Venezuelan National Assembly President and self-proclaimed acting president Juan Guaido yesterday said that troops had joined his campaign to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, as the government vowed to put down what it called an attempted coup.
“We are currently facing and deactivating a small group of treacherous military personnel who took positions in the Altamira distributor road [in Caracas] to promote a coup d’etat,” Venezuelan Minister of Popular Power for Communication and Information Jorge Rodriguez said on Twitter.
“We call on the people to remain on maximum alert to — with our glorious National Bolivarian Armed Forces — defeat the attempted coup and preserve peace,” he said.
Photo: AFP
In a video recorded at a Caracas military air base posted on social media, the US-backed Guaido said that troops had heeded months of urging to join his campaign to oust Maduro.
“Today brave soldiers, brave patriots, brave men supporting the constitution have answered our call,” he said.
Television images showed soldiers and Guaido supporters at the largely empty base milling around without urgency.
Colombian President Ivan Duque called on Twitter for “soldiers and the people of Venezuela to place themselves on the right side of history, rejecting dictatorship and Maduro’s usurpation.”
Colombia also said it was calling an emergency meeting of the Lima Group — a grouping of major Latin American nations plus Canada focused on Venezuela.
Meanwhile, Bolivian President Evo Morales “vigorously” condemned the “attempted coup in Venezuela by the right-wing that is beholden to foreign interests.”
Morales said he was sure that “the brave Bolivarian Revolution led by brother Nicolas Maduro will beat this new attack by the empire [the US].”
“We reject this coup movement that aims to fuel violence in the country,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on Twitter.
“The traitors that have put themselves at the head of this subversive movement are using troops and soldiers with heavy weapons in a public area of the city to create panic and terror,” he said.
In his video, Guaido appeared alongside high-profile opposition politician Leopoldo Lopez, who had been put under home arrest by Maduro’s regime, but who announced he had been “freed” by soldiers supporting Guaido.
Lopez posted a picture on Twitter with men in uniform and said it was taken at La Carlota military base in eastern Caracas.
“Venezuela: the definitive phase to end the usurpation, Operation Liberty, has begun,” the message read.
Venezuelan Minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino Lopez said on Twitter that the situation in military barracks and bases in the country was “normal.”
Tensions in Venezuela have ratcheted up to a critical level this year, after Guaido on Jan. 23 announced that he was the acting president under the constitution.
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