Venezuela's Guaido issues call for military uprising amid violent clashes

Several dozen armed troops accompanying Guaido clashed with soldiers supporting Maduro at a rally outside the La Carlota air base in Caracas early on Tuesday, but the incident fizzled out and did not appear to be part of an immediate attempt by the opposition to take power through military force.

Guaido, in Twitter posts, wrote that he had begun the “final phase” of his campaign to topple Maduro, calling on Venezuelans and the armed forces to back him ahead of May Day mass street protests planned for Wednesday.

“The moment is now!” he wrote. “The future is ours: the people and Armed Forces united.”

National Assembly leader Guaido invoked the constitution to assume an interim presidency in January, arguing that Maduro’s re-election in 2018 was illegitimate. But Maduro has held on, despite the backing of most Western countries, increased U.S. sanctions, and huge protests and calls on the military to act by Venezuela’s opposition.

Tens of thousands of people marched in Caracas in support of Guaido on Tuesday, clashing with riot police along the main Francisco Fajardo thoroughfare. A National Guard armored car slammed into protesters who were throwing stones and hitting the vehicle.

There were 36 people injured in Tuesday’s incidents, most of them hit with pellets or rubber bullets, said Doctor Maggi Santi of the Salud Chacao health center in eastern Caracas.

Maduro, a former bus driver who took office after the death of political mentor President Hugo Chavez in 2013, said on Tuesday he had spoken with military leaders and that they had shown him “their total loyalty.”

“Nerves of steel!” Maduro wrote on Twitter. “I call for maximum popular mobilization to assure the victory of peace. We will win!”

Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino said in a broadcast, flanked by uniformed men, that the armed forces would continue to defend the constitution and “legitimate authorities” and that military bases were operating as normal.

U.S. national security adviser John Bolton, a foreign policy hawk, said three senior aides to Maduro - including Padrino - should make good on commitments they purportedly made to the opposition for a peaceful transition away from Maduro’s rule.

The move was Guaido’s boldest effort yet to persuade the military to rise up against Maduro. If it fails, it could be seen as evidence that he lacks sufficient support. It might also encourage the authorities, who have already stripped him of parliamentary immunity and opened multiple investigations into him, to arrest him.

“Whatever happens now, we won’t let ourselves be stopped. ... We continue to stand for nonviolence,” Guaido told German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle in an interview released on Tuesday.

Oil prices topped $73 before easing, partly driven higher by the uncertainty in Venezuela, an OPEC member whose oil exports have been hit by the U.S. sanctions and an economic crisis.

Guaido, in a video on his Twitter account, was accompanied by men in military uniform and leading opposition politician Leopoldo Lopez, who had been placed under house arrest in 2017.

Chile’s foreign minister said later Tuesday that Lopez and his family had entered Chile’s diplomatic residence. Opposition lawmaker Freddy Guevara has also been living under asylum at Chile’s Caracas embassy for more than a year.

Guaido has said Wednesday’s planned protests will be the largest march in Venezuela’s history and part of the “definitive phase” of his effort to take office in order to call fresh elections.

U.S. ROLE

Venezuela is mired in a deep economic crisis despite its vast oil reserves. Shortages of food and medicine have prompted more than 3 million Venezuelans to emigrate in recent years.

The slump has worsened this year with large areas of territory left in the dark for days at a time by power outages.

“My mother doesn’t have medicine, my economic situation is terrible, my family has had to emigrate. We don’t earn enough money. We have no security. But we are hopeful, and I think that this is the beginning of the end of this regime,” said Jose Madera, 42, a mechanic, sitting atop his motorbike in a protest on Tuesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump said he was monitoring the situation.

The White House declined to comment on whether the administration had been consulted or had advance knowledge of what Guaido was planning.

Carlos Vecchio, Guaido’s envoy to the United States, told reporters in Washington that the Trump administration did not help coordinate Tuesday’s events.

“No. This is a movement led by Venezuelans,” he said.

But Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza blamed the United States.

“This is directly planned in Washington, in the Pentagon and Department of State, and by Bolton,” Arreaza told Reuters.

Brazil’s right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro threw his support behind Guaido’s push and said Venezuelans were “enslaved by a dictator.” But his security adviser, a retired general, said Guaido’s support among the military appeared to be “weak.”

Maduro’s foreign allies include Russia, China and Cuba.

Russia’s foreign ministry on Tuesday accused the Venezuelan opposition of resorting to violence in what it said was a brazen attempt to draw the country’s armed forces into clashes. Turkey also criticized the opposition.

The United Nations and other countries urged a peaceful solution and dialogue. Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, speaking in Brazil, said: “What we don’t want is a military escalation, but rather a political solution.”

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said she had requested an emergency video conference meeting of the Lima Group regional bloc later on Tuesday to discuss the events.