Syracuse, NY – About three dozen protesters gathered in downtown Syracuse Saturday night to express their opposition to the United States military strikes in Venezuela and the capture of that country’s president.
The protest was organized after the US military launched a series of raids early Saturday morning before capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and bringing him to New York.
The move comes after months of tension between Maduro and President Donald Trump, who has accused the Venezuelan leader and his wife of participating in an international narco-terrorist plot. Trump said on Saturday that the US would now run Venezuela and drill into its oil reserves to sell the resource to other nations.
Nearly 40 people gathered at Perseverance Park in the 200 block of South Salina Street around 6 p.m.
Protest organizer Brian Escobar said the bombing and capture of Maduro was a violation of both international and US law.
“It goes against the sovereignty of this nation, just as it goes against the U.S. Constitution requiring congressional approval for an act of war,” Escobar said.
Demonstrators held signs and shouted slogans such as “no war for oil” and “a united people will never be defeated”.
James Sullivan, a Syracuse resident who attended the protest, said he hopes to show Venezuelans that there are many Americans who disagree with the Trump administration’s decision to attack the country, which he described as “criminal.”
“I feel like there’s a growing dissatisfaction with all of this,” Sullivan said. “We’ve been through Iraq and Afghanistan, we’ve been through Palestine in the last few years. People are sick of it, on the left and on the right.”
Sullivan said he believes many of Trump’s supporters, who voted for him in hopes of avoiding international conflict, are likely to disagree with the strikes.
“There are a lot of Trump voters who didn’t vote for Trump and thought he was going to start another war,” he said. “But we’re here.
Joe Bennett, 34, said he did not think anything good could come of the ground strikes and the overthrow of Maduro, and that it was just another chapter in the history of military conflicts with dubious motives.
“We’ve seen these regime changes happen many times,” he said. “They don’t really do anything, or they just cause destruction and damage.”
Temperatures hovered around 15 degrees during the protest.
Escobar said he was pleased to participate in the protest organized by the Syracuse Democratic Socialists of America and the Syracuse Cultural Workers. It’s the first of several the groups plan to hold in the coming days to voice their criticism of the strikes, he said.
“I think people are kind of angry and scared because it’s a brazen kidnapping of a foreign leader,” he said. “Regardless of what the leaders think about it, it’s a very dangerous kind of action and it seems to be happening with impunity at the moment.”
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