The United States launched a series of military strikes across Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, and captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on Jan. 3 around 2 a.m. local time. The strikes were part of Operation Absolute Resolve, a law enforcement mission intended to detain Maduro and close associates.
The mission represents an additional phase in the sustained U.S. intervention in Venezuela. According to a Time Magazine article, the Trump administration framed the military campaign as an effort to put an end to the flow of drug trafficking migrants into the U.S., further justifying it as a means of punishment for stealing American oil.
Maduro and Flores pleaded not guilty to weapons, drugs and “narco-terrorism” charges in their first court hearing on Jan. 5, and they are both currently awaiting trial in jail, potentially facing life sentences.
First-year Elías Haig Alves, a staff writer for The Hustler, shared that he was temporarily unable to leave Venezuela to return for the spring semester due to flight cancellations following nearby strikes.
“I was packing to come back to the U.S., and around 2 a.m. I started hearing fighter jets from my house, which was very crazy,” Haig Alves said.
Haig Alves said he viewed the intervention as the outcome of years of political repression.
“International intervention was something that we had [wanted] for a very long time here, I would say since around 2016,” Haig Alves said. “It is understood that Venezuela was, and probably still is, under a criminal military dictatorship that would target people with any sort of dissident views. The situation here had been very dire for a very long time, and we understood that popular action didn’t have any possibility of actively shutting down the regime.”
First-year Luisiana Ferrer was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and left in 2016 with her family. In an email to The Hustler, she described her and her family’s reaction to the news of Maduro’s capture.
“My family and I started jumping around from pure excitement. We had dreamed of this moment for so many years. Every year that passed, it felt less and less possible, like hope was slowly slipping away,” Ferrer said. “Then Jan. 3 finally came, and everything changed. All the waiting, all the fear, all the emotional exhaustion of watching our country fall apart felt like it had finally reached an end.”
First-year Santiago Lombardo echoed sentiments around the happiness largely felt among the Venezuelan community. He also expressed some worry regarding civilians’ safety and U.S. intentions moving forward.
“I am extremely happy about it, of course worried, but in my case, it doesn’t hit too much because I haven’t been there in a while. But of course, I’m still talking with my family [and] seeing how they are. But mainly [I feel] happiness and a little worry about what the future steps might be,” Lombardo said. “The only thing that worries me is that the U.S. stays in the country and sort of makes us another state. But I think that even then, it’s much better than being in a dictatorship.”
Junior Grace Dommontbrun, who grew up between Venezuela and Miami, said in an interview that she does not believe U.S. intervention is ideal but considers it the preferable option.
“It’s kind of like the lesser of two evils, in my opinion and in the opinion of most people around me,” Dommontbrun said. “Venezuela has been giving resources like oil to countries like China, Iran, Cuba. Even giving away all these resources, the Venezuelan people aren’t seeing any of the benefits from that. Venezuelan sovereignty is important, and no one’s happy about the deaths of innocent civilians, but not everything is going to be perfect.”
Regarding discussion of the issue by those not from Venezuela, Dommontbrun said she encourages people to listen to Venezuelans and avoid assuming they fully understand the situation.
“For people that have never lived through anything like that, it’s okay for you to have an opinion and for you to see it from your perspective,” Dommontbrun said. “But at the same time, you can’t silence the voices of the people who are living through it, and you can’t be patronizing when you’re talking about it. No one is going to know more about Latin American history than those in Latin America. Listen to Venezuelans. Just because you don’t like the president [of the United States], which is very valid, doesn’t mean that you should automatically oppose what he’s doing in Venezuela.”
In a message to The Hustler on behalf of the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies at Vanderbilt, Celso Thomas Castilho stated that as a center that teaches about the histories and cultures of the Latin American diaspora, it is taking the general elation felt by Venezuela immigrants across the Americas very seriously.
“The reactions from people in Chile, Brazil, Mexico, and the U.S., among other places, have been overwhelmingly supportive of Maduro’s removal,” Castilho said. “We also, nonetheless, are interested in talking more about the broader implications of this kind of armed intervention into Latin America, where the histories of such actions are long and dark, and not associated with the building of democratic societies.”
In an interview with The Hustler, Gretchen Selcke, assistant director of CLACX, added that the potential for regional escalation has made Maduro’s removal from power more terrifying than exciting.
“While I understand that for many Venezuelans, the idea of Maduro no longer being in power is something to celebrate, I have a hard time separating the idea of regime change from how it happened and how it was boasted about,” Selcke said.
Selcke also shared her thoughts on Vanderbilt’s response to the ongoing events, stating that she believes that university administration should be doing more to address the situation, consistent with her views on their response to previous similar events.
“I always think that [Vanderbilt] should be doing more. I think there needs to be an acknowledgement that we don’t live in a vacuum,” Selcke said. “When something like this happens, there needs to be a better effort to make sure that those who are most affected by events are supported. I don’t think Vanderbilt’s particularly prepared to handle this.”
