DORAL, Fla. (AP) — Revelers chanted “liberty” and draped Venezuelan flags over their shoulders in South Florida on Saturday to celebrate the American military attack that toppled Nicolás Maduro’s government — a stunning outcome they had longed for but that left them wondering what comes next in their troubled homeland.
People gathered for a rally in Doral, Florida, a Miami suburb where President Donald Trump has a golf resort and where roughly half the population is of Venezuelan descent, as word spread that the Venezuelan president had been captured and flown out of the country.
Outside the El Arepazo restaurant, a hub of Venezuelan culture, one man held a piece of cardboard with “Libertad” scrawled in black marker, joined by other Venezuelans chanting, “Liberty! Liberty! Liberty!”
“We’re like everybody — it’s a combination of feelings, of course,” said Alejandra Arrieta, who fled to the U.S. in 1997. “There’s fear. There’s excitement. There are so many years that we’ve been waiting for this. Something had to happen in Venezuela. We all need freedom.”
Trump insisted that the U.S. government would run the country at least temporarily, a culmination of the administration's pressure campaign on Venezuela.
About 8 million people have fled Venezuela since 2014, many seeking refuge in neighboring countries and increasingly the U.S., crossing difficult paths to a better life.
In Doral, Venezuelans of all backgrounds, from upper-middle-class professionals to lower-income workers, have come to seek a new beginning, hoping the fall of Maduro will lead to lasting change.
Niurka Meléndez, a 2015 immigrant who co-founded a support group for Venezuelans in NYC, expressed hope that a new beginning in Venezuela could arise from this intervention. “For us, it’s just the start of the justice we need to see,” she said, emphasizing the need for international humanitarian support to aid recovery in Venezuela.
Meléndez called for rebuilding a nation founded on justice and democratic governance post-Maduro, highlighting the dire humanitarian crisis her country faces and asserting that ending an authoritarian regime opens possibilities for recovery.
