Venezuelan opposition welcomes Canada’s support
Lima Group has called for military backing of interim president
Venezuela’s pro-democracy movement has welcomed the decision by Canada and its allies to urge its country’s military to switch allegiance and support opposition leader Juan Guaido as the true leader of their country.
The declaration in the final Lima Group communiqué from Monday’s emergency meeting in Ottawa came two days after the defection of a top air force general, once loyal to socialist President Nicolas Maduro.
The Lima Group’s meeting comes amid massive protests in Venezuela pressuring Maduro to go. The group built on that backing in its final communique by calling upon “the National Armed Forces of Venezuela to demonstrate their loyalty to the interim president in his constitutional functions as their commander-in-chief.”
They also called on the armed forces “not to impede entry and transit of humanitarian assistance to Venezuelans.”
Guaido’s representative to Monday’s Ottawa meeting, Orlando Viera-Blanco, said the decision was a key step in freeing his country from its economic and political crisis and putting it on a road toward democracy.
“We have a huge relationship with different people in the army force. They are willing to collaborate and I am sure that this will be one of the most important events, topics, elements in order to accomplish a way out in Venezuela,” said Viera-Blanco, who has become the de-facto ambassador to Canada for Venezuela’s interim government — whose authority Maduro rejects. “We need more and more pressure on the top of the army corps, and in the top of the political dictatorship,” Viera-Blanco said. Canada and the Lima Group of more than a dozen North and South American countries have backed Guaido as the legitimate replacement for Maduro, who followed left-wing populist Hugo Chavez into Venezuela’s presidency after Chavez’s death in 2013. Guaido is an opposition leader who’s the head of Vene- zuela’s legislature. On Saturday, an air force general defected to the opposition and reportedly fled to Colombia. He posted a video on YouTube declaring his country’s transition to democracy was “imminent.”
“As a country that has an open-arms policy towards Venezuelans, we have received many important figures from the democratic opposition,” said Federico Hoyos, Colombia’s ambassador to Canada.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland branded the Maduro government a dictatorship that has shown an inexcusable disregard for the rule of law and human rights.
Two female protesters brandishing a banner and chanting “hands off Venezuela” breached security at the Global Affairs Canada building where Freeland and visiting representatives held a joint press conference to close the day. Two plainclothed police officers escorted the two women out without incident.
Freeland said Canada and its allies want to bring democracy to Venezuela, “the kind of democracy protesters in Canada do enjoy, and I am sad to say political protesters in Venezuela do not.”
She said the Lima Group was emphasizing a peaceful transition to democracy, led by the Venezuelan people in step with their country’s constitution. She rejected any suggestion that Canada or the Lima Group are fomenting an armed overthrow of the Maduro regime.