Thousands of Venezuelans danced joyfully in the world’s streets. While leftist activists screamed holy bloody murder.
Some of the latter even marched toward the US Embassy in Manila waving signs reading “Hands Off Venezuela!” And everywhere, scenes of pandemonium permeated the wild earth. “Our resolution is a call for a truly free and independent foreign policy and a condemnation of the behavior of the US…” one protestor declared in Tagalog.
Growled another: “We don’t want the Philippines to be used as a staging ground by the US to attack its political enemies.”
They were referring, of course, to last weekend’s daring raid by Donald Trump and company on Venezuela, where US forces arrested President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Then rushed them to New York City to face charges of narco-terrorism, drug trafficking, and illegally possessing machine guns.
“The worst part of it,” a Venezuelan activist told the crowd in Manila, was “the president that we vote[d] for…got kidnapped.”
What was this, another day of irony on our crazy mixed-up planet? A public display of opposing narratives derived from parallel universes? Ok, let me just say one thing straightaway for clarity’s sake: given a choice between joy and rage, I generally try to pick joy. Especially when the facts speak loudly in its favor.
Fact #1: Maduro never won his last election, according to most international observers. In fact, he lost overwhelmingly to the opposing party, which he promptly forced into exile.
Fact #2: Maduro’s 13-year reign oversaw the economic disintegration of a once-prosperous nation inducing hyperinflation, severe food and supply shortages, the collapse of the oil industry, and a breakdown in public services. Not to mention severe political repression and corruption. All of which prompted some 7.7 million Venezuelans to flee their country, many to the United States.
Fact #3: Maduro has been under indictment for alleged drug trafficking and other offenses since 2020, with a $15 million reward (later increased to $50 million) over his head. Meanwhile, more than half-a-million Americans have died of drug overdoses in those same years.
But sometimes personal stories bear more weight than cold hard facts. So, here’s one posted on Facebook by a Venezuelan named Stephen Subero: “I’m going to say this only once,” he warns, “and I don’t care if it makes people uncomfortable. If you have never lived in Venezuela. If you did not grow up there. If you did not watch your country collapse in real time. If you did not stand in food lines. If you did not watch your parents lose everything they built. If you did not have to leave your home with nothing, then shut…up.”
Subero goes on to tell his story. How he lived in Venezuela until his early twenties. How that life ended when Maduro nationalized private property. How he and his family lost their home, their businesses, and all their investments. And how they fled to America in order to survive.
“People today in Venezuela are not debating ideology,” he continues. “They are trying to find food. Trying to find medicine. Trying to keep their families alive. China is not rebuilding Venezuela. Russia is not rebuilding Venezuela. Cartels are not rebuilding Venezuela. They are stealing. They are extracting. They are draining what’s left.
“If the US comes in and reinvests,” Sobrero says in conclusion. “If refineries are rebuilt. If infrastructure gets restored. If imports open back up. If food, water, and medicine become accessible again. If people can work and earn with dignity. Then yes. Let them take all the oil they want. Because at least something gets built instead of destroyed. This is something to celebrate…for the first time in a long time, there is hope.”
It’s too early, of course, to tell how all this will play out. And the debates will keep raging on whether Trump’s actions were legal. For now, though, I have just one simple request:
Please spare us your inane chants. And stop spouting your pathetic slogans.
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David Haldane is an award-winning American journalist and author based in Northern Mindanao, Philippines. His latest book is Dark Skies: Tales of Turbulence in Paradise. This column appears weekly in The Manila Times.
