Protesters decried President Trump’s seizure of the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, outside Downing Street last night as they called on Sir Keir Starmer to condemn US actions against the Latin American country.
Approximately 250 people gathered to hear speeches and voice their opposition to American adventurism abroad, as fervent protesters appeared divided on what it was they were supporting – holding signs that said “Hands off Venezuela”, “Viva Maduro”, and, contrastingly, “Maduro was a tyrant, but USA out of Venezuela.”
The deposed leader had just pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges in New York when the protest got underway, after a US military operation carried out in his Caracas home saw him captured and extradited to the States on Saturday.
Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, 73, said the leader’s removal contravened international law and the UN Charter, and that he disagreed with the United States assertion that they would be ‘running’ the country until an alternative government could be established.
He said: “What this action by Donald Trump does, is give a green light to authoritarians and dictators everywhere, that they can do what they want, that they can go and annex other countries and that might is right.”
“That’s a very, very bad omen for the future of international peace and it’s profoundly shocking that our Prime Minister, who so resolutely condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is using weak words when it comes to this.”
Guarding her hands against the biting cold, a woman who wished to be known only by Gina held a sign of the Prime Minister’s head on a sheep’s body aloft as the crowd around her chanted, “Keir Starmer grow a spine, occupation is a crime”.
She said: “It seems like all governments are just supporting a lunatic who doesn’t care about the lives of people and thinks he can do everything he wants just because he can.
“I would like Starmer to say something and not be so close to Trump because it looks like whatever Trump says goes.”
While the British Prime Minister and his immediate cabinet have so far delayed commenting on the matter due to a purported lack of facts, demonstrators made their views clear, as arguments broke out between the largely pro-Maduro crowd and those who derided him.
Francisco Diego, a Mexican national who resides in the UK, said: “Nicolas Maduro has been elected president and he has led the country against blockades, and against the United States.
“He has put together a very good government which is taking power now and we have to show the United States that they cannot go ahead, that there is a lot of opposition worldwide.
“This is going to backfire, and I will be happy to see Nicolas Maduro go back to Venezuela in a couple weeks time, leading the country as he has always done with honesty and efficiency.”
While speaking, a Venezuelan man interrupted Diego, speaking angrily in Spanish and pointing to his sign, as, later an anti-Maduro protester was harassed by women who called the president the democratically elected leader.
Despite NGOs such as the Human Rights Foundation and independent observers claiming that Maduro lost the last election and defrauded the election process, many people in Venezuela and at the protest viewed him as a socialist icon carrying the legacy of previous leader, Hugo Chávez.
Chávez led the Bolivarian Revolution to nationalise Venezuela’s oil reserves, and was much lauded last night as communist flags snapped in the wind to the beat of protest drums.
Yet there were diverging opinions too, with some protesters pointing out Maduro’s history of killing civilians protesting against the country’s election results in 2024.
Luis Fernando Cornejo, a 26-year-old lawyer from Mexico, said: “These people are just talking with the privilege of living in a European country with lots of human rights, they have the privilege of talking and being able to protest, and they haven’t been to Venezuela.
“Maduro is a very bad person, he is a dictator. I don’t support Donald Trump as a person, he has been accused of doing terrible things.
“But I support what he has done in Venezuela because he took down a dictator who violated the human rights of the Venezuelan people.”
This sentiment is closely aligned with the current position of the United Kingdom government on the matter, as Starmer welcomed the overhaul of Maduro’s regime in cautious terms on Saturday, stating:
“The UK has long supported a transition of power in Venezuela.
“We regarded Maduro as an illegitimate President and we shed no tears about the end of his regime.”
Although, on its surface, Trump’s invasion of Venezuela was attributed to concerns about “narco-terrorism” in the country, the President also made clear his intention to claim Venezuela’s oil reserves for American companies.
His focus on capital interests has sparked fears that the US will operate the country as a client state without regard to democratic process, as Trump endorses Maduro’s successor and long-term supporter, vice-president Delcy Rodriquez to help shape the country’s future.
While protesters stood against Trump and chanted “no blood for oil,” they also held signs in support of Rodriguez, who made a statement late on Sunday night.
Saying that she ‘invited the US government to work together on an agenda of cooperation’, the acting president of Venezuela abandoned earlier, more confrontational language on independence after Trump threatened forcible action to secure compliance with his business interests.
Unable to square the circle, protesters appeared to support those who would undermine their anti-Trump cause, caught up in a developing international situation that is as complex as it is far reaching.
Political figures like Emily Thornberry, who chairs the Commons foreign affairs committee, have warned that the UK government’s lack of a comprehensive response to Trump’s land grab could embolden Russia and China to abandon international law and annex Ukraine and Taiwan next.
However, protesters like Cornejo recognised that the military might which has made Starmer so cautious to condemn American actions, will be an influential factor in maintaining or degrading a global rules-based order.
Advocating against an anti-American response, he said: “The geopolitics right now are too complicated. I don’t support a military intervention of the United States anywhere else, but the UK needs to have support for the United States.
“Because if something happens, like Russia wants to invade many other countries in the European Union, they will need American support.
“We need to be together and fight as the good people, against the bad people, not fighting between each other. That’s what’s happening tonight.”
Featured image credit: Megan Norcott
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