A gay Venezuelan opposition leader who currently lives in Colombia says his country’s future is uncertain in the wake of now former President Nicolás Maduro’s ouster.

The Washington Blade spoke with Yendri Velásquez on Thursday, 12 days after American forces seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at their home in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, during an overnight operation.

Maduro and Flores on Jan. 5 pleaded not guilty to federal drug charges in New York. The Venezuelan National Assembly the day before swore in Delcy Rodríguez, who was Maduro’s vice president, as the country’s acting president.

Velásquez, who lives in the Colombian capital of Bogotá, described the events surrounding Maduro’s ouster as “very confusing.”

“It was a very surprising thing that left me in shock,” Velásquez told the Blade. “We also thought, at least from the perspective of human rights, that the United States was going to respect international law and not go to the extreme of bombing and extracting Maduro.”

“Other questions also arise,” he added. “What could have been done? What else could have been done to avoid reaching this point? That is the biggest question posed to the international community, to other countries, to the human rights mechanisms we established before Trump violated international law, precisely to preserve these mechanisms and protect the human rights of Venezuelan people and those of us who have been forced to flee.”

Velásquez three years ago founded the Venezuelan Observatory of LGBTIQ+ Violence. He also worked with Tamara Adrián, a lawyer who in 2015 became the first openly transgender woman elected to the Venezuelan National Assembly, for more than a decade.

Members of Venezuela’s military counterintelligence agency, known by the Spanish acronym DGCIM, on Aug. 3, 2024, “arbitrarily detained” Velásquez as he was trying to leave the country to attend a U.N. human rights event in Geneva.

Velásquez told the Blade he was “forcibly disappeared” for nearly nine hours and suffered “psychological torture.” He fled to Colombia upon his release.

Two men on Oct. 14, 2025, shot Velásquez and Luis Peche Arteaga, a Venezuelan political consultant, as they left a Bogotá building.

The assailants shot Velásquez eight times, leaving him with a fractured arm and hip. Velásquez told the Blade he has undergone multiple surgeries and has had to learn how to walk again.

“This recovery has been quite fast, better than we expected, but I still need to finish the healing process for a fractured arm and complete the physical therapy for the hip replacement I had to undergo as a result of these gunshots,” he said.

María Corina Machado, who won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, and other Venezuelan opposition leaders said Maduro’s government targeted Velásquez and Peche. Colombian President Gustavo Petro and his government also condemned the attack.

Colombian authorities have yet to arrest anyone in connection with the attack.

Velásquez noted to the Blade he couldn’t sleep on Jan. 3 because “of the aches and pains” from the shooting. He said a friend who is “helping me out and looking after my things” was the one who told him about the operation the U.S. carried out to seize Maduro and Flores.

“He said, ‘Look at this! They’re bombing Caracas! And I was like, ‘What is this?'” recalled Velásquez.

White House ‘not necessarily’ promoting human rights agenda

Velásquez noted Rodríguez “is and forms part of the mechanisms of repression” that includes DGCIM and other “repressive state forces that have not only repressed, but also tortured, imprisoned, and disappeared people simply for defending the right to vote in (the) 2024 (election), simply for protesting, simply for accompanying family members.” Velásquez told the Blade that “there isn’t much hope that things will change” in Venezuela with Rodríguez as president.

“Let’s hope that countries and the international community can establish the necessary dialogues, with the necessary intervention and pressure, diplomatically, with this interim government,” said Velásquez, who noted hundreds of political prisoners remain in custody.

He told the Blade the Trump-Vance administration does not “not necessarily” have “an agenda committed to human rights. And we’ve seen this in their actions domestically, but also in their dealings with other countries.”

“Our hope is that the rest of the international community, more than the U.S. government, will take action,” said Velásquez. “This is a crucial moment to preserve democratic institutions worldwide, to preserve human rights.”

Velásquez specifically urged the European Union, Colombia, Brazil, and other Latin American countries “to stop turning a blind eye to what is happening and to establish bridges and channels of communication that guarantee a human rights agenda” and to try “to curb the military advances that the United States may still be considering.”

Velásquez told the Blade he also plans to return to Venezuela when it is safe for him to do so.

“My plan will always be to return to Venezuela, at least when it’s no longer a risk,” he said. “The conditions aren’t right for me to return because this interim government is a continuation of Maduro’s government.”

Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers was on assignment in Bogotá, Colombia, from Jan. 5-10.

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — A gay Venezuelan man who has lived in Colombia since 2018 says he feels uncertain about his homeland’s future after the U.S. seized now former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

“On one hand I can feel happy, but on the other hand I feel very concerned,” Heberth Aguirre told the Washington Blade on Tuesday during an interview at a shopping mall in Bogotá, the Colombian capital.

Aguirre, 35, is from Maracaibo, Venezuela’s second-largest city that is the heart of the country’s oil industry.

He developed cultural and art initiatives for the Zulia State government.

“Little by little, I suddenly became involved in politics because, in a way, you had to be involved,” recalled Aguirre. “It was necessary to be involved because the regime often said so.”

“I basically felt like I was working for the citizens, but with this deeply ingrained rule we had to be on their side, on the side of the Maduro and (former President Hugo) Chávez regime,” he added.

Maduro in 2013 became Venezuela’s president after Chávez died.

“There are things I don’t support about the regime,” Aguirre told the Blade. “There are other things that were nice in theory, but it turned out that they didn’t work when we put them into practice.”

Aguirre noted the Maduro government implemented “a lot of laws.” He also said he and other LGBTQ Venezuelans didn’t “have any kind of guarantee for our lives in general.”

“That also exposed you in a way,” said Aguirre. “You felt somewhat protected by working with them (the government), but it wasn’t entirely true.”

Aguirre, 35, studied graphic design at the University of Zulia in Maracaibo. He said he eventually withdrew after soldiers, members of Venezuela’s Bolivarian National Guard, and police officers opened fire on students.

“That happened many times, to the point where I said I couldn’t keep risking my life,” Aguirre told the Blade. “It hurt me to see what was happening, and it hurt me to have lost my place at the university.”

Venezuela’s economic crisis and increased insecurity prompted Aguirre to leave the country in 2018. He entered Colombia at the Simón Bolívar Bridge near the city of Cúcuta in the country’s Norte de Santander Province.

“If you thought differently, they (the Venezuelan government) would come after you or make you disappear, and nobody would do anything about it,” said Aguirre in response to the Blade’s question about why he left Venezuela.

The Simón Bolívar Bridge on the Colombia-Venezuela border on May 14, 2019. (Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)

Aguirre spoke with the Blade three days after American forces seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at their home in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, during an overnight operation.

The Venezuelan National Assembly on Sunday swore in Delcy Rodríguez, who was Maduro’s vice president, as the country’s acting president. Maduro and Flores on Monday pleaded not guilty to federal drug charges in New York.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday in a Truth Social post said Venezuela’s interim authorities “will be turning over between 30 and 50 million barrels of high quality, sanctioned oil, to the United States of America.”

“This oil will be sold at its market price, and that money will be controlled by me, as president of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States,” wrote Trump.

Trump on Sunday suggested the U.S. will target Colombian President Gustavo Petro, a former Bogotá mayor and senator who was once a member of the M-19 guerrilla movement that disbanded in the 1990s.

Petro has urged Colombians to take to the streets on Wednesday and “defend national sovereignty.” Claudia López, a former senator who would become the country’s first female and first lesbian president if she wins Colombia’s presidential election that will take place later this year, is among those who criticized Trump’s comments.

“Let’s be clear: Trump doesn’t care about the humanitarian aspect,” said Aguirre when the Blade asked him about Trump. “We can’t portray him as Venezuela’s savior.”

Meanwhile, Aguirre said his relatives in Maracaibo remain afraid of what will happen in the wake of Maduro’s ouster.

“My family is honestly keeping quiet,” he said. “They don’t post anything online. They don’t go out to participate in marches or celebrations.”

“Imagine them being at the epicenter, in the eye of the hurricane,” added Aguirre. “They are right in the middle of all the problems, so it’s perfectly understandable that they don’t want to say anything.”

‘I never in my life thought I would have to emigrate’

Aguirre has built a new life in Bogotá.

He founded Mesa Distrital LGBTIQ+ de Jóvenes y Estudiantes, a group that works with migrants from Venezuela and other countries and internally placed Colombians, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Aguirre told the Blade he launched the group “with the need to contribute to the general population, not just in Colombia.”

Aguirre met his husband, an American from California, at a Bogotá church in December 2020 during a Christmas event that SDA Kinship Colombia, an LGBTQ group, organized. A Utah judge virtually officiated their wedding on July 12, 2024.

“I love Colombia, I love Bogotá,” said Aguirre. “I love everything I’ve experienced because I feel it has helped me grow.”

He once again stressed he does not know what a post-Maduro Venezuela will look like.

“As a Venezuelan, I experienced the wonders of that country,” said Aguirre. “I never in my life thought I would have to emigrate.”

The Colombian government’s Permiso por Protección Temporal program allows Aguirre and other Venezuelans who have sought refuge in Colombia to live in the country for up to 10 years. Aguirre reiterated his love for Colombia, but he told the Blade that he would like to return to Venezuela and help rebuild the country.

“I wish this would be over in five years, that we could return to our country, that we could go back and even return with more skills acquired abroad,” Aguirre told the Blade. “Many of us received training. Many of us studied a lot. We connected with organizations that formed networks, which enriched us as individuals and as professionals.”

“Returning would be wonderful,” he added. “What we’ve built abroad will almost certainly serve to enrich the country.”

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Colombian presidential candidate Claudia López has criticized President Donald Trump after he suggested the U.S. will target Colombian President Gustavo Petro.

“Colombia is very sick, too, run by a sick man, who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States, and he’s not going to be doing it very long,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday.

Trump made the comments a day after American forces carried out an overnight operation and seized now former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and wife, Cilia Flores, at their home in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital.

Maduro and Flores on Monday pleaded not guilty to federal drug charges in New York.

Petro is a former Bogotá mayor and senator who was once a member of the M-19 guerrilla movement that disbanded in the 1990s. He has urged Colombians to take to the streets and “defend national sovereignty.”

“Colombians are the ones who decide who governs Colombia,” said López on her X account. “President Gustavo Petro won free elections and has a constitutional mandate.”

López did not mention Trump by name in her comment.

The first-round of Colombia’s presidential election will take place on May 31. The country’s 1991 constitution prevents Petro from seeking re-election.

López in 2019 became the first woman and first lesbian elected mayor of Bogotá, the Colombian capital and the country’s largest city. She took office on Jan. 1, 2020, less than a month after she married her wife, Colombian Sen. Angélica Lozano.

“This year we will decide at the polls what direction (the country) is heading and what leadership will advance Colombia,” said López in her X post. “Supporting soft dictatorships and attacking democracies is an absurd and unacceptable political action by the United States towards Colombia, Venezuela, and Latin America.”

Quién gobierna en Colombia lo decidimos los colombianos.
El presidente @petrogustavo ganó unas elecciones libres y tiene un mandato constitucional. Este año decidiremos en las urnas qué rumbo y a cargo de qué liderazgo avanza Colombia.
Sostener dictablandas y atacar democracias… https://t.co/K61G2QUcck

— Claudia López Hernández (@ClaudiaLopez) January 5, 2026

López would be Colombia’s first female president if she wins the election. López would also become the third openly lesbian woman elected head of government — Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir was Iceland’s prime minister from 2009-2013 and Ana Brnabić was Serbia’s prime minister from 2017-2024.

The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute in 2024 honored López at its annual International LGBTQ Leaders Conference in D.C. The Washington Blade interviewed her during the gathering.

Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers will be on assignment in Colombia through Saturday.