Interim President Juan Guaidó incites a military uprising and protests against socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro.
Juan Guaidó, the US-backed opposition leader of Venezuela, launched a military uprising against President Nicolás Maduro on Tuesday — a dramatic escalation in the ongoing political fight between the two rivals that threatens to plunge the country into open civil conflict.
In January, Guaidó declared himself the country’s rightful president. He argued that Maduro, who has been in power for six years, rigged the election last May that kept him in power — and that as a result, Guaidó, as the head of the National Assembly, is now the rightful interim president of the country according to the Venezuelan constitution.
The Trump administration and more than 50 governments in Latin America and Western Europe agree with him, and have called on Maduro to step down.
But Maduro has refused, leading to a protracted political struggle between the two men and their supporters, both foreign and domestic, that has further destabilized the already economically devastated country and occasionally turned violent.
For weeks,Guaidó’s supporters have held protests aimed in part at convincing the nation’s military, which has thus far remained loyal to Maduro, to break with the dictator and support Guaidó. Experts say that without that support, Guaidó chances of seizing control of the country remain small.
So at dawn on Tuesday, Guaidó launched his boldest — and riskiest — gambit yet: releasing a video calling on the entire country, including the military, to rise up and overthrow Maduro once and for all.
Flanked by a few dozen armed members of the Venezuelan National Guard and several armored vehicles at an airbase in the capital city of Caracas, Guaidó announced the start of what he called “Operación Libertad” (Operation Liberty), which he said was the “final phase” of the push to remove the entrenched socialist leader.
“Our armed forces, brave soldiers, brave patriots, brave men who follow the constitution have heard our call,” Guaidó in the video. “People of Venezuela, we will go to the street with the armed forces to continue taking the streets until we consolidate the end of usurpation, which is already irreversible.”
The video also featured a surprise guest star standing near Guaidó: Leopoldo López, Guaidó’s mentor and the founder of his political party, who has been in prison since 2014 for organizing protests against Maduro’s rule. He said he was released by security forces on Guaidó’s orders, making his surprise reappearance all the more intriguing.
