Venezuelan business owner in Spokane calls for unity

SPOKANE, Wash — As tensions rise between the United States and Venezuela, a Spokane-based business owner from Venezuela is calling for unity. 

For the owner of Jumping Jackalope Axe Throwing, Miguel Tamburini, target practice using axes, knives and in some cases, ninja stars, is second nature. 

He’s run the business in Spokane for the past several years. 

“I usually start the axe-throwing experience explaining to people we’re going to guide the axe towards the target,” Tamburini said. 

But lately, his focus has become less on his business, and more on what’s going on in his home country of Venezuela. 

Tamburini said his mother, who still lives there, called him late over the weekend as bombs began hitting the country just blocks away from her home. 

“When everything started happening, I got a couple of messages,” Tamburini said. 

“We called and talked for 30 seconds and then we lost the connection and we were worried for a couple of hours.”

The bombing came as a U.S military operation captured Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife. 

This week, Maduro and his wife were arraigned in New York for crimes involving narcotics and weapons trafficking over several decades.  

Maduro pleaded not guilty and called the actions against him a “kidnapping.”

Tamburini said he supports the accountability, but is sad the United States had to intervene to get it done. 

“Something had to happen,” Tamburini said. 

 “My worry is what’s going to happen next.”

While Tamburini doesn’t live there now, he said his connections to his home country since Maduro took to power exposed him to governing issues he knew had to change. 

“Instead of people being united towards the same goal, people were just fighting, and they were fighting against each other,” Tamburini said. 

Instead of fighting, Tamburini said he hopes a positive change in government and leadership will come about as a result of this, and his loved ones won’t have to live through more United States operations happening too close for comfort. 

“The best case scenario is to find a transitional government to start unifying people and making sure we’re all working for the same goal,” said Tamburini.