Protesters gathered this Tuesday next to the building of the new United States embassy in Mexico City to simulate the arrest of the president, Donald Trump, and thus demand the release of the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, just one month after his capture in a Washington military operation in Caracas.
With signs demanding the release of Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, both held in a New York prison, the protesters marched around the diplomatic headquarters alongside a person dressed in a prison suit and with a mask of Trump’s face, whom they pretended to beat in protest of the “kidnapping” of the Chavista leader and the “aggression” against the “brotherly people” of Venezuela.
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“We brought Trump because it is symbolic to bring him to his knees, to put him on trial for all the massacres and economic interventions he is doing to the whole world, but mainly to Latin America,” Yed Miguel, who is part of the Mexico City Convention association, explained to EFE.
A month after the “kidnapping” of Maduro and his wife, he stressed that this act is a call to form an “anti-imperialist front,” since – he added – it is not just Venezuela.
“Today they are harassing Cuba and that is not a good sign (…) The Latin American awakening has to become bigger and bigger because even the constitution says that sovereignty resides in the people and the people are the ones who are awakening and are the ones who have to defend their territory,” he stated.
Along with images of Maduro and Flores, the protesters displayed banners calling Trump a “criminal,” in addition to closing with a message in English: “Bring them back.”
One of those who participated in the event was Itzallana López, 22 years old, who told EFE that this rally is also a “call” to the union of all young people in the region, since “they have to unite as a generation” because the future “depends on us.”
A member of the Aztlán Collective, he defended that Trump has to be “named as a criminal,” which is why he encouraged people to take to the streets “to say that what is happening is not fair, that the intervention that is happening has to be named as such and that we cannot be indifferent to what is happening in Latin America.”
“Unfortunately, Mexico has also had these issues. We do not want to be anyone’s backyard, the union between Mexico and Venezuela has to be the future,” he added.
On January 3, US special forces captured Maduro and his wife Flores in an operation in Caracas that left more than 100 Venezuelans dead, according to the Caribbean country’s attorney general, Tarek William Saab.
The United States operation in Venezuela was strongly condemned by President Claudia Sheinbaum.
With information from EFE
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