Operation Peter Pan 2025? Another attack against the Venezuelan family

Published at: 02/05/2025 07:00 PM

“Kidnapping and robbery of Venezuelan children, the new onslaught of the United States government... Does that sound familiar to you? This is how the Secretary General of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Diosdado Cabello Rondón, began the editorial of his program Con el Mazo Dando #524 broadcast last Wednesday, in which he detailed the chronology of the permanent attack of the fascist right, together with the United States, on the Venezuelan family, stating that “the The government of the United States, has tried everything against Venezuelans, all this promoted from here, from Venezuela by some who sell their homeland, who began with the campaign of I would go too far, then you have to leave Venezuela because Venezuela is a disaster, here there is no way to To live and the young people with a great campaign of manipulation, they portrayed them as heroes who crossed the Andes, got them off the bus, and Federico Ravell, as a journalist who sells homeland, took a picture of them that circulated in international media”,

Cabello continued, explaining that “at the same time, they began with statements in which they stated that everyone left because of the government, that Venezuela is a danger and, consequently, also Venezuelan women and Venezuelans wherever they were, then came another campaign of persecution against Venezuelans abroad, which led to the assassinations of nationals in countries such as Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia”.

He also recalled “the campaign initiated by Julio Borges when he stated that Venezuelans were a pest for the region, in which any action against our compatriots was valid to stop them. They then continued with the narrative of the Aragua Train, stigmatizing every Venezuelan abroad as a criminal, now applying the Foreign Enemies Act, a law that they had in place and are now being used to persecute Venezuelans in the United States. We as a government demand who are the members of the Aragua Train? Where are they? This whole story is a vulgar lie that lackey presidents of the United States stick to to kidnap Venezuelans, so far there is no compatriot who has returned who has a criminal record or association with the Aragua Train.”

Cabello completed his editorial and reaffirmed that “the United States categorically lies to support a narrative that only they believe, and since it hasn 't worked for them much, they have now begun to divide Venezuelan families, to separate children from their parents, just as they have done in Central American countries.”

This new onslaught forces us to remember Operation Peter Pan, which was the theft of more than 14,000 unaccompanied Cuban children to the United States between 1960 and 1962, organized by the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Church Catholic , the operation aimed to remove children from Cuba to “prevent them from being indoctrinated by the communist regime of Fidel Castro.”

In 2019, journalist Kaija Groom conducted research to validate her master's studies entitled Operation Pedro Pan: The Experience of Alienation, Race, and Transnational Identity of Cuban Children in the U.S. Cold War, and in it she narrated “the assimilation experiences of unaccompanied Cuban children who were brought to the United States through Operation Peter Bread. This operation, backed by the U.S. government, the CIA and the Catholic Social Welfare Office, allowed the airlift of 14,048 Cuban children without their parents from Cuba to the United States between 1960 and 1962. This operation was a consequence of the tensions of the Cold War and the inherent politicization of children.”

Groom used theories of alienation and transnationalism to examine “the experiences of assimilation of Cuban children who were victims of this operation, and explained that the narrative for that time set out the efforts of the Cuban government to control children and make them a central part of the revolution, and together with the agencies of the U.S. government and their propaganda, they led to the politicization of children and the completion of the operation.”

Also, Cuban journalist Delfín Xiqués Cutiño, an investigative article called Operation Peter Pan: this is how the CIA secretly transferred more than 14,000 unaccompanied Cuban children to the United States and in it he explained that “Operation Peter Pan turned into victims the families it was supposed to favor. Parents who feared losing parental authority for their children in Cuba ended up actually losing it in the United States. Many have never been able to meet again, others have not yet appeared”

On December 26, 1960, Operation Peter Pan against the Cuban People began, and today it can be incredible to us that a country would have planned a plot to separate families from another country, just to not submit to their interests. And how was this possible? because of the disinformation actions carried out by the State Department , the CIA, the internal and external counterrevolution, as well as Catholic organizations that circulated the hoax that the Cuban government was going to take their parents' children, depriving them of parental authority, among other lies.

During 1960 and 1964, the situation on the island was characterized by a constant struggle against the bourgeoisie, the middle class and other sectors affected by revolutionary laws, who sought, through counterrevolutionary acts, sabotage and disinformation, to create an environment of insecurity in the people that would lead, among other things, to the loss of trust in the Revolution and its leaders.

This is why, knowing the actions that the U.S. empire has committed throughout its history against those it considers a threat, the Bolivarian Government raises its voice to defend its children in any territory, and with greater force when it comes to a vulgar kidnapping of Venezuelan children who, without any legal, ethical or human reason, seeks to separate our families by applying terrorist actions such as these.

AMELYREN BASABE/Mazo News Team