Maybe Venezuela’s most famous political prisoner, Leopoldo Lopez, was the thread that unraveled it all.
The overthrow that sputtered began when Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido tried to spark an uprising in Caracas on Tuesday last week, standing not only with masked soldiers who had defected, but also with Lopez, his mentor and a cult figure in some circles.
That dramatic turn sent a signal that this was not mere posturing. To many watching, it seemed that the opposition plan to replace Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was finally moving swiftly forward.
Illustration: Mountain People
However, it turns out that Lopez’s first appearance in public in years might actually have had the opposite effect and helped doom a deal two months in the making.
It was a surprise to some in the Maduro regime who had, after talks with the opposition, agreed to take part in a handover of power.
They consider Lopez an unreliable hothead, and that contributed to their decision to pull out, some insiders said, along with the fact that they had not been given any warning about the hastily organized event.
The administration of US President Donald Trump and Guaido’s team are still trying to figure out what went wrong.
Whether Lopez was a killer straw is just one riddle for them. Lopez himself on Thursday last week said that there should not have been any confusion.
He told reporters that before he was freed from house arrest on Tuesday last week, he had been speaking for weeks with “commanders, generals, representatives of different branches of the armed forces and police.”
The US is pointing to the breadth of the failed plot as evidence that, no matter how badly it went, Maduro’s days are numbered, with the nation having plunged into dysfunction and the economy in a shambles.
“This was just the tip of the iceberg,” said a senior US administration official who asked not to be named.
Many close to Maduro were in on the endgame, the official said, and their eagerness to send him packing shows how isolated he is.
However, failure exacts a price. The question in Washington and Caracas is how high.
One Venezuelan with ties to people in the opposition described them as “paralyzed.”
Any way it is sliced, the bust of what Guaido called Operation Liberty is a major setback, said Rocio San Miguel, president of the watchdog group Control Ciudadano.
“The opposition took a step backward with the military,” which the opposition needs to win over to succeed, he said.
“Guaido appearing with Lopez at a single point in the city with a few dozen soldiers and no major firepower showed their weakness,” he added.
Lopez’s clandestine release from house arrest by the feared Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) was but one step in a complex transition negotiated with top aides to Maduro, not all of whom were speaking to one another, according to people in Washington and Caracas familiar with the negotiations and who insisted on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.
Within hours, the deal between the opposition and the Maduro camp was dead. Lopez ultimately sought refuge in the Spanish ambassador’s residence in Caracas, emerging briefly on Thursday last week to talk to reporters.
US officials expressed fury at the Venezuelans close to Maduro who they believe double-crossed them.
Those singled out by US National Security Adviser John Bolton — the defense minister, the Venezuelan Supreme Court president and the head of the presidential guard — were central players in a large cast discussing how to abandon Maduro and recognize Guaido as the interim president, people familiar with the negotiations said.
Lopez was released because SEBIN intelligence chief General Manuel Christopher Figuera was fully on board, the people said.
As part of the arrangement, Figuera’s wife flew to safety in the US on April 28. On Tuesday last week, after Figuera released a letter explaining his decision, Maduro replaced him as intelligence chief.
Figuera has left Venezuela, two opposition officials said, although they did not know where he has gone.
In trying to explain where things went wrong, US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo blamed the Russians who, he said, intervened at the last minute.
Maduro had got wind of the deal a day earlier, and when Guaido and Lopez appeared at the base, the besieged president was rushed into a bunker and planned to escape to Cuba, two people familiar with the situation said.
Russia told him to stay put, Pompeo said.
Officials in Russia and Cuba have denied it, as has Maduro.
“Many of us thought, as the weeks went by, that it was astonishing Maduro hadn’t discovered it already, but that may be because so many on the inside wanted it to succeed,” one person familiar with the matter said. “They believe Maduro began to get an understanding of what was happening on the 29th and they had to move on the 30th or it would all collapse.”
One Venezuelan involved said that he blamed Lopez for “unilaterally” insisting on appearing in public, adding that Lopez pushed for it and Guaido relented.
Other speculation falls on Venezuelan Minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino Lopez, who was engaged in the negotiations while informing Maduro and his Russian and Cuban allies of the talks, one person close to the situation said.
The defense minister was with Maduro when the president gave a speech at the military academy in Caracas on Thursday last week.
The other two key officials — Venezuelan Supreme Court President Maikel Moreno and Ivan Rafael Hernandez Dala, head of the Venezuelan presidential guard and of military counterintelligence — were readier to make the transition work, that person said.
Figuera and Padrino are among the people who have been sanctioned by the US, where their assets have been blocked.
However, it might be that many more balked. There was confusion over who would make the first move, a person close to the situation said.
It could be that there were so many participants that one hand often did not know what the other was doing.
The talks began when Venezuelans with links to top officials in the regime and the opposition offered to act as bridges. At least one of those intermediaries is under US sanctions and was seeking leniency, three people familiar with the deal said.
US officials have repeatedly said that senior Venezuelan officials willing to shift their allegiance to Guaido would be removed from various sanctions.
The US has since January led more than 50 nations in recognizing Guaido as interim president, saying that Maduro’s re-election last year was rigged, rendering it invalid.
US Department of State Special Envoy for Venezuela Elliott Abrams told a Venezuelan TV station on Wednesday last week that “a majority of the high command were talking with the Supreme Court and Juan Guaido about a change in government with the departure of Maduro and with guarantees for the military.”
The negotiations had created a 15-point document that included a “dignified exit” for Maduro and recognition by the high court of Guaido as interim president with elections within a year, Abrams added.
Guaido on Friday last week told reporters that this would still ultimately happen, that “we have never been so close” to ousting the regime and establishing a transitional government.
It has been widely assumed that if new elections are called, Leopoldo Lopez, a former mayor of a wealthy district in Caracas, would be a leading candidate.
On Thursday last week, a Caracas court issued a warrant for Leopoldo Lopez, revoking his house arrest and ordering him to spend the remaining eight years of his 13-year sentence in Ramo Verde Military Prison; he was convicted of charges, including arson and instigating violence after spearheading anti-government protests.
The Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on its Web site that Leopoldo Lopez would “under no circumstances” be handed over to Venezuelan authorities.
Leopoldo Lopez said that he had no intention of returning to the prison where he was for three years.
“I spent two years in complete isolation at Ramo Verde,” he said. “It was not easy. I was tortured. I don’t want to go back to jail, because jail is hell, but I’m not afraid of jail, just like I’m not afraid of Maduro.”
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