Venezue­lan na­tion­als who marched around the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah to­day in sup­port of the coun­try’s op­po­si­tion leader Juan Guai­do chant­ed his name to the tune of the foot­ball song "Olé Olé Olé, Maduro must go and Pres­i­dent Guai­do. "

The Venezue­lans were call­ing on PM Dr Kei­th Row­ley to back Guai­do, who de­clared him­self in­ter­im Pres­i­dent of Venezuela.

The group al­so dis­trib­uted copies of an open let­ter to Row­ley from the Venezue­lan Com­mu­ni­ty of T&T to passers­by and mo­torists as they made their way around the sa­van­nah.

Be­fore set­ting off at the start­ing point op­po­site TGI Fri­day, they said the same pledge that Guai­do made when he was ap­point­ed Op­po­si­tion leader in Venezuela.

Chil­dren, ba­bies in strollers, on par­ents shoul­ders al­so took part in the al­most 200 strong march, most­ly com­prised of Venezue­lan na­tion­als, sev­er­al Paraguayans, Amer­i­cans and Trinidad sup­port­ers draped in the colours and flag of Venezuela and car­ry­ing signs and ban­ners.

Sev­er­al cars blew their horns, some work­men on the Car­ni­val booths showed their sol­i­dar­i­ty for the group, one man said to ex­pel Maduro. One heck­ler said he was for Maduro, one hos­tile male run­ner around the sa­van­nah hurled abuse at the Venezue­lans to get out of his way.

Sofia Figueroa–Leon, who was born in Venezuela, to a Trinida­di­an fa­ther said “We’re gath­ered here to­day in sup­port of our in­ter­im Pres­i­dent Juan Guai­do. Venezuela hasn’t been this unit­ed in 20 years. This morn­ing I saw a video of Guardia Na­cional head­ing to­wards a gath­er­ing of peo­ple who told them to join them, the sol­diers dropped their arms and joined the Venezue­lan peo­ple in protest.

“It’s com­ing to come, it’s just a mat­ter of time be­fore Maduro leaves. We want him out of the coun­try, ei­ther he leaves on his own ac­cord or he leaves feet first. We want free­dom for Venezuela.”

She said Venezue­lans want food for their fam­i­lies, elec­tric­i­ty, wa­ter, to go back to schools, to their jobs.

Figueroa–Leon said a Venezue­lan air force gen­er­al Fran­cis­co Yanez de­fect­ed from the ad­min­is­tra­tion of Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro yes­ter­day and threw sup­port be­hind Guai­do.

She said Venezuela need­ed US as­sis­tance, there was no food in the coun­try and hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid was miss­ing for the past two years.

Figueroa-Leon said Venezue­lans don’t want their coun­try to turn in­to an­oth­er Cu­ba.

When asked what she thought about a regime change, she replied who­ev­er helped re­move Maduro, whether Amer­i­can, Aus­tralian, peo­ple from Tim­buk­tu, the Venezue­lan peo­ple will take it.

Figueroa-Leon said scenes of Venezue­lan peo­ple starv­ing, burst­ing garbage bags for food scraps, dieing from a lack of med­i­cine, moth­ers giv­ing away their chil­dren be­cause they can’t feed them was what Venezuela had de­scend­ed in­to.

She said Venezue­lans wel­comed Amer­i­ca if they want to say it was Amer­i­can-led; the Bo­li­var­i­an peo­ple want­ed their free­dom.

Paraguayan Marisol Si­mon said her coun­try’s Am­bas­sador to the OAS, Elisa Ruiz Díaz Bareiro, spoke about cer­tain points and rules that nev­er hap­pened un­der Maduro.

She said it was a hu­man­i­tar­i­an is­sue to recog­nise Guai­do as the new in­ter­im pres­i­dent as there was a lot of suf­fer­ing, blood spilled and a lot of help was need­ed for Venezuela.

Si­mon said af­ter her coun­try Paraguay ex­pe­ri­enced 35 years of dic­ta­tor­ship un­der its for­mer pres­i­dent Al­fre­do Stroess­ner, she stood in sol­i­dar­i­ty with her Venezue­lan broth­ers and sis­ters.

She said she felt very emo­tion­al for not on­ly Venezuela to be free, but all the coun­tries that were un­der dic­ta­tor­ships.

Venezue­lan Ruth Al­go­rnoz said she want­ed democ­ra­cy for her coun­try and for all refugees and asy­lum seek­ers to re­turn to their coun­try when democ­ra­cy was re­stored.

She said she want­ed Venezuela to re­cov­er its oil in­dus­try, moral and val­ues they had lost and even their Catholic re­li­gion, Maduro’s regime was now per­se­cut­ing chil­dren.

Al­go­rnoz said she al­so want­ed Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to al­so ac­knowl­edge Guai­do as in­ter­im Pres­i­dent.

She said af­ter Maduro leaves the coun­try, Venezuela was go­ing to a tran­si­tion­al gov­ern­ment and go­ing ahead with new elec­tions.

When asked about Row­ley at­tend­ing a meet­ing as part of a Cari­com team to dis­cuss Venezuela’s sit­u­a­tion in Uruguay on Thurs­day, Al­go­rnoz said that was not pos­si­ble.

She said talks had failed in the past, they just want Maduro out, no more me­di­a­tion talks.

Al­go­rnoz said not even Mex­i­co can me­di­ate as it was a so­cial­ist/com­mu­nist coun­try.

Eng­lish­man Har­ry Hunt, who has been a res­i­dent in Trinidad for 15 years said he was there show­ing his sol­i­dar­i­ty be­cause it was a sim­ple mat­ter of right and wrong. He said he sup­port­ed the Venezue­lan peo­ple in their strug­gle to live in a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic and free so­ci­ety.

Hunt said what was hap­pen­ing in Venezuela was bor­der­ing on the crim­i­nal. He said Maduro should be hauled be­fore the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court of Jus­tice for the crimes he had com­mit­ted.

Hunt said it was very sad that Row­ley had tak­en the stance he had, it was all down to pol­i­tics and he felt very sad for the Venezue­lan peo­ple.

BOX
(in fine print)

The let­ter read:

“On be­half of the Venezue­lan Com­mu­ni­ty present­ly liv­ing in T&T un­der dif­fer­ent reg­u­lar and ir­reg­u­lar con­di­tions, and af­ter be­ing forced to mi­grate since 2015, due to the crit­i­cal po­lit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion and dev­as­tat­ing eco­nom­ic col­lapse of our coun­try, we take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to reach out to your hu­man­i­tar­i­an and sen­si­ble spir­it, and hear the voic­es of our peo­ple.

In these dif­fi­cult times of sig­nif­i­cant po­lit­i­cal change in Venezuela, which is aim­ing to re­store our democ­ra­cy and the “Rule of Law”. We would like you to put your hand on your heart, by rec­og­niz­ing the cry­ing for free­dom, of mil­lions of Venezue­lans who have been vic­tims of no­table and es­ca­lat­ing hu­man­i­tar­i­an crimes against our peo­ple in the pow­er of the Nico­las Maduro regime.

At this cru­cial mo­ment, we would like, you Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter to un­der­stand, that help­ing the peo­ple of Venezuela (not the Nico­las Maduro regime) is in the best in­ter­est of T&T cit­i­zens, as the re­la­tion­ships amongst our new le­git­i­mate and con­sti­tu­tion­al gov­ern­ment chair by our (In­ter­im) Pres­i­dent Juan Guai­do, can lead in­to sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits to both coun­tries in re­la­tion to: ef­fec­tive bor­der con­trols, stop­ping of il­lic­it traf­fick­ing of guns and drugs, pre­ven­tion of ter­ror­ist cells, stop­ping of hu­man traf­fick­ing from both sides of our pop­u­la­tions, stop­ping the prop­a­ga­tion of malar­ia and many oth­er dis­eases, and for the al­leged forty thou­sand plus Venezue­lans, be able to re­turn safe­ly to a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic coun­try, and more im­por­tant­ly, our new gov­ern­ment sees T&T as a rel­e­vant part­ner to start the re­cov­ery and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment of both en­er­gy sec­tors.

This could be our last chance to re­gain democ­ra­cy and free­dom; please T&T choose democ­ra­cy over diplo­ma­cy and help save mil­lions of in­no­cent peo­ple.