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NY Times, Jan. 24, 2019
Venezuela Military Backs Maduro, as Russia Warns U.S. Not to Intervene
By Ana Vanessa Herrero and Neil MacFarquhar
CARACAS, Venezuela — The leader of Venezuela’s armed forces declared
loyalty to President Nicolás Maduro on Thursday and said the
opposition’s effort to replace him with a transitional government
amounted to an attempted coup.
The pronouncement by the defense minister, Vladimir Padrino López, came
a day after an opposition lawmaker proclaimed himself the country’s
rightful leader during nationwide protests and pleaded with the armed
forces to abandon Mr. Maduro.
The defense minister’s declaration was a setback for the opposition
leader, Juan Guaidó, whose claim to legitimacy has been backed by a
number of countries, including the United States. In a further blow to
the opposition, Russia warned the United States on Thursday against
meddling in Venezuela, a longtime Kremlin ally that has received
billions of dollars in Russian support.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia telephoned Mr. Maduro and
“emphasized that destructive external interference is a gross violation
of the fundamental norms of international law,” according to a statement
on Mr. Putin’s official website.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ignored the admonitions and intensified
the Trump administration’s call for other countries to accept Mr. Guaidó
and renounce Mr. Maduro.
“His regime is morally bankrupt, it’s economically incompetent, and it
is profoundly corrupt, and it is undemocratic to the core,” Mr. Pompeo
told a meeting of the 35-member Organization of American States in
Washington.
The United States also offered $20 million in emergency aid to Mr.
Guaidó’s side and requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations
Security Council on Saturday on the Venezuela crisis. Diplomats said Mr.
Pompeo was expected to attend.
Taken together, the events escalated the confusion and conflict over who
is the rightful president of Venezuela, the oil-rich and formerly
prosperous country upended by political repression and severe economic
hardship under Mr. Maduro.
Opposition leaders had hoped key members of the armed forces would break
ranks with Mr. Maduro following large demonstrations across the country
and international pledges of support for Mr. Guaidó, including the Trump
administration’s repeated warnings that a “military option” is possible
for restoring democracy in Venezuela.
But so far, senior military commanders appear to be siding with Mr.
Maduro, even as they express alarm over the possible consequences of
rival claims to power.
“We’re here to avoid a clash between Venezuelans,” Mr. Padrino, the
defense minister, said in a televised address, flanked by high-ranking
officers. “It’s not a civil war, a war among brothers, that will resolve
Venezuelans’ problems.”
Mr. Padrino called Mr. Guaidó’s claim to power “laughable” and described
him as a pawn of right wing factions subservient to the United States.
“It makes you want to laugh,” he said. “But I must alert the people of
the danger this represents.”
Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Peru,
Ecuador, Guatemala and the Organization of American States have also
recognized Mr. Guaidó as the country’s leader. Others in the region,
however, have not, including Mexico, as well as Cuba and Bolivia,
longtime allies of Mr. Maduro.
Mr. Guaidó took an oath on Wednesday to lead Venezuela until fair
elections can be held. He has argued that as the president of the
National Assembly, an opposition-controlled legislative body, he has the
constitutional authority to assume power after Mr. Maduro took office
earlier this month following an election widely viewed as rigged.
After the Trump administration endorsed Mr. Guaidó’s claim to power, Mr.
Maduro said Venezuela would sever diplomatic ties with the United States
and gave American diplomats 72 hours to leave the country.
The State Department has said it will not heed the departure order
because Mr. Guaidó has invited the United States to stay.
Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, center, makes clear
the armed forces’ “support of the constitutional president,” Nicolás
Maduro, on Thursday.
Roberta Jacobson, a former assistant secretary of state who oversaw
Latin America policy in the Obama administration, called the impasse
over the diplomatic rupture untenable.
“I don’t think the administration has thought through all of the
consequences of taking action as quickly as it did in recognizing
Guaidó,” she said.
The military’s pledge of support for Mr. Maduro raised the stakes of a
standoff that American officials had hoped would be resolved quickly.
Diplomats who back Mr. Guaidó hoped that key members of the armed forces
would switch sides following an outpouring of support for Mr. Guaidó on
the streets of Venezuela on Wednesday, and pledges of support by several
nations in Latin America.
Military analysts and diplomats were surprised that Mr. Padrino had
remained largely silent and invisible for hours after Mr. Guaidó
proclaimed himself the country’s interim president. Some were looking
for signs of rifts within the armed forces.
Yet, Mr. Padrino said he was speaking for a unified command.
“A de facto parallel government lacks legal standing and popular
backing,” said Mr. Padrino, reading from a statement he said represented
the position of the armed forces. He added that the opposition had the
“dark aim of sowing chaos and anarchy in our society.”
At least 14 people in Venezuela have been killed in clashes with
security forces and other politically related violence since Tuesday,
according to the Venezuelan Education-Action Program on Human Rights,
known by its Spanish acronym, Provea.
Shortly before Mr. Padrino spoke, Venezuelan state television aired
pronouncements by regional commanders pledging fealty to Mr. Maduro.
Rocío San Miguel, a defense analyst in Venezuela who studies the
military, said it was notable that the military weighed in so late after
Mr. Guaidó took the oath. For the time being, she said, commanders
appeared to have concluded that Mr. Maduro has the upper hand.
While the armed forces “aspire to a peaceful resolution” to the crisis,
they will “stick with the most concrete power structure, pragmatically,”
said Ms. San Miguel, who runs an organization called Citizen Control.
Ms. San Miguel said military leaders may ultimately flip. That, she
added, would possibly happen if the rank and file are signaling clearly
that they do not want to crack down on protesters.
“That would be the sign that Maduro has to leave,” she said.
Before the defense minister spoke on Thursday, Russia accused the United
States of promoting regime change in Venezuela, warning of the
“catastrophic” consequences of destabilizing the country.
Moscow has been a close ally of Venezuela for more than a decade,
shoring up the country’s crumbling economy with billions of dollars in
loans as well as military support.
The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a series of blistering statements,
particularly concerning the possibility of American military
intervention in Venezuela.
“Signals coming from certain capitals indicating the possibility of
external military interference look particularly disquieting,” the
Foreign Ministry said. “We warn against such reckless actions, which
threaten catastrophic consequences.”
It did not specify what those consequences might be.
Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said the United States
was being hypocritical in accusing Russia of meddling in American
elections while blatantly interfering in Venezuela’s internal affairs.
He also said that hints of armed intervention were particularly alarming.
“This is interference in the internal affairs of the state, and as you
know, there was a clear attempt to remove Nicolás Maduro from power,”
Mr. Lavrov told a news conference in Algiers, where he was visiting. He
also suggested that the United States had a hand in plots for
“physically eliminating him.”
“That the United States and some other countries have recognized the
self-proclaimed president shows that they played a direct role in the
crisis in Venezuela,” Mr. Lavrov said, adding that a country with two
presidents would lead to “chaos and instability.”
The foreign minister said that Russia was ready to join with other
“responsible countries” to start a national dialogue among Venezuelans
while avoiding calls to overthrow the legitimate government.
As recently as December, Russia dispatched a small group of aircraft to
Venezuela in a show of solidarity with Mr. Maduro, including two Tu-160
nuclear-capable bombers that flew more than 6,000 miles.
More important, it has given Venezuela more than $10 billion in
financial assistance in recent years. In exchange, Rosneft, the Russian
state oil company, has acquired stakes in Venezuela’s energy sector.
Venezuela has also been one of the largest markets for Russian arms
exports in Latin America. It signed 30 contracts worth $11 billion from
2005 to 2013, according to the Russian news agency Tass.
Mr. Peskov declined to discuss what might happen to the loans should the
Maduro government fall, and would not speculate whether Russia might
offer him asylum, emphasizing that in the Kremlin’s view, he remained
the legitimate president of Venezuela.
China, another critical foreign partner of Mr. Maduro, has been largely
silent about the Venezuela crisis in recent days. It has been a
supporter of the leftist government in Venezuela since Mr. Maduro’s
predecessor, Hugo Chávez, first came to power, and both leaders were
feted in visits to Beijing. The relationship has been undergirded by
China’s growing appetite for oil, partly paid for with tens of billions
of dollars in loans to Venezuela.
By 2015, China’s loans to Venezuela had grown to $65 billion, a Chinese
Ministry of Commerce researcher said that year.
But China’s enthusiasm for Venezuela has dimmed in recent years as the
Venezuelan economy has staggered. In 2016, China agreed to relax
conditions on Venezuela’s payments in an oil-for-loans agreement. When
Mr. Maduro visited China last year, reports indicated that his wishes
for a big injection of Chinese loans were not granted.
Follow Ana Vanessa Herrero and Neil MacFarquhar on Twitter: @AnaVHerrero
@NeilMacFarquhar.
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