Residents in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood were reportedly terrorized Tuesday by graffiti messages alluding to Venezuela’s socialist regime and its dictator, Nicolas Maduro.
“Here comes Bolivar’s fury and colorful rooster,” the graffiti read.
Manage editable graffiti in Brickell, Miami. 🇻 pic.twitter.com/nea9sZ31iF
— Maria Alesia Sosa (@MariaAlesiaSosa) August 20, 2024
Photos of the graffiti were originally posted online by Univision journalist Maria Alecia Sosa. Reportedly The post went viral on social media, with many users expressing shock and concern at seeing the pro-Maduro graffiti in Miami, home to one of the largest Venezuelan diaspora communities in the US.
“Bolivarian Rage” is the name of the brutal crackdown that is currently underway Release In January, President Maduro launched the “Bolivarian Rage” campaign against Venezuelan dissidents, activists, and critics of his corrupt socialist regime. At the time, Maduro claimed that the campaign was necessary to thwart an assassination plot against him.
Over the past few months, the Maduro regime has capitalized on “Bolivarian rage” Dozens The Maduro regime condemned the killings of civilians and military personnel, including Rocío San Miguel, an activist and lawyer who it had accused of being involved in a dubious and unproven plot to assassinate Maduro.
In this crackdown, several member The headquarters of the country’s only mainstream center-right political party, Vente Venezuela, was also destroyed. other Political parties, Radio StationsThe arrests of Vente Venezuela members came just months before a fake presidential election on July 28 in which President Maduro claims he “won,” despite the results being widely rejected by the international community.
The “multicolored rooster,” also featured in the Brickell graffiti, is a nickname Maduro adopted during his presidential campaign and comes from a popular children’s picture book. songIn July, angry Venezuelans in New York Condemned President Maduro’s colorful rooster slogan and logo appeared briefly on an advertising display in Times Square.
Brickell, where pro-Maduro graffiti was discovered on Tuesday, Protest In September 2018, protests were organized by the local Venezuelan diaspora outside Nusret Steakhouse in protest at its chef-owner, Nusret “Salt Bae” Gökçe, who was notorious at the time for hosting dictator Nicolás Maduro at the upscale restaurant in Istanbul, Turkey.
Protesters called for a boycott of the restaurant after Gökçe hosted a lavish dinner for President Maduro in Istanbul at a time when Venezuela was facing the worst of its ongoing and inevitable economic and social collapse of socialism. Following massive outrage from Venezuelans around the world, Gökçe removed the video with President Maduro from his social media accounts.
The pro-Maduro graffiti in Brickell appeared days after thousands of members of the Venezuelan diaspora held peaceful rallies. Rally On Saturday, a rally was held at Bayfront Park to denounce President Maduro’s attempts to cling to power and his refusal to step down amid growing evidence that his claimed “victory” in the sham July 28 presidential election was not legitimate and that opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez was the actual winner. Similar peaceful rallies were also held. Occurred It will take place in more than 300 cities around the world on Saturday.
The graffiti surfaced amid reports that Venezuelan international crime organization Tren de Aragua is expanding its presence in U.S. cities. Believed The group, which is said to have deep ties to the Maduro regime, is expanding its presence in the United States. Confirmed As of June, the gang was active in Miami, New York, Chicago and Atlanta.
Dallas, Texas police officials said Reportedly Dallas police announced Tuesday that gang activity linked to Tren de Aragua had been found in the city’s north side. Dallas police are reportedly “working with other agencies to address possible crimes related to Tren de Aragua,” but did not provide specific details about the ongoing investigation. Dallas Police Association President Jaime Castro said law enforcement in North Texas “will not tolerate the presence of this gang.”
The National Sheriffs Association statement Last week, it called for action against transnational crime organisations in Venezuela after law enforcement officials across the country were notified that Tren de Aragua had “authorised” its members to attack US law enforcement officers.
“Allowing brutal and violent gangs like TDA to operate on American soil is a failure of border security,” Sheriff Ciaran Donahue, president of the National Sheriffs’ Association, said in a statement. “TDA is the latest example of failed policy allowing violent gangs and criminal organizations to infiltrate our nation, commit heinous acts of violence and terrorize our communities.”
Argentina’s Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich Condemned At an event in Chile in April, he denounced Tren de Aragua as a state-sponsored terrorist organization with ties to the Maduro drug regime and claimed that the group’s activities were “not independent” from Venezuela’s rogue socialists.
“Tren de Aragua does not carry out raids in any way. Tren de Aragua carries out raids with a procedure, a matrix of operations, a logic that always does exactly the same thing,” Bullrich explained at the time. “We establish ourselves in specific locations. We carry out raids with groups of Venezuelan nationality in general.”
“It is therefore important to analyse whether it is an organisation that is autonomous from the state or not. I tend to think that it is not autonomous from the state,” she continued.
Christian K. Caruso is a Venezuelan author documenting life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter. here.
