Cilia Flores was kidnapped along with her husband on January 3rd in a U.S. attack that killed 120 people, including civilians. In addition to being the first lady, Flores is a lawyer, a member of the National Assembly, and a trailblazer for Venezuelan women. She was the first woman to be president of the National Assembly and the first to become Solicitor General. She is affectionately known as the primera combatiente, or first combatant, as the title of first lady does not adequately capture all that she’s done for Venezuela’s revolution. Now, she is being unjustly held in a New York detention facility as the U.S. attempts a regime change operation.
Read and sign the open letter demanding Cilia Flores’s freedom! Want to sign on as an organization? Sign Here!
Organizations signed on: Veterans For Peace-Chapter 113-Hawaii, World BEYOND War, Task Force on the Americas, WILPF Cuba and the Bolivarian Alliance Committee, Taxpayers Against Genocide, NewhamVotesPalestine, Grupo de Solidaridad, Australia Solidarity with Latin America, Hawaii Family Support Institute, Australia Venezuela Solidarity Network, SanctionsKill, Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition, Rompiendo Fronteras Costa Rica, Friends of Latin America, Our Sacred Earth, Babbacombe Model Village, The Elephant Free School, Rochester Committee on Latin America, Finca Vida Verde and the Vilcabamba Permaculture Design Course, TORONTO, CANADA RAGING GRANNIES, ILPS, All-African People's Revolutionary Party (GC), Bath Peace and Justice, Friends of Latin America, Museo Ernesto Che Guevara de Buenos Aires, PCI, Reclaim the Night Australia, Alliance for Global Justice
On January 3rd, the United States bombed Venezuela, killing 120 people, and kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. Hours after the attack, the Venezuelan people began mobilizing with three key demands: peace, sovereignty and freedom for Flores and Maduro.
Cilia Flores was injured during the abduction, requiring stitches on her head and treatment for broken ribs. The food in the Metropolitan Detention Center where she’s being held is making her sick. Although her lawyers are still being paid for now, the U.S. recently imposed sanctions preventing President Maduro from paying his legal team.
Much of the international attention to this case has focused on President Maduro. Unfortunately, there has been little coverage of or solidarity with Cilia Flores, a woman who has played a fundamental role in Venezuela’s struggle for dignity and equality. Flores was Hugo Chávez’s lawyer when he was imprisoned in 1992. She later became the first woman to be elected president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, as well as the first woman in the country’s history to be named Solicitor General. She has served multiple terms as a deputy in the National Assembly, having been most recently reelected in 2025. Her long history in the Bolivarian Revolution led to her being affectionately known as the primera combatiente, or first combatant, following her husband’s presidential electoral victory in 2013.
Cilia Flores is currently facing charges of conspiracy to import cocaine into the U.S. and possession of weapons. United Nations and Drug Enforcement Agency figures show that Venezuela does not produce cocaine and is, at worst, a country through which cocaine sometimes transits (around five percent, per the UN, down from fifty percent before Chávez was president). The charges against Flores and Maduro are politically motivated to justify an attempted regime change operation aimed at controlling Venezuela’s massive oil reserves. They are political prisoners.
In Venezuela, women leaders formed the “Cilia Flores for Peace” International Women’s Brigades to build support for Cilia Flores and “defend self-determination and national sovereignty as essentially feminist acts.” Its mission is to “weave a global network of feminist and anti-imperialist solidarity to defend peace, denounce unconventional warfare against the peoples of the Global South, and to specifically support the resistance of Venezuelan and Cuban women.” They are clear that imperialism is an expression of patriarchy and that peace is an act of feminism.
Revolutionary women of Venezuela are emphatic: “President Nicolás Maduro and first lady and deputy Cilia Flores are innocent of the crimes they are accused of; they are prisoners of war. Let us defend our dignity and defend Cilia Flores, who is the First Combatant, a revolutionary force.”
In solidarity with Cilia Flores and Venezuelan women, we demand the following:
- Quality health care and food while Cilia Flores is in detention.
- Assurances that sanctions will not impede her right to a legal defense.
- The immediate liberation of Cilia Flores.