Protesters assembled in the heart of Los Angeles this Saturday to voice their opposition to the United States’ military intervention and seizure of Venezuela.
During a sudden nighttime operation, the U.S. deposed President Nicolás Maduro and extracted him from the country. He is currently being detained by federal authorities in New York.
President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. will assume administrative control over Venezuela on a provisional basis, citing intentions to utilize the nation’s massive petroleum reserves.
Although Maduro and other high-ranking officials were charged with narco-terrorism in 2020, the Department of Justice has unsealed a contemporary indictment against the leader and his wife. The filing describes the government as a “dishonest, unlawful regime” supported by a drug-running network that funneled cocaine into American borders.
In response, Unión del Barrio, the Community Self-Defense Coalition, and various local advocacy groups coordinated a rally to protest Trump’s invasion and the subsequent takeover.
Despite the falling rain, protest chants resonated throughout Pershing Square in South L.A. during the Saturday event.
This ‘Hands Off Venezuela’ gathering was part of a coordinated wave of similar protests held in cities across the United States.
The foremost priority among the demonstrators’ list of requirements was the immediate liberation of Nicolás Maduro.
The activists labeled Trump’s assertion that the U.S. would oversee Venezuelan affairs as a tactic of “psychological warfare.”
“We categorically denounce the aggressive strike and the kidnapping orchestrated by the criminal U.S. administration; one of our primary demands should be the incarceration of Trump and the freedom of Maduro,” remarked John Parker, representing the Harriett Tubman Center for Social Justice.
Participants in the march warned that the military operation, which the Trump administration justifies as a drug enforcement measure, could lead to a protracted and bloody war.
“The U.S. government has moved past the stage of trying to manufacture public consent for this military aggression,” stated Sister Diana from the Palestinian Youth Movement.
“Whenever the U.S. has pursued these types of interventions globally, the citizens eventually revolt. They will certainly rise up again,” declared Ron Gochez of Unión del Barrio.
The participating groups also expressed their formal support for the Bolivarian Revolution, the socialist-based movement founded by Hugo Chavez in 1999 and continued under Maduro’s leadership.