Venezuela’s police, military pledge loyalty to interim President Rodriguez 

Venezuela’s military and police have pledged loyalty to interim President Delcy Rodriguez, weeks after the country’s former President Nicolas Maduro was abducted by the United States military in a deadly operation ordered by US President Donald Trump.

Rodriguez attended a ceremony at the Military Academy of the Bolivarian Army at the Fuerte Tiuna military complex in Caracas on Wednesday, where top figures declared their loyalty to her government.

“We swear absolute loyalty and subordination,” said Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino, who presented Rodriguez with the ceremonial baton and sword of independence hero Simon Bolivar.

“This is an unprecedented moment in our republic,” Padrino said.

Padrino’s declaration comes weeks after the US operation to abduct Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, which the defence minister said saw 83 people killed by US forces, including 47 Venezuelan soldiers and 32 Cuban security personnel.

Venezuela’s interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, also pledged loyalty on behalf of police forces, saying that supporting Rodriguez was important “because we feel that to defend your rule is to defend the continuity of the government and the integrity of the Venezuelan people”.

Rodriguez has led the country since the surprise abduction of Maduro on January 3.

Rodriguez, who had been Maduro’s vice president, has pledged the beginning of a “new political moment” in the country, and began her new role by freeing political prisoners jailed under Maduro.

She has also said “there is no foreign agent governing Venezuela”, even as Trump has threatened further military intervention if the country does not comply with his ambitions, including handing greater control of the country’s vast oil reserves to US companies.

Trump indicated hours after seizing Maduro and Flores and taking them to a prison in New York that he favoured getting his way by pressuring the new acting President Rodriguez, while also dismissing opposition leader Maria Corina Machado as a “very nice woman” but who did not command the support or “respect” to rule in Venezuela.

Machado, who was the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner, has since gifted her award to Trump at the White House.

While in Washington, Machado told reporters she thought “no one has faith in Delcy Rodriguez”, after talks with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

At the military ceremony in Caracas on Wednesday, Rodriguez appeared to refer to opposition leader Machado, saying: “Those who seek to perpetuate harm and damage against the people of Venezuela, let them stay in Washington.”