Venezuelan Students Break Years of Silence After Maduro’s Ouster

College students in Venezuela are publicly protesting for the first time in years following Nicolas Maduro's capture by U.S. forces in January. The young activists, who have only known authoritarian rule, are demanding prisoner releases, fair elections, and university funding while expressing mixed feelings about foreign intervention.

Students at Venezuela’s Central University took an unprecedented step in mid-February when their demonstration moved beyond campus boundaries and onto the streets of Caracas for the first time in years.

Prior to the January 3 U.S. military action that led to Nicolas Maduro’s capture, Venezuelan students faced severe consequences for public activism. While university grounds provided some safety, those who demonstrated in public areas faced beatings, imprisonment, or worse treatment. International organizations including the United Nations have documented torture methods used against Venezuelan detainees, such as electric shock, suffocation, and forced sleep deprivation.

The sight of students marching beyond campus walls while chanting “free them all” alongside family members of political prisoners represented a bold new stance.

“I was born in 2003 and all I knew was fear…until today,” 22-year-old Paola Carrillo, a student union representative, told the assembled crowd. “We are fighting for the freedom we want.”

Venezuelan college students became symbols of resistance during massive anti-government demonstrations ten years ago, often appearing bloodied from confrontations with authorities while carrying their national flag.

Those earlier movements collapsed under government pressure that included student and faculty arrests, violence from pro-government motorcycle groups that resulted in hundreds of deaths, and economic hardship that forced many to leave school for work. Smaller demonstrations in 2019, 2024, and early 2025 were rapidly suppressed.

Today’s student activists represent a fresh wave of opposition. Ten student leaders from universities across Venezuela told Reuters they feel more optimistic following Maduro’s removal and safer expressing dissent than they have in recent memory.

These students, between ages 22 and 27, have experienced only the socialist ‘Chavismo’ system established by former President Hugo Chavez in 1999.

“I hadn’t done anything like this before, and I think now is the moment even though it’s frightening,” said Carrillo, who is completing law school and was barely a teenager during the previous major student uprisings.

Her mission, she explained, involves encouraging participation “to let people who feel like I do know that they have a voice, that there is someone who feels the same and is still here, trying.”

Neither Venezuela’s communications ministry nor the attorney general’s office provided responses to inquiries about this story.

The student movement’s objectives extend well beyond prisoner releases. They seek elimination of hate speech and terrorism laws they view as oppressive tools, legitimate democratic elections, and what they term “reinstitutionalization” – rebuilding state institutions they believe the socialist party has dismantled.

Students also demand increased university funding and professor salary improvements, as educators currently earn only $4 monthly.

Miguelangel Suarez, 26, who leads the Central University student federation, directly challenged Interim President Delcy Rodriguez during her January campus visit, creating a viral moment on Venezuelan social media.

“I told the group: ‘Look, I’m going to confront Delcy Rodriguez.’ About 20 others stood up and decided, ‘We’re going with you.’ That says a lot about how the paradigm has changed since January 3,” he recalled.

This represented an unusual unplanned interaction for the 56-year-old Rodriguez, a Central University alumna and lawyer who rarely grants interviews or accepts questions, typically appearing only at government-supporting events.

“She told us we weren’t letting her speak. On the contrary, we were — and still are — willing to engage in dialogue,” said Suarez, who will graduate in December with a political and administrative studies degree. “As a graduate, and as someone with such important responsibilities, she should come and talk with us about the many problems facing universities.”

While opposing the government, many students remain unaffiliated with formal opposition parties and haven’t focused on upcoming elections promised by the United States.

Approximately 1.3 million students can vote, according to Carlos Melendez, a sociologist directing the non-governmental Observatory of Universities, potentially creating a significant voting bloc in the nation of 28 million.

“We are seeing a group of students who not only want to study, but also to engage in the country’s political agenda,” said Melendez, who has tracked Venezuela’s higher education system since 2018. Their involvement stems “not due to party indoctrination, but rather a reaction to the government and its policies, as they seek to push for democratic restoration.”

Students nationwide expressed appreciation for Maduro’s departure while remaining skeptical of U.S. involvement and wishing his removal had occurred through alternative methods.

Maikel Carracedo, 27, studying law at the University of Zulia in Maracaibo, learned about the U.S. operation when a friend’s phone call awakened him saying “They’re invading Caracas!”

“The first thing I did was make myself a cup of coffee. My first coffee in freedom,” he recalled.

Despite celebrating the potential conclusion of the Chavista period and hopes for rebuilding, Carracedo shared other students’ concerns about the intervention method.

“We truly hoped that change would come in a much more democratic, peaceful way,” he said. “Nobody wants their country to be bombed or attacked, but that’s what happened. Most people weren’t injured, it was surgical. And I’m genuinely glad because the dictator’s departure was quite significant.”

Carrillo, the Caracas student leader, noted that young Venezuelans generally “would have preferred to reach this point differently.”

“Deep down there is frustration that it couldn’t be done by us and that the situation, the circumstances, the regime, led us to this point where someone else had to do it for us,” she explained. “Furthermore, there is practically indirect administration by a third country over our country and especially over our resources.”

President Donald Trump has consistently praised Rodriguez for stabilizing Venezuela after Maduro’s removal and for opening the country to oil and mining opportunities.

Maduro consistently rejected claims of running a dictatorship and maintained he won his third term fairly in 2024, though opposition groups and international observers assert the opposition coalition candidate actually won.

Some students have personal connections to prisoner releases.

Jose Castellanos, a 22-year-old economics student at Lisandro Alvarado Central Western University in Lara state, spent nearly four months in detention after his October 2025 arrest on terrorism, hate incitement, and treason charges, all of which he denies.

Officials accused Castellanos of displaying a banner reading ‘Freedom… it’s happening’ on a university building.

He was detained with his brother, a communications student and journalist, and their mother. All three have since been freed.

“Being in prison made me mature. It gave me more courage and strength to fight for the country’s freedom, for democracy,” Castellanos said during a February march in Barquisimeto. “We will continue peacefully in the streets, with the truth on our side, demanding our rights as Venezuelans.”

At least two Central University students and two professors gained release from detention in February, according to student leader Suarez. Among them was Jesus Armas, a professor, human rights advocate, and opposition figure arrested in December 2024 on terrorism charges he denies.

“We are basically going through a personal transition — from uncertainty and fear of speaking out to feeling freer,” said Luigi Lombardo, 26, a social sciences education student at the University of Carabobo, noting that Maduro’s capture represented “the end for us of a long and painful era.”

“It’s the freedom to say what you feel, to express the circumstances you’re living through today or the needs facing the university, such as lack of transportation funding, increases in student grants and decent salaries for professors,” Lombardo explained. “Now there is space to express that discontent…to understand that the country is moving toward reconciliation.”