Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Tuesday claimed that his troops have thwarted a botched attempt to topple him masterminded by Venezuela’s “coup-mongering far right” and US President Donald Trump’s deranged imperialist “gang” — while yesterday US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said US military action in the country was a possibility “if required.”
Maduro gave an hour-long address to the Venezuelan nation on Tuesday night — his first since the pre-dawn uprising began — in which he accused Venezuelan National Assembly President Juan Guaido and his mentor, veteran politician Leopoldo Lopez, of seeking to spark an armed confrontation that might be used as a pretext for a foreign military intervention.
However, “loyal and obedient” members of Venezuela’s Bolivarian National Guard had put down the mutiny within hours of it starting shortly after 4am on Tuesday, Maduro claimed, in direct contradiction to Guaido’s earlier remark that the president no longer had military backing.
Photo: AFP
By noon there only remained a small group of plotters who had chosen “the path of betrayal [and] handed their souls over to the coup-mongering far right,” Maduro said.
However, yesterday Pompeo spoke out on US TV, having previously claimed that Maduro had been on the verge of fleeing to Cuba, to say that the US would prefer a peaceful transition of power in Venezuela, but that he was prepared to consider military intervention to stem the turmoil.
“Military action is possible. If that’s what’s required, that’s what the United States will do,” Pompeo said in an interview with Fox Business Network.
Meanwhile Guaido said that “a peaceful rebellion,” not an attempted military coup, was under way and urged his supporters to return to the streets yesterday to continue what he called the final stage of “Operation Freedom.”
He said Venezuelans had the opportunity “to conquer their future” and pledged that the march would be the largest in the nation’s history.
In what could result in a flashpoint between the two sides yesterday, Maduro also called for his supporters to stage “a large, millions-strong march of the working class.”
The Spanish government yesterday confirmed that Lopez, who had been freed from house arrest to help lead the uprising, was now in the residence of the Spanish ambassador to Venezuela.
“We can confirm that the opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, and his wife and daughter, are in the residence of the Spanish ambassador in Caracas,” a government spokeswoman said.
She said that Lopez and his family had not requested asylum as yet.
Maduro said the plotters would “not go unpunished” and they would face criminal prosecutions “for the serious crimes that have been committed against the constitution, the rule of law and the right to peace.”
“They failed in their plan. They failed in their call, because the people of Venezuela want peace,” Maduro said, surrounded by Venezuela’s military and political elite. “We will continue to emerge victorious in the months and years ahead. I have no doubt about it.”
Those claims were contradicted by Guaido, the young opposition leader who has been battling to unseat Maduro since January.
In a video message of his own — recorded at an unknown location — Guaido claimed that Maduro no longer enjoyed the backing or the respect of the Venezuelan armed forces.
Maduro called Tuesday’s “coup-mongering adventure” part of a US-backed plot to destroy the Bolivarian revolution he inherited after former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez’s death in 2013.
“I truly believe that the United States of America has never had a government as deranged as this one,” he said, calling Guaido and his team “useful idiots of the empire.”
He also scotched claims from Pompeo that he had been preparing to flee Venezuela for Cuba, until he was told to stay put by his Russian backers.
“Senor Pompeo, please,” Maduro said.
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