President Donald Trump and Venezuela’s deposed socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro became unwitting stars in several Carnival parade festivities this year.
Every year, Hispanic nations mark Carnival, a four-day period of parades and festivities intrinsically tied to the Catholic faith that always begin on the Friday before Ash Wednesday and ends on the Tuesday before the Catholic holiday. Ash Wednesday marks the start of Lent, a period of fasting and reflection in anticipation of Holy Week and Easter. Brazil holds the world’s largest and most elaborate Carnival parades in the world. This year’s Carnival parades in Rio de Janeiro began on February 16 and will run through February 21.
The January 3 arrest of Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores by a U.S. law enforcement operation in Caracas became one of the main themes for this year’s local Carnival festivities throughout Latin America and the Hispanic world.
The Spanish outlet La Voz de Almería reported on Wednesday that this year’s Carnival celebrations in the eponymous town of Almería featured choreographic performances parodying the arrest of Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces.
Viral videos published on social media show participants performing a choreographed dance to the tune of “Los Comunistas ¿Donde Estan?” (“Where are the Communists?”), a song released in January by Venezuelan influencer Miguel “Kilometro” Herrera that questions China and Russia’s lack of action in preventing Maduro’s imprisonment. The song was played last week at the Hispanic Prosperity Gala hosted by Latino Wall Street at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Some of the participants at the Almería parade wore U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) costumes, while others were dressed in uniforms resembling the ones worn by Venezuela’s military.
Similar scenes occurred in the towns of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Ávila, where Spanish men dressed as U.S. law enforcement officials sang and danced alongside a man dressed like the deposed Venezuelan dictator. A man wore a President Trump mask and MAGA hat, raising his thumbs up while “U.S. officials” apprehended Maduro.
In the Colombian city of Barranquilla, a group of men and women celebrated the arrest of the Venezuelan dictator during their weekend Carnival parade by dressing like President Trump, Maduro, Flores, “acting President” of Venezuela Delcy Rodríguez, regime strongman — and long suspected drug lord — Diosdado Cabello, and anti-socialist opposition leader María Corina Machado. Infobae noted that some of the parade’s participants wore FBI, Delta Force, and ICE costumes during the parade.
“I wasn’t the snitch. I swear I wasn’t the snitch. But Trump is my new best friend,” a woman dressed like Delcy Rodríguez said during the parade.
The Colombian news channel NTN24 reported on Monday that Venezuelans cautiously took to the streets on Carnival to hold belated celebrations over the downfall of Nicolás Maduro with improvised charades — but with many doing so discretely, as the socialist regime still has an active emergency decree to arrest and punish those caught publicly celebrating the arrest of Maduro. NTN24 pointed out that the viral “Where are the Communists?” song became the “anthem” of the discreet Venezuelan celebrations.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s crackdown against El Salvador’s violent gangs was celebrated in a Carnival parade in the Peruvian town of Celedí. President Bukele published a video of the town’s parade where him and his gang crackdown policies were largely featured. A man wearing a large likeness of Bukele walked alongside a group of dancing men dressed like imprisoned gang members, complete with fake MS-13 and 18th Street gang tattoos painted on their bodies. The footage shows banners referencing El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison.
In a follow-up post, Bukele wrote, “Peru is key” alongside a the results of a local survey in Peru asking which type of president would Peruvians prefer to have. According to the results, 51 percent of respondents said they would prefer to have a president like Bukele. Bukele’s text is a reference to a recurring satirical meme involving Peru and Latin America’s politics.
Peru does not currently have a president and the office remains vacant at press time after the Peruvian Congress impeached President José Jerí on Tuesday night in response to several controversies. Jerí, who only lasted roughly four months in office, was Peru’s eighth president in ten years, with many of his predecessors having also faced impeachment by Congress.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.