\n<\/p>\n
Nicol\u00e1s Maduro wasn\u2019t due to arrive at his arraignment yesterday in downtown Manhattan until noon, but a large crowd had already formed outside the federal courthouse by 9 a.m. Actually, two crowds. One had come to tell Donald Trump to keep his hands off Venezuela. The other, which seemed largely Venezuelan, had come to celebrate.<\/p>\n
Maduro was, until Saturday, a widely hated ruler. His last election campaign consisted of threatening his people with a \u201cbloodbath\u201d if he lost. (Even so, he lost, but he claimed victory anyway.) The two crowds outside the courthouse mirrored the split reaction following Maduro\u2019s capture by the United States. For many international observers, his ouster was cause for alarm\u2014a sign that a U.S. president can drop bombs abroad and kidnap a foreign leader without a declaration of war or congressional approval. But for so many Venezuelans, the sight of Maduro in shackles was about a tyrant facing justice.<\/p>\n
Before the hearing began, the hallway outside the courtroom was packed with people hoping to get a seat. Some were law students who had come because they sensed that a legal precedent was being set, though not necessarily a good one. The way Maduro was captured \u201cputs the system of international law in danger,\u201d Leo Enderle, a German student at NYU, told me. Another group of people had come for the sheer spectacle. The man standing in front of me said he had attended the arraignments of Sean Combs and Donald Trump in the same building; according to him, this crowd was just as big. When I arrived, he was outraged that a Venezuelan man had cut in line to join a friend. The Venezuelan explained that he had been a political prisoner for years and had dreamed of this moment. Just because you were a political prisoner, the man in front of me was lamenting, doesn\u2019t mean you get to cut the line.<\/p>\n
But by far the largest group of attendees I spoke with were Venezuelans who wanted to see Maduro punished. The last time I had stood in line with so many Venezuelans angry at Maduro was in 2013, when I still lived in the country, in one of the infamous breadlines that resulted from rationing. Then, like now, people were very talkative. At the courthouse, an elegantly dressed woman from Caracas told me she had left her newborn granddaughter at home with a nanny. \u201cThis historical moment, I couldn\u2019t miss it!\u201d<\/p>\n
David Cardenas, a Venezuelan opposition activist, told me that Maduro had singled him out on TV one day, threatening to send police to his house and jail him as part of \u201cOperation Knock-Knock.\u201d Soon after, Cardenas, who lives in the United States, posted a video saying Maduro would be the target of Operation Trump-Trump. \u201cI guess Trump-Trump came before Knock-Knock,\u201d Cardenas told me with a smile.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere in line, a young woman I\u2019ll call Maria had come to the courthouse with her mother, who was visiting from Venezuela for the holidays. (She asked me to withhold her name for privacy concerns.) Maria told me that nobody she knew in America could understand why she was excited to see Maduro arrested: \u201cMy friends are like, \u2018This is imperialism!\u2019 and \u2018So sorry Trump did this to your country!\u2019\u201d When one of her housemates told her they were thinking of going to protest Maduro\u2019s capture, Maria responded that not every prisoner deserves sympathy.<\/p>\n
After we were seated in the courtroom, Maduro walked in, escorted by guards. Instead of his usual button-down, he wore a navy-blue T-shirt, with an orange one peeking out from underneath. Maduro scanned the audience as though he were looking for a friendly face, but he didn\u2019t seem to find one. \u201cBuenos d\u00edas,\u201d he said to no one in particular, and sat down.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you Nicol\u00e1s Maduro Moros?\u201d the judge asked.<\/p>\n
Maduro responded in Spanish, as he would throughout the hearing. \u201cI am Nicol\u00e1s Maduro Moros, the constitutional president of Venezuela,\u201d he said, and went on to explain that he\u2019d been kidnapped by the United States. He called himself a \u201cprisoner of war.\u201d Visibly impatient, the judge suggested that Maduro should respond with a simple yes or no. \u201cAre you Nicol\u00e1s Maduro Moros?\u201d the judge asked again. \u201cI am Nicol\u00e1s Maduro Moros,\u201d he responded.<\/p>\n
The judge then read the charges aloud: narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine-importation conspiracy, and two others related to weapons. Maduro pleaded not guilty, adding, \u201cI\u2019m a decent man and still the president of Venezuela.\u201d Once again, the judge told Maduro to keep his answers succinct, before addressing Maduro\u2019s wife, Cilia Flores, who was sitting nearby wearing the same outfit.<\/p>\n
The judge told Maduro that, as a foreigner facing trial in the United States, he had the right to consulate resources. But Maduro himself had effectively closed Venezuela\u2019s consulates when he recalled the country\u2019s diplomats from the United States in 2019, leaving more than half a million people without representation. It\u2019s unclear, then, exactly what resources Maduro will have access to.<\/p>\n
As the hearing finished and Maduro stood to leave, spectators jeered at him in Spanish, a liberty that\u2014had they taken it in Venezuela just last week\u2014would probably have landed them in prison, or worse. \u201cHave fun in jail,\u201d one said. \u201cOn behalf of all Venezuelans, you will pay,\u201d shouted another. One woman was even more blunt: \u201cDamn you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nicol\u00e1s Maduro wasn\u2019t due to arrive at his arraignment yesterday in downtown Manhattan until noon, but a large crowd had already formed outside the federal courthouse by 9 a.m. Actually, two crowds. One had come to tell Donald Trump to keep his hands off Venezuela. The other, which seemed largely Venezuelan, had come to celebrate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[12277,3012,4588,10799],"class_list":{"0":"post-40539","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-courtroom","9":"tag-fun","10":"tag-jail","11":"tag-maduro"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}