Juan Guaido, Venezuela’s constitutionally legitimate president, was attacked as he returned Venezuela on Monday after weeks of foreign travel. Pretender President Nicolas Maduro thus signaled his coming escalation.
Footage of yesterday’s events shows a mob melee between Guaido’s supporters and opponents. At first glance, the incident seems like a simple meeting of diverging passions. But there was a method to this madness — and Maduro is at the center of it.
For a start, the abundance of young, aggressively minded men confronting Guaido indicates that Maduro’s thuggish colectivos were present. At least in confrontations involving senior opposition leaders, the colectivos operate under direct order and authority from Maduro’s regime. And considering explicit U.S. warnings against harming Guaido, Monday’s events must be considered a message from Maduro to President Trump: I am testing you.
That understanding finds further roots in other recent Maduro actions.
As Guaido has been drumming up global support in recent weeks, Maduro has been taking new steps to consolidate his grip on power. These have included new actions to increase pressure on the United States.
The day following Trump’s State of the Union address last week, at which Guaido was an honored guest, Maduro relocated six Citgo oil executives, five of whom are U.S. citizens, from home arrest to prison. It is believed these executives are now being held at the Helicoide prison, under control of Maduro’s SEBIN intelligence service. Designed as a luxury shopping mall, the Helicoide is now used to torture Maduro’s political opponents. But Maduro knows that the U.S. will take notice of its citizens being sent to the SEBIN’s funhouse. And he knows that the U.S. is already aware that the SEBIN is trained, and often directed by, officers from Cuba’s exceptional, if brutal, DI intelligence service. In short, as with the attacks on Guaido, he’s sending a message here.
The Trump administration cannot keep sitting idle. If Maduro doesn’t face resistance, he’ll keep escalating.
For all his State of the Union rhetoric about standing “with the Venezuelan people in their noble quest for freedom,” Trump has given Maduro reason to believe he is hesitant. Trump has pledged to increase pressure on Maduro via his key ally, Cuba, but that action has thus far been woefully inadequate. And high profile U.S. business persons, including Trump allies such as Erik Prince, continue to meet with Maduro’s cronies without sanction. At the same time, Maduro is consolidating power by offering new market freedom to his elites.
This is intolerable.
Venezuela is the world’s oil reserve richest nation. But under the pathological socialist leadership of Hugh Chavez and now Maduro, Venezuela is now a child starvation kingdom in which professionals prostitute themselves to survive. By virtue of Maduro’s repeated constitutional malfeasance, Guaido is the legitimate president of his country. He deserves greater American consolidation and support. If not, Trump should have the courage to admit his policy has failed.
