Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Venezuelan legislators attacked
The government sent security agents to seize two top opposition leaders at homes. U.S. says it holds President Maduro responsible for their safety.
CARACAS, Venezuela — Teams of heavily armed security agents seized two of Venezuela’s top opposition leaders from their homes in the middle of the night Tuesday, dragging one into the street in his pajamas as President Nicolas Maduro’s government defied U.S. sanctions and international condemnation of a plan to assume nearly unlimited powers.
Leopoldo Lopez and Antonio Ledezma were being held at the Ramo Verde military prison, accused by the government-allied Supreme Court of violating the terms of their house arrest by plotting to escape and releasing video statements criticizing Maduro.
Both men’s allies denied the charges and vowed to continue to try to push the ruling party from power. But they gave little indication of how they planned to do that, and the capital was unusually quiet after months of sometimes violent protests.
The United States said it is holding Maduro “personally responsible” for the health and safety of the opposition leaders.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the detentions of Lopez and Ledezma followed the Maduro government’s “outrageous seizure of power through a sham election” over the weekend. Sanders said Lopez and Ledezma were being “unjustly” held.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Washington fears the violence could worsen.
“We are evaluating all of our policy options as to what can we do to create a change of conditions where either Maduro decides he doesn’t have a future, and wants to leave of his own accord, or we can return the government processes back to their constitution,” Tillerson said.
Meanwhile, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., warned Maduro that he is endangering his job security by cracking down on political opponents. Rubio said in a speech aired in Venezuela that Maduro’s followers are already plotting to turn against him.
Maduro appeared undeterred in his plans to seat a special assembly this week with powers to rewrite the country’s constitution and override any other branch of the Venezuelan government. He has threatened to use those powers to go after his opponents, and the arrests Tuesday appeared to show he was willing to proceed with full force.
He appears to have the full support of the country’s most important institutions, including the military, and Venezuelan Defense Minister Gen. Vladimir Padrino Lopez appeared on television Tuesday to affirm his loyalty to Maduro.
“We ask for respect for our democracy, for the way in which we have decided to take the road that we deserve to take in peace, in democracy, with tolerance, without violence and without heading toward a coup,” Padrino said.
Tensions escalated in Venezuela after government-allied electoral authorities said more than 8 million people voted Sunday and the turnout was disputed by the opposition and independent analysts and condemned by many nations in the region and beyond.
On Monday, the Trump administration added Maduro to a growing list of high-ranking Venezuelan officials targeted by financial sanctions.
Maduro said Monday he had no intention of deviating from his plans to rewrite the constitution and go after a string of enemies, from independent Venezuelan news channels to gunmen he claimed were sent by neighboring Colombia to disrupt the vote as part of an international conspiracy led by the man he calls “Emperor Donald Trump.”
He has also said he would use the assembly’s powers to bar opposition candidates from running in gubernatorial elections in December unless they sit with his party to negotiate an end to hostilities that have generated four months of protests, leaving at least 120 dead and nearly 2,000 wounded.
Panamanian and Argentine officials and the Organization of American States condemned Tuesday’s arrests, though other nations in the region were silent.