The Daily Telegraph

Maduro defiant after ‘drone attack’

The Venezuelan president emerges unscathed after explosion as he was giving address at military parade

- By Rob Crilly in New York

Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan president, claimed he was “alive and victorious” following an apparent assassinat­ion attempt by drone. Mr Maduro, whose country is facing an exodus of around 5,000 people a day, was delivering an address at a military parade when an explosion allegedly took place in Caracas. Officials were quick to say the president had survived an assassinat­ion attempt and Mr Maduro blamed Colombia and plotters in the US.

IT WAS a chance for an embattled leader to project an image of strength as he addressed a military parade.

Nicolás Maduro, the Leftist president of Venezuela, wore a medal and sash to deliver his televised address.

“We are going to bet for the good of our country,” he said. “The hour of the economic recovery has come.”

Seconds later everything changed. TV images showed him and his wife looking up at the sky and flinching as an explosion allegedly rocked Caracas.

The feed was cut as members of the National Guard scrambled for cover. Photograph­s later showed the couple being shrouded by protective shields.

Officials were quick to say the president had survived an assassinat­ion attempt as two drones, packed with explosives, detonated nearby.

But since then, a slew of alternativ­e explanatio­ns has surfaced – from a propane gas tank exploding to an outof-control government drone. Whatever the cause, analysts say the sight of a jittery president and scattering soldiers risks weakening an increasing­ly isolated leader, amid a crumbling economy and rumours of coups.

“Before this event, Maduro was on thin ice, and now, after these damaging images, he appears even more vulnerable to crisis blowback,” said Michael Mccarthy, founder of Caracas Wire and research fellow at the American University’s Centre for Latin America. “It could spark regime infighting,” he added.

“The biggest change for the ruling coalition may be a heightened sense that Maduro’s leadership may imperil government stability,” he said.

For his part, Mr Maduro was quick to reassure his country that all was well. He returned to television screens later in the evening, defiantly declaring himself unaffected by the “assassinat­ion” attempt. “I’m alive and victorious,” he said.

He blamed the neighbouri­ng farright Colombia (whose outgoing president, Juan Manuel Santos, has suggested that Mr Maduro will soon be ousted) and plotters in the US. “The investigat­ion will get to the bottom of this,” he said. “No matter who falls.”

Both Colombia and the US denied any role, while the National Movement of Soldiers in Shirts, a little-known rebel group, claimed responsibi­lity.

Firefighte­rs at the scene told the Associated Press that they believed a propane gas tank exploding in an apartment was to blame but witnesses described seeing a drone crash into a nearby building.

At least one security expert told The Washington Post that it may have been a government drone that flew out of control and was destroyed before it could hit the presidenti­al podium.

Venezuela’s government said yesterday that six people had been detained over the drone explosions. One of the suspects had a pending arrest warrant for a 2017 attack on a military base, and a second had been arrested in 2014 for participat­ing in anti-government street protests, Nestor Reverol, the interior minister, said.

Whether accident, assassinat­ion attempt or even a government-planned stunt, the episode represents the third time Mr Maduro has suffered embarrassm­ent on live television.

A lone attacker launched himself at the podium as Mr Maduro gave his first state of the union address in 2013, and last year the president was pelted with eggs during a parade in the north-east of the country.

The explosion comes after a difficult week for the president. Caracas struggled with power cuts that blacked out city blocks and knocked out phone lines, the latest symptom of his country’s spiralling economic problems. Although he says reforms will begin to take effect later this month, the Internatio­nal Monetary Fund predicts that inflation in the country will hit one million per cent by the end of the year.

Hundreds of thousands of people are not waiting around to find out who is right. An estimated 5,000 people a day flee across the border.

Brian Fonseca, director of the Jack D Gordon Institute for Public Policy at Florida Internatio­nal University, said the attack appeared to be a sign of bubbling tensions – rather than a coordinate­d coup effort – and would prompt a fresh wave of crackdowns.

“I think it does give justificat­ion to the regime to further repression,” he said, adding that it may also prompt the president’s inner circle to begin succession planning.

It may even strengthen Mr Maduro’s fragile position, according to Geoff Ramsey, Venezuela researcher at the Washington Office on Latin America. “It gives him the bogeyman he needs to keep allies loyal,” he said. “It’s true that the imagery from yesterday does not cast him in a good light but what matters is his control of the levers of power: the armed forces where senior officers get perks in exchange for their loyalty, but also the political discourse of anti-imperialis­m and being able to say he is a president under siege.”

By any measure, Venezuela should be one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America, thanks to its huge oil reserves, sufficient to guarantee prosperity on a continent where poverty is endemic.

Yet Venezuela is poor, corrupt and strife-ridden. At the weekend, President Nicolas Maduro survived an apparent assassinat­ion attempt at a public rally in Caracas in a further sign of the country’s instabilit­y. He blamed the Colombians, without any evidence, just as in the past he has blamed the Americans.

The truth is that Mr Maduro has no one to blame but himself and his late mentor Hugo Chavez for destroying their country. Venezuela was brought to its knees by years of feckless mismanagem­ent and rampant corruption exacerbate­d by falling oil prices.

Its descent into privation and chaos began under Chavez and has worsened under Maduro. For Venezuela’s people the search for a socialist nirvana has become a nightmare. The rigged elections which returned Mr Maduro to office in May were used to eject his opponents from the assembly and beef up his powers to curb dissent.

Venezuela since Chavez has embraced a brand of socialism to which few politician­s subscribe. The exception, however, is Jeremy Corbyn and his Left-wing acolytes. They praise policies intended to reduce poverty and improve literacy but fail to acknowledg­e the outcomes – food shortages, a collapse in healthcare and rampant inflation.

When the former leader died in 2013, Mr Corbyn proposed a Commons motion to acknowledg­e “the huge contributi­on Chavez made to conquering poverty in his country … he showed us that there is a different and better way of doing things. It’s called socialism.” Mr Corbyn would like to inflict it on the UK.

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 ??  ?? The parade scattered and Maduro, top left, was surrounded by protective shields, top
The parade scattered and Maduro, top left, was surrounded by protective shields, top
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