Washington Post – CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s opposition sought to maintain pressure Thursday on President Nicolás Maduro through further protests, as the embattled socialist leader convened a weekend of dialogue to critique his mandate and fine-tune “the revolution.”
Following a failed attempt to stage a peaceful military revolt Tuesday and overthrow Maduro, the opposition was facing a limited array of options.
Opposition leader Juan Guaidó on Wednesday called on Venezuelans to stage daily protests until Maduro leaves. The campaign, opposition officials said, included an appeal to public servants to show civil disobedience by wearing blue armbands to work.
After two days of violent protests that left two people dead and dozens wounded, the opposition was banking on a resilient populace to continue the effort — though it remained unclear how exhausted, crisis-battered Venezuelans would respond. Guaidó insisted late Wednesday that political change remains within Venezuela’s grasp.
“As long as we are mobilized and united, we are very close to achieving our freedom,” Guaidó said on the Fox Business Network. “Can’t tell you a specific date or time. Working on transition. Democracy has always taken time.”
At 6 a.m. on Thursday, Maduro appeared at a military base in western Caracas alongside Vladimir Padrino López, a member of the president’s inner circle who the Trump administration has said was negotiating his ouster.
“The empire is investing in dividing us and say there’s a civil war in Venezuela,” Maduro said, referring to the United States. “They say they have to intervene, to weaken our homeland. No matter the circumstance we have to be united, and that’s what loyalty is. It has to be a collective strength.”
The Trump administration has said that Maduro was prepared Tuesday to abandon office and flee to Havana, before being stopped by the Russians — a claim that Maduro strongly denied. Also on Fox, President Trump appeared less certain late Wednesday about Russian involvement, saying, “You hear rumors . . . rumors about Russia and a lot about Cuba.”
In a phone call with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov complained that the United States was clearly supporting opposition attempts to overthrow the government.
“The Russian side stressed that Washington’s interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state, and its threat against its leadership, was a gross violation of international law,” he said. Continuing to do so would entail “serious consequences,” he added.
[Venezuela’s opposition put together a serious plan. For now, it appears to have failed.]
Washington has also said that senior officials in Maduro’s administration have been negotiating his departure. On Tuesday, Maduro replaced his intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Manuel Ricardo Cristopher Figuera, after he appeared to defect to the opposition.
While vowing to remain in power, Maduro late Wednesday issued a call for dialogue. Although he has repeatedly called for dialogue and admitted errors in the past, he has rarely engaged those who call his rule illegal after discredited elections last year. Nor has he enacted meaningful reform.
Nevertheless, Maduro decreed two days of open critique on Saturday and Sunday — sessions likely to be held within very strict parameters of debate.
He called for “action and proposals from all the people, so they tell Nicolás Maduro what we have to do to create a plan to change the revolution, to rectify mistakes in the middle of the battle.”
Thousands did answer Guaidó’s call to demonstrate on Wednesday, but they were confronted by security forces firing tear gas as the opposition struggled to regain momentum.
The lack of response by the army and police to Guaidó’s call for revolt left opposition supporters grappling with a sense of a pivotal moment lost. Many in the ranks remained resolute after a day of violence that left dozens injured and more detained. But there were also strains of confusion and disappointment.
“Yesterday, there were failures,” Mirna Pinto, a 69-year-old retired nurse, said Wednesday. “I expected something else.” But she nevertheless joined the opposition protests. “Success will come the day Maduro goes,” she said.
A protester was killed Wednesday, said doctors and the independent Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict, which tracks protests. Officials said Jurubith Garcia, 27, was hit by a bullet in eastern Caracas, where security forces were confronting protesters. Her death was the second in two days, and the 55th in protests this year.
On Tuesday, a 25-year-old man was fatally shot in the chest during a protest in the interior state of Aragua, the observatory said.
A pro-government rally on Wednesday next to Miraflores, the presidential palace, drew about 500 people, far fewer than the multiple rallies of thousands of people supporting Guaidó. Diosdado Cabello, one of Maduro’s top lieutenants, told the pro-government rally that opposition leaders were now “walking like zombies.”
While assertions by the U.S. administration that several senior officials in the regime were ready to break with Maduro did not pan out, the day’s developments did suggest a measure of intrigue and betrayal around the Venezuelan leader.
“Everyone around Maduro is trying to figure out where they’re going to be when the music stops — either sitting down beside him, in jail or out of the country, because, yes, the music is going to stop,” said a senior U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic.
Guaidó may face a heightened risk of arrest after his actions Tuesday. Yet the fact that he was able to appear and openly speak at different points around the capital on Wednesday suggested the extent to which Maduro might still fear the domestic and international consequences of acting against him.
This oil-rich nation, once South America’s wealthiest per capita, has been paralyzed by the political stalemate and a growing humanitarian crisis. Hyperinflation, rising crime, power outages and shortages of medical supplies, food and water have reduced life for many to a daily struggle for survival. Millions have fled the country.
Maduro claimed victory in an election last year in which key opposition candidates were barred from running. The result was decried internationally as fraudulent. He is backed by Russia, China, Cuba and a few other nations.
Guaidó, the head of Venezuela’s opposition-controlled National Assembly, declared himself president in January. He calls Maduro a “usurper.”
Michael Brice-Saddler in Washington and Amie Ferris-Rotman in Moscow contributed to this story.
Source: US Government Class
