Thousands of Venezuelan expats in South Florida and around the world protested over the weekend against their native country’s massive election fraud and repression — hoping to raise more international pressure against Venezuela's regime.
More than 5,000 people started the Bayfront Park demonstration on Saturday by singing Venezuela’s national anthem. They then loudly called on dictatorial Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to step down amid strong material evidence that he stole the July 28 presidential election.
Expat Alfredo Viso insisted protests like these are "necessary noise" because, since July 28, Maduro has ramped up violent repression of protest dissent back home. The government there says its security forces have arrested almost 2,500 people; 27 protesters have been killed.
“We are making this noise because in Venezuela they are being muted," says Viso, who owns a construction and technology business in Miami.
"We are 8 million Venezuelans out of the country because of Maduro and his regime. We have to make the world aware of the country's horrible situation.”
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Those 8 million exiles — who represent almost a quarter of Venezuela's population — have fled the country in the past decade amid the worst humanitarian crisis in modern South American history, a crisis widely blamed on Maduro's corrupt, incompetent and authoritarian socialist rule. Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves, but its economy is collapsed.
Thousands of other Venezuelans in the U.S., Latin America, Europe and elsewhere staged similar protests in some 300 cities worldwide.
They were called out by popular Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, whom Maduro barred from running against him in the election, and opposition candidate Edmundo González, who according to precinct vote tallies secured by opposition poll workers, defeated Maduro in the July 28 contest by the largest landslide in Venezuelan election history.
Maduro is threatening to imprison both Machado and González as "fascist" traitors.
Maduro, who came to power in 2013 after the death of the founder of Venezuela's socialist revolution, Hugo Chávez, falsely claims he won re-election but refuses to publish the official vote results.
At Bayfront Park, expats like Anny Gomez said they believe these demonstrations will help build more domestic and international pressure to dislodge Maduro — even though he's backed by the Venezuelan military as well as powerful allies like Russia and China.
“We’re really trying to fight for our country and this is the right way to do it, in a peaceful but large and loud way," said expat Anny Gomez, a Miami nurse.
"We really think that’s the only way that we can take someone like Maduro out of power at this point.”
Expat leaders say more global protests are planned.
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