In the shanties than house Venezuelans who fled their country there’s relief at Maduro’s removal but hope is dangerous

Steep rainbow coloured steps lead us up through the shantytown known as “Venezuela”. Each rise is painted with a slogan: love, gratitude, respect, empathy, understanding, peace, protection and so on – each uphill heave, a sign of hope over experience.

This is a staircase in a Columbian favela entirely populated by Venezuelans. And run entirely by Tren de Aragua – the region’s biggest transnational narco-gang. Its residents are safe, here.

They are among the eight million Venezuelans who have fled their homeland over the dozen years of Nicolas Maduro’s presidency.

His rule was marked by repression and economic collapse under US economic sanctions and a mass exodus of the like seen only at time of war. Yet after he was removed at the weekend, no one here is in a hurry to return home.

Donald Trump’s capture of Venezuela’s president in a clinical but violent raid on his compound at the heart of Caracas on Saturday, and his subsequent boasts that the US would now run the country are greeted with some enthusiasm.

Despite having targeted north American democracy, eroded the powers of the US judiciary and attacked any aspect of the constitution that limits presidential power, Trump is seen here as a glowing ember of hope.

He says Venezuela will be run by America remotely. The government that Maduro controlled until last Saturday is still in place. Trump also says that through US rule Venezuela will see a return of American oil companies and that it must open its economy to US businesses.

That’s fine as far as Cilinia Suarez, a 34-year-old mother of two living in the favela, is concerned.

“We have to wait and see what will happen in the future. I don’t know what kind of reconstruction there will be. I would like the companies that the president Chavez [Maduro’s hardline socialist mentor] blocked and dispossessed, to return to Venezuela.

“When the companies return to Venezuela it will be a little more comfortable. When the medicines, food, and well-being of Venezuela arrive, the good doctors, we will return home,” she says.

Mrs Suarez was a butcher. She fled into Columbia in 2020 because her children, she says, were close to starvation and her husband could not find work.

While governments and commentators around the world have been outraged by Trump’s violation of Venezuela’s sovereignty and international law – and while he has now turned his attention to a possible invasion of Greenland – Mrs Suarez keen on his invasion of her homeland.

“What Trump wants is that they no longer do what Maduro did. He he ordered people to kill others. In Venezuela, you can’t talk about the government because they send you to jail. Trump says leave the people alone.

“They have to listen to what Trump says,” she insists.

A muscular youth with a torso clothed only in tattoos standing nearby was the only evidence that Mrs Suarez could say what she wanted about Maduro but ensured she had nothing bad to say about the Tren de Aragua people-smuggling drug thugs that rule this patch of Venezuela in Columbia.

But the gangs have grown out of Maduro’s misrule. Many of his top henchmen are still in power and still in business with the “megabandas”, as the transnational organized criminals are known.

Calling to her neighbour Weinnifer Sojo, 30, a mother-of-two, Mrs Suarez hailed her with whistles and pebbles tossed onto her roof nearby.

A former opposition party activist and soldier in Venezuela, she agreed that Maduro’s kidnapping by the US was to be celebrated. But not with a return home, yet.

Both said that the greatest threat to their country now is from the “collectivos”.

These are armed gangs of pro-government loyalists. Once formed to protect neighbourhoods they have since evolved into a lawless network running protection rackets and other crimes which give then financial autonomy. They’re most often described as being under the control of Venezuela’s interior minister Diosdado Cabello.

Sanctioned by the EU and the US, Cabello is often seen as more powerful and repressive than former president Maduro. Along with defence minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, he has been accused of being at the centre of the country’s most repressive actions and alleged criminal activities.

Both men remain in office under recently sworn in former vice president Delcy Roriguez. Her brother, Jorge, presided over her inauguration as heads of the National Assembly.

Maduro’s system of government is entirely intact.

From the US perspective this may be sensible. It shows no regard for democratic ambitions of Venezuela’s population, but it does not risk the mistakes of the US-led occupation of Iraq when the power structures built by Saddam Hussein were swept away and drove thousands into terror groups.

The “Venezuela” favela sits within the Esperanza {Hope] neighbourhood. It is close to the Simon Bolivar Bridge that straddles the border with Venezuela proper.

Juan Giraldo was demonstrating for the release of his father, Javier, who was detained in Venezuela four years ago or “kidnapped” as he put it. Javier is, he said, accused of terrorism and other acts of sedition.

Venezuelan human rights group Foro Penal says that there 863 political prisoners in the country as of December last year but about 10,000 others who are out of prison but under “restricted behaviour”.

For Mr Giraldo trump’s intervention and removal of Maduro offers hope that he may see his father again.

“I am sure I am sure because Delcy Rodriguez is smarter than Maduro. Delcy Rodriguez will release [my father] this week. Political prisoners will be free this week,” he insisted.

He added: “Be smart, Marco Rubio. Be smart, Trump. Maybe we need new election sin Venezuela overseen by the United States. We need real democracy”.

But democracy is not on Trump’s agenda for Venezuela, the country. And on the stairs inside the shanty town of the same name the painted steps do not show the most dangerous word “Esperanza’”– hope.