Opposition looks to allies for help taking Venezuela
U.S. military intervention isn’t off the table, White House has said
Venezuela’s opposition on Sunday looked toward foreign allies led by the United States to take further steps to unseat President Nicolas Maduro, a day after a plan to coax his military to abandon him and allow in hundreds of tons of humanitarian aid ended in violence and relief trucks on fire.
Opposition leader Juan Guaido — who had secretly crossed the border into Colombia to lead the aid effort, running the risk of being barred from reentry or arrested upon return — was scheduled to meet with regional leaders, including U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence, in Bogota on Monday.
In a tweet, Guaido suggested that he would entertain more radical solutions to try to oust Maduro, a reference taken by observers to mean that he may broach the subject of additional moves by the U.S., which has already imposed deep sanctions on Venezuela.
The Trump administration has also repeatedly said that a military option in Venezuela is not off the table.
“Today’s events force me to make a decision: to pose to the international community in a formal way that we must have all options open to achieve the liberation of this country that is fighting and will continue to fight,” Guaido tweeted.
Guaido’s comments suggested the opposition’s limitations after a plan they had hoped would cause deep fissures in Maduro’s military structure instead produced only modest cracks. In the face of Maduro’s military blockade of aid, they largely failed to bring in the assistance they had hoped to deliver to the neediest Venezuelans.
Yet as Guaido and other opposition leaders prepared for a pivotal meeting with the U.S. and other regional allies, they also appeared to be running out of options.
Last month, the U.S. imposed sweeping sanctions that effectively cut off Maduro’s biggest source of hard currency — oil sales to the United States. In doing so, the U.S. has already pulled the most powerful economic lever it had.
The sanctions risk worsening a humanitarian crisis here, since the nearly bankrupt government is the chief importer of food and medicines.
Colombian President Ivan Duque arrived on Sunday at the Simon Bolivar bridge — the site of intense, violent exchanges of tear gas and rubber bullets on Saturday.
With tensions still high on the border, Colombian authorities on Sunday announced that Duque had ordered the closure of his country’s three main bridge crossings to Venezuela in the North Santander region through Monday night.