From Mexico City to Hong Kong, exiles take to the streets in support of regime change

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

One year ago Albert Molina and his family joined the historic exodus from Venezuela, fleeing to Mexico after his ailing father fell victim to the collapse of its health service.

On Wednesday night – after a day of intense political drama in his crumbling homeland – he stood outside the Venezuelan embassy in Mexico City with a placard reading “No more dictatorship” and suddenly rekindled dreams of a homecoming.

“The thing Venezuelans most want is to go back to our homeland,” said Molina, a 33-year-old business administrator from Anzoátegui state.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Venezuelans opposed to president Nicolas Maduro hold a demonstration in Guadalajara, Mexico. Photograph: Ulises Ruiz/AFP/Getty Images

“I think if Maduro goes, we’ll be back in Venezuela the next month. I’m 100% sure,” he continued. “We love our homeland. We love our country – and we want to go back to rebuild.”

Molina was one of thousands of newly energised exiles who turned out to protest outside their embassies on Wednesday, from Mexico City to Hong Kong, each hoping their country stood on the cusp of a new era.

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“We want the dictatorship out and an end to tyranny – it is more than possible,” said Jhonny Garcia, a 32-year-old accountant from Caracas, who said he had fled to Mexico City two years ago as Venezuela’s economic collapse accelerated.

Jessica Solano, who abandoned her home in the city of Los Teques five years ago, carried a poster that read: “Maduro. Murderer. Usurper. Free Venezuela!”

“He’s illegitimate. He’s an impostor,” the 28-year-old civil engineer of Maduro, who has accused the “gringo empire” of conspiring to overthrow him in order to steal Venezuelan oil.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Thousands of Venezuelans living in Argentina call for the overthrow of Maduro on Wednesday. Photograph: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images

Solano called the decision of countries including the United States, Brazil and Colombia to recognise opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s interim president “a step towards the hope that the government will change … and we can be with our families again”.

“We have been away for so long. All we want is the hope of a change … If Venezuela truly changes and the economy improves I think the best thing will be to go back,” she said.

Molina, who was at the demonstration with his mother, son and heavily pregnant wife, said it was time for the curtains to come down on Maduro’s regime. Chavistas were stashing millions of dollars overseas, he claimed: “And Venezuela broken, with no medicine, no food, as if it were a country at war, or perhaps even worse.”

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Behind him dissenters had plastered the entrance to their embassy with posters that said: “Out Maduro! Down with the Dictatorship!”

One couple held a banner that read: “Operation freedom”.

Felix Maradiaga, an exiled Nicaraguan activist who was also among the crowds, said he was also rooting for change: “Maduro is not only a problem for Venezuela. He’s a problem for the world.”

“The Maduro dictatorship has been a disruptive force for many other countries,” Maradiaga added, pointing to its role in supporting Nicaragua’s embattled president Daniel Ortega, one of its few remaining regional allies.

In Colombia’s capital, Bogotá, there were protests too as thousands gathered outside Venezuela’s embassy to celebrate the day’s developments by waving flags and beating drums.

“The clamor of the people is felt in every corner of Venezuela and the world: End the usurpation and free elections!” tweeted the exiled opposition leader Julio Borges, who attended the march.

As far away as Hong Kong demonstrators took to the streets with banners that read: “Juan Guaidó – we will stand with you until democracy is restored” and “I do not live in my country but my country will always live in me.”

As the crowd outside the Mexico City embassy swelled, protesters unfurled a giant Venezuelan flag and began to chant the national anthem of their decaying nation.

“Glory to the brave people, who shook off the yoke,” they sang. “Let’s cry out aloud: ‘Down with oppression!’”