CARACAS, Venezuela — The man challenging President Nicolás Maduro’s hold on power called for nationwide protests on Wednesday to intensify pressure on a leader clinging to power but increasingly abandoned by Western governments.
Juan Guaidó, proclaimed by the opposition-controlled National Assembly as Venezuela’s rightful president last week, sought to maintain the momentum of his movement as Maduro’s government struck back, ordering that Guaidó’s assets be frozen.
The opposition leader shrugged off the government’s move and called on Venezuelans to step outside their homes and offices for a midday protest. “This January 30, we Venezuelans will unite in the streets peacefully to back our National Assembly, the opening of a path for humanitarian aid, a transitional government and free elections,” Guaidó tweeted several hours before the protest.
The Trump administration is leading an international campaign to drive the leftist Venezuelan leader from power, embracing Guado’s arguments that Maduro began a second term after an election riddled with fraud and years of increasingly authoritarian rule that drove this oil-rich country into an economic and humanitarian catastrophe.
At the same time, he issued a video message directed at the American people, warning them that the Trump administration was trying to carry out a coup d’etat in Venezuela that he said would be disastrous.
“We will not allow a Vietnam in Latin America,” he said. “They want to put their hands on our oil like they did in Iraq, like they did in Libya,” Maduro added, referring to the United States.
Venezuela’s self-declared interim leader Juan Guaido, center, greets supporters after a rally at a public plaza in Las Mercedes neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 29, 2019. (Fernando Llano/AP)
“I ask for the support of people of the United States so that there is not a new Vietnam,” Maduro said in the video posted on Facebook.
Russia, which has been Maduro’s most vocal international supporter, praised his willingness to negotiate with the U.S.-backed opposition. “The fact that President Maduro is open to dialogue with the opposition deserves high praise and is commendable,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a phone call.
In an early morning tweet soon afterward, Trump seemed to suggest that Maduro’s offer for dialogue was prompted by “U.S. sanctions and the cutting off of oil revenue.” He said a “massive protest” is expected Wednesday and warned Americans against traveling to Venezuela “until further notice.”
[Russia slams U.S. sanctions on Venezuela and vows to back Maduro]
On Tuesday evening four journalists, two Venezuelans and two Chileans, were detained in the outskirts of the presidential palace in central Caracas where they were covering a small pro-government demonstration.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro talks during a meeting with Venezuelan diplomats returning from the United States, at the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas on Jan. 28, 2019. (Photo by Venezuelan Presidency / AFP/Getty Images)
While the Venezuelans were eventually released 10 hours later, the Chileans, Rodrigo Perez and Gonzalo Barahona of TVN, remain in custody, despite efforts by embassy officials to get them freed.
“We request the immediate liberation of our TVN journalists detained in Venezuela,” Chilean President Sebastian Pinera tweeted Wednesday morning. “Freedom of the press is another one of Venezuela’s victims.”
The detentions come as the government is increasingly limiting freedom of expression by intimidating journalists and warnings radio stations not to transmit opposition rallies or speeches.
Despite the offer for dialogue, authorities ratcheted up pressure on the opposition Tuesday with a request by the chief prosecutor to freeze opposition leader Juan Guaidó’s assets. The request was later ratified by the loyalist Supreme Court as a preventive measure pending a full investigation. The move stopped short of a detention order — something the Trump administration has strongly warned against.
Speaking at the opposition-led National Assembly, which he heads, Guaidó responded to the move by dismissing it as “nothing new under the sun.” He said it came from “a regime that doesn’t give answers to Venezuelans” and whose “only answer is persecution and repression.” Guaidó added: “The world is clear on what’s happening in Venezuela . . . Let’s not desist because of threats and persecution.”
The United States, which backs Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela, pushed back hard against the chief prosecutor’s effort. “Let me reiterate—there will be serious consequences for those who attempt to subvert democracy and harm Guaido,” White House national security adviser John Bolton wrote on Twitter.
The chief prosecutor’s request came after the United States escalated its efforts to unseat the leftist Maduro on Monday by punishing the state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), in an effort to transfer its control to the opposition. The U.S. move freezes $7 billion in U.S.-based assets and blocks more than $11 billion in revenue that Venezuela would get from oil sales next year through its U.S.-based company Citgo, which owns three refineries in the United States and employs thousands of workers.
[Trump administration announces sanctions targeting Venezuela’s oil industry]
In his interview Wednesday with Russian media, Maduro said the decision violated international law and called it one of Bolton’s “most insane” decisions.
“It is an unlawful decision in a bid to expropriate a Venezuelan asset, a Venezuelan company,” he said. “I am confident that we will emerge victorious, protecting the company Citgo as the property of the Venezuelan people.”
The Treasury Department said money would go to a fund that a transitional government headed by Guaidó could eventually access.
Revenue from oil sales to the United States and from Citgo, which imports Venezuela’s heavy crude oil, refines it and distributes gasoline throughout the United States, is one of the Maduro administration’s main sources of income. These sanctions, experts say, constitute the biggest setbackthat the populist Maduro has ever confronted.
Venezuela’s government is responsible for more than half the country’s imports of food and medicine. The country also depends on imports of raw materials to manufacture and distribute basic goods.
The sanctions come during a tense week in Venezuela. Overnight protests are surging and are being met with harsh repression. At least 35 people have been killed and more than 800 detained in a week. More protest marches are scheduled this week.
Many Venezuelans are desperate for change as they confront crippling hyperinflation and scarcity of vital medicines, but many worry that U.S. sanctions could make the dramatic situation even worse in the short term.
Krygier reported from Miami and Faiola from Sao Paulo, Brazil. Paul Sonne and William Branigin in Washington, Amie Ferris-Rotman in Moscow and Paul Schemm in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia contributed to this report.
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