The Venezuelan Armed Forces asked the Venezuelan population to “resume their activities” normally after dictator Nicolás Maduro was deposed and captured in an American military operation.
“I call on the people of Venezuela to resume their economic, labor, educational and all types of activities in the coming days and the country must move forward along its constitutional path,” said Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López in a televised address.
The minister also insisted that citizens maintain peace and order, so as not to fall “into the temptations of psychological warfare and the threat of fear that they want to impose on us”.
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This Sunday, the 4th, the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, was exceptionally quiet, with few vehicles circulating. Convenience stores, gas stations and other commercial establishments were mostly closed.
The streets, normally full of joggers and cyclists, were virtually empty, and Venezuela’s presidential palace was guarded by armed civilians and members of the Armed Forces.
Outside the capital, in the state of La Guira, families whose homes were damaged by explosions during the operation that captured Maduro and his wife were still clearing the rubble. Some buildings had open walls.
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After the radical change in Venezuela and President Donald Trump’s promises that the United States would “govern” Venezuela with the help of Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, no one in the country seemed to know how things stood or what was coming.
In a low-income neighborhood in eastern Caracas, factory worker Daniel Medalla sat on the steps of a Catholic church and told some parishioners that there would once again be no morning mass.
Medalla theorized that the streets remained largely empty not because people were worried about another strike, but because they feared government repression if they dared to celebrate, following a heavy government crackdown during last year’s tense elections.
“We were looking forward to it,” Medalla, 66, said of Maduro’s departure.
