Venezuelans in Cork celebrate Maduro's removal from power

On 3 January, Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, were captured by the United States during a brief invasion of the Venezuelan capital Caracas.

Taken from the Miraflores Palace to New York, the pair now face charges of drug trafficking, narco-terrorism, and corruption. However, substantial evidence for these charges has not been provided.

The move has faced international condemnation from governments across Latin America and the global south.

At its latest full meeting, Cork City Council passed a motion proposed by Fine Gael’s Shane O’Callaghan almost unanimously, which condemned the invasion.

The motion said that the invasion “constituted a clear violation of the basic principles of international law, in particular the prohibition of the use of force against the territorial integrity and political independence of nation states pursuant to Article 2.4 of the United Nations Charter”.

However, not every reaction to Maduro’s capture have been negative.

“It might be hard for people here in Ireland to understand, but I was happy.” This is how Tina, a Venezuelan woman living in Cork, said she felt when she heard the news.

“We’re still waiting to see what happens in Venezuela, but we’re happy that Maduro is gone,” she said. Tina has lived in Cork since 2023, moving here to be with her boyfriend – now fiancé – who is originally from Tipperary, whom she met while on holiday in Spain.

Originally from Caracas, she previously worked in a bank in the city before moving to Ireland. She hasn’t been home to Venezuela since she arrived in Ireland.

She says she understands that how she and many in the diaspora feel about the US invasion is difficult for many Irish people to understand – not least of all her fiancé – but that it’s something she and many of her compatriots have been hoping for, for many years.

Uncertain future

Venezuela’s future is uncertain at present, and it remains to be seen if the United States will follow through on a full regime change.

Dr David Fitzgerald, a Senior Lecturer in the School of History at UCC says that the US doesn’t seem interested in that kind of political upheaval.

“There are different sides in the administration, those who want regime change, and those who are happy to work with the current government, and it’s clear that the US is not willing to put a large-scale occupation force in place.

“It’s something that could end up being very destabilising for Venezuela, especially if regime change is put into place, but that doesn’t seem to be what they’re going for. Opposition leaders seem to have been sidelined in favour of the current government,” he says.

Dr Fitzgerald’s colleague at UCC, Dr Niall Duggan, a Senior Lecturer in the School of Society, Politics and Ethics, says that the invasion is an important signal of the US’ potential decline.

“The fact that they had to resort to such a direct intervention does indicate that the US doesn’t have the influence it used to have. Before, the US would never have had to set foot in Venezuela or any other Latin American country,” he said.

Tina’s feelings on the invasion were echoed by another Venezuelan in Cork who spoke to us.

Lesly, who has been in Ireland since January 2014, says she felt good when she heard the news about Maduro.

“We’ve been waiting for this for a long time. There has been a lot of suffering over the years – starvation, protests, political prisoners,” she said.

Lesly, who worked as a journalist in the south of Venezuela before coming to Ireland twelve years ago, says that conditions in the country were starting to worsen even before she left. “When I left the country was extremely polarised,” she added. This left-right divide isn’t something that she thinks exists in the same way in the country anymore, as the government now exercises a monopoly on political expression.

“This isn’t the first time there have been attempts to overthrow the regime. It’s been tried before and it failed,” she said.

Fresh elections

The calls for fresh elections in Venezuela have been sounding since the presidential elections in 2024, when Maduro was announced as the winner against opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia. Charges of electoral fraud were levied against Maduro and his government, mainly from western sources in the US and EU. Hugo Chavez, Maduro’s predecessor, was first elected president in 1999 and began what has been termed the Bolivarian Revolution, which nationalised the country’s natural resources – crucially, its oil reservoirs, of which Venezuela has the world’s richest – and instituted massive social welfare programmes and land reform. However, the Venezuelan economy has been struggling since an economic downturn in 2014. A major source of hardship has been the fluctuation in Venezuela’s currency, the bolívar.

“I would be get paid the equivalent of around $200 per month, but that could fluctuate to as low as $180 a month depending on the week,” said Tina. The official minimum wage in Venezuela has been set at 130 bolívars per month since 2022, equating to around $1-$3. However, the government supplements this amount with bonuses for public sector employees and pensioners, including a $90 ‘Bonus Against Economic War’, and $50 in food bonuses.

As discontent grew with the economic downturn, Tina says that repression from the government increased in parallel. Of huge concern are the colectivos, armed paramilitaries who act in collaboration and with funding and oversight from the government, police, and military.

“In the past, my sister would leave her phone at home because authorities or these groups could check personal phones. People can be arrested and charged with 'incitement to hatred' or even terrorism simply for expressing dissent,” she added. Tina has not seen her sister, who lives in Colombia, in eight years.

While economic mismanagement on the part of the government has played a large role in the problems Venezuela is facing, Dr Gema Klopp-Santamaríá, a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at UCC, says that the role of the US cannot be overlooked.

“There is responsibility outside of Venezuela as well. The country has been targeted by US sanctions for years, and that has had a serious impact,” she explained.

Venezuela has been the target of some form of US sanction since 2005, and these have intensified since 2017. Sanctions have been imposed and increased by the Obama, Biden, and both Trump administrations.

The openness with which the Trump administration has expressed its desire for Venezuela’s oil reserves has drawn criticism, but both Tina and Lesly say it isn’t a concern. Both say that the profits from oil exports have never been distributed to Venezuelans, so the US companies being allowed to exploit them seems a price worth paying for the removal of Maduro.

Lesly and Tina are both cautiously optimistic. While the future of Venezuela is uncertain, they both expressed a hope that the option was opening for it to move in a more liberal direction. Whether this will happen, and whether Venezuelans on the ground will see their conditions improve remains to be seen.

The article was produced with the support of the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme funded by Coimisiún na Meán.