Phil Stewart

Thanks.

Well, I appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

Well, he had been a very controversial leader for some time.

I was on a trip to South America with the last chairman of the Joint Chiefs, not the one that's there now.

And during that trip, the head of Southern Command had actually called him a dictator back then in Chile, which had a very left-leaning government, and he was seen as a dictator there too.

And so Maduro had been quite controversial there.

even among the left in Latin America because of the fact that his last election victory was widely condemned by international organizations as being fraudulent.

And so although there's a lot of questions about the legality of the operation, there aren't so many questions really about how the international community viewed Maduro.

Well, I mean, let's say for starters that he does have a lot of supporters inside Venezuela.

And you've seen some of them rallying in recent days to call for his return to Venezuela.

But at the same time, the fact that there have been no celebrations inside Venezuela by the many, many, many people

who don't support him, is a sign of the kind of environment that exists in Venezuela, where there isn't freedom of expression, where people have fear of voicing political views that are contrarian to the government in power.

And for a

A state that calls itself a democracy is quite an indictment that there have been no public acts of celebration.

Actually, yesterday I was watching regional television, television in Colombia.

I used to be based in Colombia, so I'm watching one of the TV channels I used to watch when I was there.

And they were talking about people who were being arrested for posting anti-Maduro material on social media after his capture.

So people posted things on social media and they were arrested.

And they were rounded up and arrested.