Tensions rise as armed forces back Maduro

The Venezuelan military high command yesterday threw its weight behind Nicolas Maduro upping the stakes in the stand-off over the country’s leadership as the US warned against the use of force on protesters.

The day after Juan Guaido, the head of the parliament, swore himself in as interim president in front of thousands of protesters and was swiftly recognised by regional powers, military commanders took to the airwaves to make their allegiance clear.

General Vladimir Padrino, the defence minister, accused Guaido of mounting a coup d’etat and said the armed forces would not back a president ‘‘imposed by shadowy interests’’.

In one of several messages from the top brass broadcast on state TV, Padrino said the 35-year-old opposition leader was staging a putsch against democracy, adding that soldiers would be unworthy of their uniform if they did not defend the constitution.

The broadcasts were aimed at reasserting Maduro’s grip on the armed forces after a short-lived mutiny by a group of soldiers in Caracas on Tuesday raised doubts over military loyalties, which will be crucial in determining how the crisis plays out.

Britain yesterday joined a growing group of Western and Latin American countries that have recognised Guaido as Venezuela’s president. ‘‘The UK believes Juan Guaido is the right person to take Venezuela forward. We are supporting the US, Canada, Brazil and Argentina to make that happen,’’ Jeremy Hunt, the Foreign Secretary, said in a statement.

While the European Union stopped short of recognising Guaido, Antonio Tajani, head of the European parliament, said it was he who enjoyed ‘‘democratic legitimacy’’. Maduro’s victory in last year’s election was not ‘‘free and fair’’, Tajani added.

But Russia, China, Turkey, Iran and Syria lent their backing to Maduro, the man hand-picked by Hugo Chavez to succeed him upon his death in 2013. The Kremlin said Vladimir Putin had phoned his ally and ‘‘expressed support to the legitimate government of Venezuela amid the acute political crisis that has been provoked from the outside’’. In response to Washington’s move, Maduro ordered US diplomatic staff to leave Venezuela, saying he was breaking relations with the ‘‘imperialist United States government’’.

But Guaido, along with Marco Rubio, the US senator, urged the US not to evacuate personnel.

Yesterday Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, warned ‘‘remnant elements of the Maduro regime’’ against using violence to repress ‘‘the peaceful democratic transition’’. He called for a meeting of the UN Security Council tomorrow to discuss the crisis.

Local NGOs have reported at least 14 deaths linked to this week’s protests, since Tuesday. Protesters have clashed with security forces around the country and in both affluent and working-class areas of Caracas, with some demonstrations spilling over into looting of offlicences and restaurants.

The US has not ruled out military intervention, saying that ‘‘all options are on the table’’ if Maduro’s forces employ violence. But yesterday John Bolton, the national security adviser, said Washington was focusing on economic measures and would seek to cut off Maduro from the oil revenues that have propped up his regime.

‘‘We think, consistent with our recognition of Juan Guaido as the constitutional interim president of Venezuela, that those revenues should go to the legitimate government,’’ Bolton said.