VENEZUELANS living in Jersey have been celebrating the removal of Nicolás Maduro as president of their country.
Friends Fatima Sousa and Nathali Correia – who met in Jersey having both been forced to leave their country in 2017 after facing endemic corruption and severe food shortages – took to the streets in St Helier on Saturday to celebrate Maduro’s capture and arrest by American special forces.
They waved the Venezuelan flag in Liberation Square in happiness – although both admit that there is a long way to go before their country is free of Maduro’s legacy, associates, and ‘Chavismo’ ideology.
On Saturday, US president Donald Trump launched an operation to capture the Venezuelan leader and his wife before they were charged in a New York court for drugs and weapons offences.
Mrs Sousa, who parents remain in Caracas and were awoken by the explosions of the American assault on Saturday morning, said: “I was quite surprised by the news at the weekend.
“We have been waiting for this for a such a long time. We knew that there had been an investigation following the election, when Maduro said he had won when he clearly didn’t. And we knew that [US president Donald] Trump was putting pressure on the regime, but we had been waiting so many years for this to happen, it really took us by surprise.
“I couldn’t believe it when I saw the news. I thought: ‘Wow, this is real, this is really happening’.”
Mrs Sousa added: “I am feeling happy, but it is only 50/50 because Maduro is not the only one. This is a big culture – there are people around him who are also really, really bad.
“These communists have been around for 26 years, and I’m only 30 so this is the only thing I have known. It is reason I left my country: there was no food, there was corruption, and if you thought differently to them, you could go to jail. How can you live happily with a person like that in power?
“When I left my country in 2017, I think that was the worst time for Venezuela because there was no food in the shops. You had to queue for hours and hours, and you could only buy food once a week depending on the number ending on your ID card.
“So, you can imagine trying to get food and being told that it’s not your day. And, as you can imagine, the hospitals are in very poor condition, and the increase in prices is crazy, changing day to day.”
Mrs Sousa said she was happy with US President Donald Trump’s decision to remove Maduro.
“The communists have been in control in Venezuela for far too long and Maduro was only going to be removed by an international effort because the army was with him. So, we needed help from outside.”
Mrs Sousa, who works for an accountancy firm, continued: “When I’ve talked to friends and family over the weekend, they are still afraid to celebrate, unlike people outside of the country like me, who can share our happiness. Like I said, you could be jailed for speaking out and a lot of Maduro’s team are still in place.
“Privately, they are happy but publicly, they remain very cautious. There is a big silence in Caracas – the roads and streets are still quiet. People are expecting something to happen but the question everyone is asking is when.
“We want to see all of the Maduro’s team go to jail in New York or wherever. We want to see all the team there because it is not only Maduro. You have Diosdado Cabello and others; we want to see all the big rats face justice.
Mrs Sousa said she would definitely go back to her country, if things changed for the better. “Absolutely I would; all my family is there,” she said.
Asked about her reaction to the toppling of Maduro, Ms Correia said she had been moved to tears at the news.
“We have been waiting so long for that happen so when it actually did, I felt so happy and excited, I started crying,” she said.
“For many years, we have been living under a dictatorship, starting with Chavez, and the government is corrupt. They took away the freedom of expression, business and companies left or shut down and our country deteriorated year by year.”
The qualified teacher, who is on the staff at St Michael’s Preparatory School, added that although only Maduro and his wife had gone, it was a start and now Venezuela could afford to hope.
She said: “We don’t yet know exactly what the Americas are going to do to help bring more freedoms; we still feel scared because it is still early days, but we are closer to freedom than we were. We are in transition – for how long, no one knows – and it is far from perfect, but we now have hope.”
Asked what she thought of the much-criticised American action, Ms Correia said: “Their strong intervention has not been well received by many countries, because they think it is illegal or wrong to go into another country. Others have said that it is all about oil.
“But if you ask most Venezuelans, they will say: ‘Thank God someone is doing something for our country’.”
According to the 2021 Census, 345 Islanders were born in Venezuela, 185 more than the last census a decade before. Around 8 million people are thought to have fled Venezuela in the last decade.
