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, “Venezuela”, https://civil-protection-humanitarian-aid.ec.europa.eu/where/latin-america-and-caribbean/venezuela_en
30 Drawing on Bar-Tal's ethos of conflict and Coleman's account of intractability, see notes 9 and 10 above.
31 European External Action Service, “Facility on Justice in Conflict and Transition”, FJCT Flyer 2026. The document identifies Venezuela among the countries supported by the Facility between 2019 and 2025, https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2026/documents/FJCT_Flyer_2026.pdf
32 John Paul Lederach, The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace, Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 5–6.