Venezuelan resident in Juneau on US attack: ‘We had so many mixed emotions. We still can't quite process it.’
- Guest contributor
- 5 days ago
- 2 min read
Editor’s note: The following column about the U.S. attack on Venezuela and capture of its president early Saturday morning was written by "Isabella," a Venezuelan woman who moved with her family to Juneau in May of 2024. She is identified with a pseudonym because the family, while here legally via the asylum process, is a potential target for deportation by the Trump administration.
The best night of our lives, we were enjoying a movie, and as usual, each of us had a phone in hand. We're the kind of people who turn on the TV while using our phones.
It was almost 8 o'clock at night, and I saw on my Facebook feed a post from a very prestigious local newspaper from our city in Venezuela reporting the attacks on Caracas by the United States. We immediately called our family in Venezuela, who were asleep — it was past 1 a.m. there — and informed them of what we were seeing on social media. We immediately checked U.S. news outlets and confirmed that what was happening was real.
Family and friends near Caracas confirmed the loud explosions. I think by then we were very euphoric; we cried, we laughed. What we had been praying to God for years was actually happening: a major coup similar to the one Chávez carried out, a surprise attack that no one expected... an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!
We didn't know yet that Nicolás had been captured, but we did learn about the destruction of the Mountain Barracks, where the lifeless body of Hugo Chávez lay. There was nothing left of him, of that being who only destroyed our country by handing it over to Nicolás, Diosdado, and the Rodríguez brothers.
Minutes later, President Trump announced the capture of Nicolás and Cilia, the cruel, cowardly, and murderous dictators who had ruled my country for so many years. The truth is, we had so many mixed emotions. We still can't quite process it. I only know that we didn't sleep at all that night.
