Recognizing that United States intervention in Venezuela responds to a colonial logic does not deny in any way the profound harm, the pain, suffering, killings, or violence inflicted by the Maduro regime, nor does it invalidate the other feelings that emerged after the “apparent removal” of that regime or imply defending its continuation in power. Rather, it enables a more rigorous analysis of how sovereignty, justice, and legitimacy are unevenly distributed across global power relations rooted in the historical subordination of Abya Yala, especially to the United States.

Discrediting those of us who raise these concerns by labeling us naïve, “red,” or dreamers, while simultaneously claiming that only U.S. military intervention could have brought about the fall of the Maduro regime, reproduces what thinkers like Aníbal Quijano and Frantz Fanon described as the coloniality of being. This reasoning once again frames us as subordinated bodies, incapable of self-determination and in need of outside intervention, discipline, and correction.

Reconocer que la intervención de Estados Unidos en Venezuela responde a una lógica colonial no implica, en absoluto, negar el dolor, el sufrimiento, los asesinatos ni las violencias producidas por el régimen de Maduro, y en ningún caso invalida el sentimiento devenido tras la “aparente eliminación” del régimen.

Tampoco supone defender su continuidad en el poder. Hacer esa lectura limita y bloquea el análisis y lo reduce a una posición que, lejos de justificar un régimen autoritario, intenta complejizar una realidad atravesada por relaciones históricas profundamente desiguales entre Abya Yala y Estados Unidos.