Why Afro-Venezuelans Oppose U.S. Intervention in Venezuela

Adam Mahoney, CapitalB

More than half of Venezuelans identify as having African ancestry, the highest rate of the world’s Spanish-speaking nations.

​The first blast rattled Christian Pich Ortiz’s bedroom before sunrise, sending his mother and siblings into tears as detonations boomed over their community in Miranda, a state along Venezuela’s central coast.

To protect themselves, they dragged their mattresses off the beds and hid beneath them. Quickly, he told them to move downstairs because “we were going to stand up.” He was convinced this was not an accident. He had been expecting this blow after weeks of escalating threats from President Donald Trump and other U.S. officials.

​“We understood immediately what was going on,” he said from a protest in Caracas, the day after the U.S. launched a military attack on Venezuela, leading to the arrest of the nation’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, and the killing of over 100 people in the nation’s capital city.

​Ortiz is a proud Afro-Venezuelan, part of a once‑erased majority in the country of around 30 million people. Over half the population identifies as moreno (brown), Black, or Afro‑descendant — categories that researchers understand as largely reflecting African ancestry. This is the highest rate among the world’s Spanish-speaking countries. 

The viral images of Venezuelan immigrants celebrating U.S. intervention highlight a sharp contrast to the experiences of some Afro-Venezuelans like Ortiz. 

Capital B interviewed Afro-Venezuelans here in the U.S. and in the coastal country bordering the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean who said the reality is more complex. It is shaped by the country’s long history of denying racism and by who has actually borne the brunt of sanctions, poverty, and police violence.

“The people of the United States should know that they are not our enemies,” said Diógenes Díaz, an Afro-Venezuelan historian who lives in Caracas. 

That complicated history has also produced a clear racial and class divide in how Venezuelans reacted to Maduro’s arrest. While many whiter, wealthier exiles publicly welcomed the U.S. strike, poorer, darker communities — especially along the coast — grappled with the immediate loss of life and uncertainty about what may follow.

Read more about this complicated situation.

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