Venezuelan native Franklin delighted by US kidnapping of Maduro

“I HAVE to pinch myself. When my brother woke me up and told me that Nicholás Maduro had been captured by Trump, I said ‘no, you’re kidding me, that’s not possible’,” Franklin Bermudas (39) from Venezuela, a resident of Carlow town, told The Nationalist.

Since Mr Maduro’s kidnapping by the United States at the weekend, Mr Bermudas feels hopeful about his home country’s future for the first time in many years.

“I don’t support Trump. I am not a big fan of Trump, but he’s doing something that nobody did in 26 years. For me, he’s a great partner at the moment. We don’t know what is going to happen, but in the region we didn’t know how to deal with a dictatorship because that didn’t happen before, especially with a rich country like Venezuela,” Mr Bermudas said.

He remembers a time when living standards in Venezuela were high. “I remember that I was living in a great country, a rich country,” Mr Bermudas said. According to the UN, over 80% of households in Venezuela live in poverty.

Mr Bermudas said that most people blame government mismanagement and corruption for the country’s sharp decline in living standards. Although Venezuela is one of the most oil-rich countries in the world, Mr Bermudas said that everyday Venezuelans do not feel its benefits.

“There is no hospital, there are no social programmes to help people in poverty. Welfare benefits were fixed like 15 years ago and people get like one euro, two euro per month. It sounds like a joke for me,” Mr Bermudas said.

Mr Bermudas has lived in Ireland since 2013 but has only lived in Carlow for the last few years. He lived in Dublin for ten years after he first arrived.

“Carlow has been a blessing for me and my family,” Mr. Bermudas said.