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The Venezuelan-American journalist Germania Rodríguez Poleo stated that Cubans warned Venezuelans about the authoritarian project of Hugo Chávez (1954-2013) before 1998, warnings that were ignored under the belief that Venezuela "would not be like Cuba."
In a series of messages published on X, the reporter recalled that many Cubans residing in Caracas tried to warn Venezuelans about the direction the country would take with Chávez coming to power.
According to the account, most of those Cubans left Venezuela before or immediately after the 1998 elections, convinced that a political model similar to the one in Cuba would be imposed.
Poleo noted that those warnings were met with ridicule or disbelief. “We’re not going to be like Cuba because we are a rich country,” summarizes the phrase that, according to the journalist, was prevalent among Venezuelans at that time.
In another message, written in Spanish, he recalled how those warnings were dismissed three decades ago and issued a direct warning to other countries in the region: “Good luck to the Mexicans.”
The statements by Poleo reemerge at a particularly sensitive time for Venezuela, following the capture of Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces and the ongoing presence of chavismo in power, now under a framework of control and negotiation with Washington.
Far from an immediate collapse of the system, the new scenario has paved the way for a pragmatic economic shift that breaks with the historical dogmas of the Chavista model.
In this context, the interim president Delcy Rodríguez presented a comprehensive reform to the Hydrocarbons Law that would allow, for the first time since the Chávez era, national and foreign companies to operate oil fields without direct state control.
The project, revealed by the agency Reuters and already approved in an initial parliamentary vote, allows companies to produce and market crude oil independently, reduces taxes and royalties by up to 15% for high-risk projects, and includes the use of international arbitration to resolve disputes.
The shift occurs following a $50 million oil agreement between Caracas and Washington, reached after Maduro's capture, and amid an economic reconstruction plan estimated at $100 billion.
President Donald Trump stated that the agreement gives the United States control over the country's main source of income, while Chavista leaders defend the opening as a necessity to attract investment and prevent collapse.
Analysts warn, however, that the reform could conflict with the Venezuelan Constitution, which reserves the core activities of the oil sector for the State, and they remind us that the history of expropriations and litigation continues to weigh on investor confidence.
Even so, the change marks a turning point: chavismo, politically weakened, is now adopting an economic opening that it rejected for years.
Poleo's reflections connect the present with the past. For the journalist, the Venezuelan experience confirms that warnings about authoritarian projects are rarely heeded in time, and when reforms finally arrive, they often do so late and under pressure from the crisis.
His message reopens a regional debate about the repetition of political patterns in Latin America and the cost of ignoring signals that others have already experienced.
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