Crisis in Venezuela: While Guaido admits that he needs more military support, Trump warns of the worst



[ad_1]

The day before, Guaido had announced that the eviction attempt of the Maduro government was entering its "final phase", thus sending the blow to two days of demonstrations, some of which were violent.

Guaido, the current speaker of the National Assembly and self-proclaimed interim president, had hoped that Tuesday's announcement and the ensuing protests would convince key members of the military to withdraw.

"We must recognize that yesterday there were not enough people, we must insist that all the armed forces protest together," Guaido said Wednesday. "We are not asking for a confrontation, we are not asking for a confrontation between brothers, it is the other way around, we just want them to be on the side of the people."

Guaido also called on public sector employees to go on strike.

According to the Venezuelan Independent Observatory of Social Conflicts, more than 100 people were injured during this week's protests.

Human Rights Watch reported that 168 people had been arrested. He said the security forces reportedly fired on demonstrators and journalists. A CNN team saw what appeared to be shooting shells and shotgun shells in the streets of Caracas after a protest, but it was not known how old they were.

Earlier this week, Guaido won an apparent victory when the former head of the Venezuelan security services appeared to resign.

In an open letter "to the people of Venezuela" circulating on social media, Manuel Ricardo Cristopher Figuera accused the Maduro regime of plundering the country. A few hours after the publication of the letter, Maduro announced that Figuera would be replaced, without explaining why.

A US government official told CNN on Wednesday that Washington considered the letter to be genuine.

Two days of action

Maduro blamed US President Donald Trump for what he called Tuesday's "coup attempt"." During his first public appearance since the beginning of the demonstrations, he called the supporters to their "greatest loyalty" and urged them to go out on the streets to fight for democracy.

What comes next is not clear.

Maduro called for two "days of action" this weekend, asking all elected officials to unite for the Venezuelan people.

Trump said Thursday would be "probably very bad".

"It's a terrible thing, people are starving, they are dying, there is no food, there is no water," said the US president. at Fox Business. "It's an incredible mess."

The US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, said that military action is possible and that "if that is what is required, that's what the United States will do" . Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan said the Pentagon had "done an exhaustive planning, so there is no situation or scenario for which we have no contingency".

"Good politics of old-fashioned power"

Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, have been accused for years of having unleashed a humanitarian catastrophe through their radical socialist economic policies. Maduro claims that he was democratically elected and that current efforts to remove him, as well as the crisis as a whole, are being orchestrated by the United States.

Maduro's leadership has been in the limelight on the international scene since being re-elected in May 2018, a competition criticized by international observers. The Lima group, an alliance of 14 Latin American and Canadian countries, said the vote did "fail to meet international standards of a democratic, free, fair and transparent process."
In January, Guaido declared himself acting president amid mbadive protests a few days after Maduro's swearing-in for a second term. The opposition leader is committed to setting up a transitional government and organizing free and fair elections.

Dozens of Latin American and Western countries have recognized Guaido as the legitimate leader of Venezuela, while Russia, Cuba and China are among the most prominent states in Maduro.

Pompeo and Trump's national security advisor, John Bolton, both visited the US media on Wednesday to express their support for Guaido and to accuse Russia of supporting Maduro.

"The Russians like nothing better than putting our thumbs in," Bolton told CNN on Wednesday. "They use the Cubans as substitutes, they would like to have effective control of a country in this hemisphere.It is not an ideology, it is just a good policy of power to the Ancient."

The Russian authorities denied this speech and accused the United States of spreading false information in order to "demoralize the Venezuelan army" and carry out an "information war".

Maduro also denied being ready to leave the country, but Russia had dissuaded everyone, which Pompeo told several US media this week.

Pompeo met on Wednesday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The Russian side stated that she pointed out that US interference in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state constituted a violation of international law, while the State Department stated that the The intervention of Russia and Cuba in Venezuela was "destabilizing".

[ad_2]
Source link