Venezuela natives gather in Sarasota to show support for uprising against Maduro

Venezuela remains a country in extreme unrest as political opposition leader Juan Guaidó continues to challenge the sitting regime led by President Nicolás Maduro, most recently calling for a military uprising.

Civilians are getting caught in the crossfire. Food and medical supplies are running low, reliable sources of information are censored and the government is violent. Recent video posted online shows an armored law enforcement vehicle ramming into a crowd of anti-government protesters.

Many Venezuelan natives who live in the U.S. and support Guaidó’s message are concerned for friends, family and the future of their homeland.

On Tuesday night, Venezuelan locals from Manatee and Sarasota counties gathered in Island Park in Sarasota to offer up prayer and stand together in support of the uprising.

“We are supporting Guaidó and hoping this is a successful takeout of the corrupt government,” Sarasota realtor Beverly Perez told the Bradenton Herald. “Everybody is getting together to pray and support peacefully the new transitional government.”

By 7:30 p.m., a crowd of about 70 people of all ages had gathered at the foot of the “Unconditional Surrender” statue in the bay front park.

The group sported Venezuelan flags, sang, chanted and tried to lift each other’s spirits.

Martha Nunez, a resident of Sarasota, stood along the roadway with friends and family and waved at passing cars, getting friendly honks and waves from drivers.

Nunez’s parents live in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, and are experiencing the unrest first hand.

“I talked to them earlier this morning,” Nunez said. “There’s a lack of food. There’s no information. No internet connection. So we share as much as we can on social media.”

Some participants played Latin music from a sound system in the bed of a pickup truck.

The music stopped temporarily so that Luis Guzmán of Bradenton could plug in his cuatro and perform a song he recently wrote. Titled “Libertad,” or “Freedom,” the song is inspired by the protests led by Guaidó over the last month. Guzmán’s wife Cecilia sang to massive applause from the crowd.

Perez and other community members have united in the past to support Venezuela, sometimes symbolically and other times to collect resources for people back home.

Once, they gathered on Lido Beach dressed all in white.

In March, a fundraising event at a Ramada hotel in Sarasota raised money and took in donations of baby formula and medicines to send to Venezuela.

Aside from praying, Perez says people in the U.S. can help those in crisis with donations of food, supplies and money.

Perez continues to collect supplies for those in need, and says she sends out a shipment about every two weeks.

Shipments of medicine have helped save a man’s leg and child’s vision, Perez said.

According to United Nations estimates, more than 3 million Venezuelans have fled the country in the latest exodus, joining others who left a long time ago.

Circuit judge Maria Ruhl, the first Hispanic judge elected locally, is a native of Venezuela. Her family moved to Florida when she was 3 years old.

“It’s just so hard to see such devastation,” Ruhl said on Tuesday morning. “It’s a humanitarian issue. It comes down to desperate times call for desperate measures.”

Ruhl said she hopes that Guaidó does indeed have military backing, but in the meantime people are dying of starvation and resorting to eating garbage.

“It’s been bad before, but never like this,” Ruhl said. “It’s hard to see anyone going through this.”

This story was originally published April 30, 2019 at 9:39 PM.