At eight in the morning, the twenty or so marines staying at the JW Marriott in Caracas start heading down for breakfast. It is a unique spectacle. They are between 30 and 40 years old and almost all sport, like Freddie Mercury, a chevron mustache. Tattoos climb up to the elbow, sometimes up to the knees. Caps, shorts, and T-shirts with slogans. Some unexpected in the war era of Donald Trump. No war team, read one of them last week. The marines, an elite rapid action force, never miss a day at the gym, keep schedules, and never part from their walkie-talkie. They are the most visible, but at the other tables there are CIA agents, State Department agents, Embassy staff… All of them are part of this new political moment experienced in Venezuela since last January 3. One in which the United States has more power than ever in the country, has half subdued Chavismo, and operates from a five-star hotel in a financial neighborhood of Caracas.
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The JW Marriott —JW is Marriott’s premium line— is a 17-story brick building that does not particularly stand out. It has about 300 rooms with a somewhat old-fashioned touch that, bargaining, can be obtained for 200 dollars without breakfast. Outdoor pool, gym, a restaurant where a dish and a drink can cost about 50 dollars, bar with average cocktails, and more than a thousand square meters of event and meeting rooms. Also a bridal dress shop and another for suits. It is not the place one would expect the future of a country to be forged.
And yet, since the U.S. special forces executed the operation that culminated in the capture of Nicolás Maduro, the JW Marriott became the informal headquarters of the U.S. presence in Venezuela.
It first served as an embassy, which had been closed for seven years since the diplomatic break in 2019. The building, abandoned during that time, accumulated humidity and mold and needed a full rehabilitation before the flag could be raised again. Meanwhile, diplomats, State Department agents, agents from various police and intelligence agencies, and marines who arrived in Caracas in the days and weeks following January 3 needed a place to settle. The JW Marriott was large, discreet, and had enough space for closed-door meetings.
The Embassy formally reopened on March 30, 86 days after the operation. But the hotel has not stopped being what it became during that time. “It’s not a hotel, it’s the place where Venezuela’s guardianship is decided,” says one of the people who has participated in one of the many meetings held there every day.
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Some of the most relevant actors in Venezuelan economy and politics have sat in its rooms alongside American interlocutors. Major decisions of the first 90 post-Maduro days have been discussed and executed not only in Washington. Also at those tables. Oil policy, mining, demands to the government of Delcy Rodríguez, economic initiatives, security… “I don’t know what precedent there is for an American guardianship coordinated from a hotel,” says this regular visitor to the building.
What makes the Marriott peculiar —and useful for, at least, writing this letter to you— is that it is open to other guests and visitors. It is not a military facility nor a diplomatic headquarters, although there are eyes and ears everywhere. All kinds of people come and go through its reception: football teams, Venezuelan and foreign businessmen, journalists, passing officials, fortune hunters, and occasional tourists who still don’t quite understand what is happening in this country.
Venezuelans who take some of these guests out to eat outside the hotel joke that they suffer from cabin fever —the term to define the psychological claustrophobia caused by spending weeks confined in the same space, unable to go out, with hardly any contact with the outside—. They go from the Marriott to work —almost always the Embassy—, and from work to the Marriott. They don’t talk to anyone outside their circle. At most, they cast a curious glance. They dominate Caracas without going out into Caracas. And, as the days go by, it is not so clear what the plan is.
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