About forty people gathered Friday gathered with a simple message: "No more Chávez."
Spoke out against the Venezuelan president and chanted "We want peace" and "No more oppression" in heat nearing 90 degrees late Friday afternoon at University Avenue and 13th Street.
Activists rallied against Chávez worldwide Friday in similar protests, according to an Associated Press article.
What started out with two students and a lone sign that read "No + Chavez," slowly became a full-blown protest demonstrating against Hugo Chávez's rule over Venezuela.
Though it was scheduled for 5 p.m., the protest took full force around 5:45 as the demonstrators, mostly students, trickled to the corner.
"We're Venezuelan-we're always a little late," joked Esther Benchimol, a fifth-year Industrial and Systems Engineering student at UF.
The spirited protesters brought with them an assortment of signs, shirts, flags and loud voices to help get their sentiment across the rush hour traffic.
Word of the protest was spread via Facebook, text messages and Blackberry messages.
Francia Salazar, a UF sophomore and one of the first to arrive, heard of the demonstration in a text from a friend.
"I felt it was important to come because it's necessary for the whole word to know that there are many Venezuelans who are against Chávez," Salazar said.
However, not only Venezuelans attended the protest. About 10 students from Honduras held signs and chanted in favor of democracy.
Kenya Perez, a Honduran junior at Santa Fe, said she felt inclined to protest because she is against communism in Latin America.
"We want peace," Perez said. "And we hate Chávez."
Despite the serious message behind the gathering, the said they enjoyed the get-together, which lasted about two hours. Little to no English was spoken among the participants, and breaks for cigarettes, group photos and trips to the nearby Kangaroo station were frequent. Several of the female students challenged one another to see who could chant the loudest.
Andres Carvallo, UF alum and partial organizer of the event, felt the protest achieved the desired goal.
"We wanted to make Americans here in Gainesville aware of what's going on in Venezuela and how Chávez is trying to oppress the people," he said. "This is just our way to help out and show support for our family down there in Venezuela."
