Venancio Pino woke up in his Manchester home early Saturday morning to social media posts that said the U.S. had bombed several locations in Caracas, Venezuela and taken President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. Pino immediately turned on the TV to see what was going on in his native country.
The U.S. strike on Venezuela has received mixed reactions in New Hampshire and abroad, but Pino thinks it’s a step in the right direction for his homeland.
“I think it’s very fitting,” he said in Spanish. “I’m grateful for the actions that President Trump took because it’s a hope for Venezuelans.”
Pino has spent eight years in exile after becoming involved in political leadership with Voluntad Popular, an anti-Maduro movement in Venezuela. He left his country and spent seven years working with the party in Bogotá, Colombia and working to improve the conditions of thousands of fellow Venezuelans who had migrated to the city. He’s been in Manchester for the past year, where he continues to represent the party and think of his home country.
Following the recent news stateside, Pino said he wasn’t surprised at the strike, since Trump has been focused on Venezuela for a while. But now that it’s happened, he says there is still a great deal of fear and uncertainty among his friends and relatives still in the country.
He’s especially concerned about whether the rest of Maduro’s government structure will continue to stand. Trump and other administration officials have insisted in recent days that the U.S. will run Venezuela, but Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez was sworn into office as Maduro’s successor, and the exact nature of the country’s government remains uncertain.
“We hope that the near future will bring a complete dismantling of the whole band of criminals that the Maduro regime put in place so that our people can return,” Pino said. “I think most Venezuelans would return to our homeland to try to make it great and be happy with our family, like we were in past times.”
For now, Pino hopes this is the beginning of a positive change for Venezuelans — both for those who stayed in the country and those who had to leave.
