Venezuela: Coup falls short; Maduro hangs on

World News

May 1, 2019 - 10:38 AM

CARACAS, Venezuela ? For Venezuela?s opposition, dawn broke on Tuesday with a jolt of political lightning and an auspicious photo-op. Interim President Juan Guaido, flanked by heavily armed soldiers and the country?s best known political prisoner, Leopoldo Lopez, announced the time had come to oust Nicolas Maduro.

With the help of rebellious troops, Guaido held out the promise that 20 years of single-party rule ? first under Hugo Chavez and now Maduro ? could end with a military-backed popular uprising.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told CNN that Maduro had even been prepared to flee ? that he had a plane parked on the tarmac ready to take off to Cuba.

That Lopez, who was serving a 13-year prison sentence under house arrest, was freed by his Military Intelligence captors, seemed to bolster the idea that the armed forces would play a starring role in what Guaido calls ?Operation Liberty.?

But as the day wore on, Guaido?s army of defectors never appeared en masse. And rather than leading a colossal march on the Miraflores Presidential Palace, as some were hoping for, the push devolved into running and brutal street battles that left at least 60 wounded, according to local reports.

And Pompeo said Russia had talked Maduro out of leaving the country.

Guaido?s three-month-long push to oust Maduro, it appeared, would require more time.

Why the military and other high-ranking officials didn?t heed the call to topple Maduro remains unknown, but it?s clear that Guaido and U.S. officials were expecting something else.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday afternoon, U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez and Supreme Court President Maikel Moreno and others had been talking to the opposition and had agreed to help oust the embattled leader. And he held out hope they might ignore their Cuban handlers and do right by the country.

?All agreed that Maduro had to go,? Bolton said of the men. ?They need to be able to act this afternoon and this evening to be able to bring other military forces to the side of the interim president.?

As of Tuesday night there was no sign of that happening. Padrino Lopez, on national television, mounted one of the most impassioned defenses of his boss, saying that anyone who tried to march on the presidency would face the full brunt of the armed forces.

?We reject this aggression directed by the North American empire,? he said.

Guaido, 35, is recognized by Washington and more than 50 other nations as the country?s only legitimate leader. They argue that Maduro, 57, has stayed in power through a series of increasingly fraudulent elections and as the nation has crumbled. In recent years, more than 3.4 million people have fled hunger, disease, crime and political oppression.

Yddy Subero, a 35-year-old business administrator in Caracas, had come out onto the streets to protest for Guaido and end the national nightmare.

?I hope this ends without blood,? she said, ?that (Maduro) has a heart and leaves peacefully.?

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