KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Even as Venezuela’s de­tained pres­i­dent, Nicolás Maduro, ap­peared be­fore a US fed­er­al court to face charges in­clud­ing nar­co-ter­ror­ism and con­spir­a­cy to im­port co­caine, Joel Ce­de­no was un­con­vinced that his coun­try had turned a cor­ner af­ter more than two decades un­der the Unit­ed So­cial­ist Par­ty of Venezuela (PSUV).

Maduro was ar­rest­ed on Sat­ur­day in Cara­cas dur­ing a US-led op­er­a­tion and flown to New York to an­swer fed­er­al charges.

Venezuela’s vice-pres­i­dent, Del­cy Ro­dríguez, was lat­er sworn in as in­ter­im pres­i­dent.

The de­vel­op­ments have drawn mixed re­ac­tions in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, with sup­port­ers wel­com­ing the move and crit­ics ques­tion­ing Wash­ing­ton’s mo­tives.

For Ce­de­no, a fish­er­man who crossed the Ser­pent’s Mouth count­less times over four decades, the news brought lit­tle sense of re­lief.

Sit­ting be­neath a shack along Ica­cos Beach, now home to dozens of dis­placed Warao fam­i­lies sur­viv­ing on T&T’s fish­ing in­dus­try, the 61-year-old said his thoughts re­mained fixed on his fam­i­ly in Tu­cu­pi­ta.

Al­though Maduro is no longer at the helm, Ce­de­no said, the con­di­tions that forced him to leave Venezuela have not eased.

“Peo­ple here are hap­py,” Ce­de­no said, speak­ing in lim­it­ed Eng­lish.

He ex­plained that many Venezue­lans liv­ing in Ica­cos re­turned home briefly in De­cem­ber for Christ­mas, but few new­com­ers have trav­elled since Maduro’s ar­rest.

Ce­de­no has lived in T&T for sev­en years and now holds im­mi­grant sta­tus. His wife and one son re­main in Venezuela, while he lives lo­cal­ly with a daugh­ter and an­oth­er son.

A sec­ond daugh­ter re­sides in the US. Be­fore the eco­nom­ic col­lapse, he said, his fam­i­ly owned land, raised cat­tle and pro­duced milk and cheese, earn­ing a sta­ble liv­ing.

De­spite Maduro’s re­moval, Ce­de­no ex­pressed lit­tle op­ti­mism about what lies ahead. He said In­te­ri­or, Jus­tice and Peace Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo Rondón re­mains a pow­er­ful and desta­bil­is­ing force.

“Del­cy is not plen­ty of prob­lems, but Dios­da­do is. Del­cy and Maduro are to­geth­er. Same prob­lem,” he said.

Ce­de­no said many Venezue­lans would rather see Op­po­si­tion leader María Co­ri­na Macha­do take the reins than en­dure con­tin­ued PSUV con­trol or pro­longed for­eign in­ter­ven­tion.

While some op­po­si­tion voic­es have crit­i­cised the US ac­tion, ar­gu­ing it is dri­ven by Venezuela’s vast oil re­serves, Ce­de­no said such con­cerns can­not be dis­missed. Venezuela, he not­ed, is al­so rich in gold and oth­er nat­ur­al re­sources.

Ce­de­no’s daugh­ter, Joeliandrys, speak­ing by tele­phone, said Venezue­lans abroad are hes­i­tant to re­turn be­cause dai­ly life re­mains un­changed.

“Every­body wants Maduro’s Cab­i­net gone. Every­body in Trinidad will still stay be­cause Venezuela has not changed yet,” she said. “Every­body says that they want Trump to take Dios­da­do and Del­cy. They feel they just want Maduro and not them, but Trump needs to be smart and take all of them.”

She ac­knowl­edged that Maduro re­tains sup­port with­in the mil­i­tary, which con­tin­ues to shape the bal­ance of pow­er.

“So for Trump to take Venezuela, he has to sweet­en them, make them feel com­fort­able. He can’t reach Venezuela just so. He has to deal with the mil­i­tary,” she said.

“Peo­ple are hap­py be­cause they take Maduro be­cause he was the head, but we will be hap­py when they take Dios­da­do and Del­cy both. Maduro is just a pup­pet; he has no ed­u­ca­tion. They are smart, they know what they do.”

Rel­a­tives in Tu­cu­pi­ta, she said, re­port that food prices have surged, deep­en­ing fear and un­cer­tain­ty.

“My mom­my says every­thing has be­come more ex­pen­sive, like the food costs much more mon­ey,” she said. “Peo­ple are afraid. They can’t cel­e­brate that yet in Venezuela be­cause they are still in pow­er. The army had Maduro there, and the army is there.”

She added that com­ments by Ca­bel­lo about deal­ing with re­turn­ing mi­grants have on­ly height­ened anx­i­ety among those con­sid­er­ing go­ing home.

Along the Ce­dros coast­line, that un­cer­tain­ty was re­flect­ed in the still­ness of the sea.

Un­der a blaz­ing sun, on­ly a hand­ful of fish­ing boats ven­tured out, de­spite beach­es crowd­ed with idle ves­sels.

In Ica­cos, just four boats were off­shore. In Ce­dros, many mi­grants were col­lect­ed by con­trac­tors for a day’s work in­land.

Lo­cal fish­er­man Car­los Pan­chorie said he and oth­ers have con­tin­ued fish­ing de­spite re­ports of US at­tacks on ves­sels in the wider re­gion.

He said they had seen no war­ships and en­coun­tered on­ly rou­tine Coast Guard pa­trols near off­shore in­stal­la­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to Pan­chorie, the greater threat to liveli­hoods now is the weath­er.

“The wa­ter is too warm,” he said, ex­plain­ing that ris­ing sea tem­per­a­tures have dri­ven fish such as carite away, leav­ing both lo­cal fish­er­men and mi­grant fam­i­lies with few­er op­tions, and lit­tle cer­tain­ty about what to­mor­row will bring.”