When Cinzia de Santis woke up to the news that Nicolás Maduro had been captured by US troops in a pre-dawn assault on Caracas, she had mixed emotions. “My first reaction was he’s gone, which is kind of good news,” she said.
But the manner in which the Venezuelan president and his wife, Cilia Flores, were taken to New York to face criminal charges – in a military operation that, at this point, appears to have little to no legal or constitutional authority – has sparked concern.
“No one who loves their country is happy to see foreign troops on its land. War and invasions are always a tragedy. That’s my reaction to the way he was removed.
“But it’s also impossible not to feel relief when you know a system that has been built on fear, hunger, tortures, repression – it begins to collapse,” said the 69-year-old, who is the chair and founder of the charity Healing Venezuela.
She is part of the small but growing Venezuelan community in the UK. The most recent census, which took place in 2021, put the number of Venezuelan-born residents in Britain at over 21,000. “We’re all very shaken and very moved. I hope this next chapter is going to be peaceful,” she said.
De Santis came to the UK 22 years ago, shortly after her name was published on the Tascón List in 2004, the names of individuals who had signed a petition seeking to oust the then president Hugo Chávez, by calling for a recall referendum. It was later used by the government to deny those who had signed it access to state jobs and welfare programs.
“In a way, it was a forced exile. I wanted to stay,” she said. “My daughter had to go to school with an emergency kit filled with food, water, and pills in case it was attacked and she was exposed to teargas.”
While De Santis is happy that Maduro, seen by many as a dictator, is gone, she is hardly a fan of Donald Trump. She called him “my least favourite person in the world”.
“I think his charisma is quite debatable. I’m pretty sure his interest in Venezuela is a business interest,” she said.
Nearly eight million Venezuelans have left the country under Maduro’s leadership – a quarter of the nation’s population. Venezuelans began fleeing their country en masse when its economy collapsed in 2014, generating rampant inflation, poverty and insecurity. It caused a migration crisis that is the largest in the history of Latin America and exceeds the number of people displaced from war-torn Syria.
“Throughout the years, I’ve seen what has been happening. The crumbling of the health system, the increase in malnourishment cases in children, the dramatic increase in mortality rates of pregnant women,” said De Santis.
For Alejandro Arenas-Pinto, the news has also been difficult to digest. He has been in touch with family who are still reeling from the situation. “I’m really worried about their wellbeing,” he says.
“I think it’s very difficult to justify the methods but it’s very clear to me that the humanitarian crisis that Venezuelans have been living through makes people believe that perhaps this activity from a foreign government is justifiable.”
The 55-year-old doctor said: “If you ask many people in Venezuela about the legality of this, that isn’t their main concern. The main concern is far more existential and far more basic.”
While Arenas-Pinto understands why some in his home country may overlook the shocking and unprecedented way in which Maduro was ousted from power, he is worried about the future. “My main concern is in all these scenarios of political instability and military interventions, even when targeted, that there is a big possibility of trouble.
“We have seen what has happened in countries like Iraq or Libya or Syria – the humanitarian crisis is likely to get worse. Casualties and the deterioration of living may be called collateral damage by some but it can measured in lives,” he said.
Maduro extended his 12-year rule despite widespread suspicions that he stole the most recent presidential election, held in 2024. “They managed to go through the electoral path. They tried many ways. For many years, there have been a lot of people incarcerated for political reasons,” said Arenas-Pinto.
“I don’t think this is the right way of sorting a political conflict. But this is worse than a political conflict for many people in Venezuela who have tried really hard to do it in other ways and have failed. They failed mostly because the repression from the government has been brutal.”
Domingo Lapadula said he had concerns about the US breaking the understood “rules of engagement” but he expressed “some happiness that the status quo has broken”.
“I think this is a very good situation. We should not talk about the US invading Venezuela and removing a president but removing a regime that has somehow kidnapped the country,” said the 58-year-old manager in the automotive industry.
He said the reaction of the military, who “were not reacting against an intruder, but were happy to have this action happening” shows how little opposition there was to ousting Maduro. “What is clear is that you could see that there was no fight in Venezuela,” he said.
