{"id":124828,"date":"2026-01-20T12:52:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T12:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/124828\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T12:52:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T12:52:16","slug":"progressive-organizations-hosts-hands-off-venezuela-march-in-st-petersburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/124828\/","title":{"rendered":"Progressive organizations hosts “Hands Off Venezuela” march in St. Petersburg"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tProtestors in downtown St. Petersburg chanting “The people united will never be defeated.” Photo by Leah Burdick<\/p>\n

Over 40 demonstrators marched through downtown St. Petersburg to protest U.S. involvement in Venezuela and the recent capture of Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, calling the actions a violation of international law.<\/p>\n

Demonstrators were calling for the removal of military assets from the Caribbean. <\/p>\n

Karla Correa is the co-chair of the Pinellas Democratic Socialists of America <\/a>and she said the U.S. should have no say on who Venezuela determine as their president.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe U.S. is always trying to be like the world police and take control of other countries\u2019 resources. In Venezuela\u2019s case thats their oil because Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world,\u201d Correa said. <\/p>\n

Correa said Maduro should be released and returned to Venezuela and is concerned that removing resources from the country could lead to a big war.<\/p>\n

\u200b\u201cWe\u2019re here to say, no war with Venezuela, free Maduro. We don\u2019t wanna see our tax dollars being used to militarize the Caribbean and to Kill people in Venezuela, kill people in the Caribbean. We wanna see our tax dollars being used to actually fund things that we need like health care, education and housing,\u201d Correa said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Demonstrator is pulling a sign on a wagon about how the working class needs to come together. Photo by Leah Burdick<\/p>\n

\"\"Speaker Thomas Gross, one of the main organizers of the demonstration. Photo by Leah Burdick<\/p>\n

\"\"Demonstrators listening to speakers before marching. Photo by Leah Burdick<\/p>\n

\"\"Demonstrators marching through downtown St. Petersburg grabbing the attention of pedestrians. Photo by Leah Burdick <\/p>\n

\"\"Demonstrators chanting on the sidewalk. Photo by Leah Burdick<\/p>\n

\"\"Demonstrators crossing the street holding their signs high in the air. Photo by Leah Burdick <\/p>\n

\"\"No war with Venezuela sign. Photo by Leah Burdick<\/p>\n

\"\"Sings about Trump being a war criminal and U.S. out of Latin America. Photo by Leah Burdick<\/p>\n

\"\"Demonstrators stop in downtown to chant \u201cThe people united will never be divided.\u201d Photo by Leah Burdick<\/p>\n

\"\"Demonstrators marching. Photo by Leah Burdick<\/p>\n

Speakers at the protest argued that U.S. actions are motivated by resource control and do not benefit Venezuelans.<\/p>\n

Demonstrator Manny Ramirez is the co-chair of the Tampa Democratic Socialists of America.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI do have some family still in Cuba and right now, with this invasion of Venezuela, the capturing of the oil tankers, and just more broadly the sanctions that the U.S. imposes on Venezuela and Cuba. These inflict a lot of deep hardships on the people of Venezuela and Cuba.<\/p>\n

Ramirez said by blocking the oil to Cuba its going to cause more hardships for the people. He said instead of trying to write a foreign policy to help people and collaborate, the U.S. has chose violence. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think similar to the invasion of Iraq, more and more people are going to realize that this war is about oil, its about dominance, its not about freedom, it\u2019s not about democracy, and thats gonna be only more apparent,\u201d Ramirez said. <\/p>\n

After listening to multiple speakers, demonstrators began marching downtown while chanting \u201cHands off Venezuela\u201d and \u201cThe people united will never be defeated.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Protestors in downtown St. Petersburg chanting “The people united will never be defeated.” Photo by Leah Burdick Over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[9230,61972,13204,1157,3138,202,204,203,199,201,200,4390],"class_list":["post-124828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-demonstration","tag-hands-off","tag-march","tag-pinellas","tag-protest","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}