Sarah Machmud is a typical Queenslander—she has a passion for food, health and fitness and loves the summer sun—but deep down she longs to return to her home.
The Venezuelan-Australian who arrived as an asylum seeker in 2016 remembers all too well the smothering sense of oppression she left behind in her home country, more than 15,000 kilometres away.
However, that distance seem to shrink once she learned of the U.S. military’s capture of socialist Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro following a major operation on Jan. 3, 2026.
It was a moment Machmud had patiently waited for years, as they sat out the leadership of predecessor Hugo Chavez and then Maduro.
Venezuela had once been one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America thanks to the 1970s oil boom—but those days have long passed as the country now grapples with poverty, starvation and oppression.
It was a dark era that haunted Machmud, during which she was injured and witnessed the death of a close friend at a protest against the socialist government.
Machmud was a psychology student and ran a beachside mini-bar to make a living. However, her role in protests started to threaten what little freedom she had.
Spies Everywhere
The Queenslander noted the role of Cuban intelligence in helping the Maduro regime suppress opposing voices.“When [Cuban] intelligence has been in the country for so long, there is a point that you kind of learn how to thrive under the pressure, that you’re always being seen,” Machmud told The Epoch Times.
“So growing up in that environment, you underestimate how smart they are, and that can play against you, because they seem so stupid on TV and Instagram, making silly mistakes.
“But underneath all that, there is literally Cuban intelligence, and there is so much work into controlling people,” she said, noting even social media posts were monitored with security forces even observing what posts were liked or shared.
Cuban intelligence has been deeply involved in Venezuela’s domestic security as part of a close military alliance between the two regimes.
It’s often the everyday things that remind Machmud of how tough life was, even trying to catch a bus on the beleaguered public transport system starved of funds and poorly maintained.
“So public transport is a bit of a challenge just because they didn’t put any money on it.
Selling Food Also Risky
Even education was limited, because the government linked academia with capitalism.Machmud’s family worked their hardest to make a living in Venezuela, but running a simple food business sneaking in wholesale food and selling to vulnerable locals at a fair price also resulted in threats.
Government operatives confiscated the food—most of which had been sold to families and the elderly—and told Machmud’s mother she would be imprisoned should she go against the government’s control of food sales.
An Economy in Peril
From its heyday, Venezuela’s economy is now a mere shadow of its former self.From 2014-21, the economy shrunk 75 percent, according to International Monetary Fund data.
That same year, 17 percent of children under the age of five in Venezuela were malnourished, according to Catholic humanitarian organisation Caritas Venezuela.
The same charity found 21 percent of pregnant women suffered moderate to extreme malnutrition, additionally, studies found the majority of pregnant women had no access to prenatal care.
“We found a health system in utter collapse with increased levels of maternal and infant mortality; the spread of vaccine-preventable diseases, such as measles and diphtheria; and increases in numbers of infectious diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis (TB),” the organisation said.
Delcy Rodriguez is currently in place as the nation’s interim president.
