New York, July 22 — Two hundred days after U.S. troops seized them from their home in Caracas, Venezuela’s elected President Nicolás Maduro and First Combatant Cilia Flores were taken in handcuffs from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to a federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan, moved by armored motorcade behind a police escort. Supporters were waiting outside, chanting for their freedom and for U.S. troops to get out of Venezuela.
At the hearing, a federal judge refused to throw out the case against Maduro and Flores and set their trial for June 2027 — 18 more months in a Brooklyn jail cell for two people the U.S. government kidnapped at gunpoint.
In the Brooklyn MDC, Maduro and Flores are separated in solitary confinement, not allowed to see each other. These cruel conditions are like how freedom fighters Geronimo and Nelson Mandela were treated.
The action was initiated by the Freedom Road Socialist Organization; Black Alliance for Peace; Workers World Party; December 12th Movement; Brooklyn Against War; CodePink; and Struggle – La Lucha.
Speakers pointed out that Trump attacked the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela because Big Oil wants to recolonize the country. A speaker from Struggle – La Lucha newspaper said that Trump seeks to turn back the clock to when New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller had two huge ranches in Venezuela. Rockefeller, whose billionaire family founded Big Oil, massacred the Attica prisoners in 1971.
According to observers, President Nicolás Maduro and First Combatant Cilia Flores were strong and confident when they appeared in court. They haven’t surrendered and neither will the people of Venezuela.
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