Hundreds of protesters gathered this Sunday outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York, where Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is being held, to protest the military intervention in Venezuela.
“No more coups! No more wars! Latin America is not yours!” chanted the demonstrators, who denounced the “illegal kidnapping” of Maduro in Caracas in the early hours of Saturday morning.
The protest was organized by The People’s Forum and supported by the ANSWER Coalition, which has participated in more than a hundred rallies and demonstrations held in various parts of the United States since Maduro’s capture.
“This Trump administration has committed another outrageous act of war by attacking Venezuela and kidnapping the country’s president,” ANSWER denounced. “It is another criminal act by Trump, who has murdered fishermen, stolen oil tankers full of oil, and now invades Venezuela and kidnaps its head of state,” it added.
According to this organization, “this is not a war against drug trafficking or for democracy, but to steal Venezuela’s oil and dominate Latin America.” “We have to take to the streets and say no to another endless war. The people of this country don’t want another war,” the group emphasized, denouncing that the “war machine consumes unimaginable sums of our tax dollars while working families can’t make ends meet.”
Maduro was apprehended by U.S. special forces during a raid in Caracas on Saturday morning. He was subsequently transferred to the U.S. warship USS Iwo Jima and then taken to Stewart Air National Guard Base and from there to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
The Venezuelan president is charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, according to the indictment citing Title 21 Section 960a of the United States Code. The indictment also includes a charge of “manufacturing, distributing, or dispensing a controlled substance.” Specifically, the charges relate to the possession of five kilograms of a substance containing a detectable amount of cocaine.
He is also charged with conspiracy to import cocaine, possession of machine guns or destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns or destructive devices. He is scheduled to appear before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Monday at 12:00 p.m. (6:00 p.m. Spanish time).
