Demonstrators clashed with police on the streets of the Venezuelan capital Tuesday, spurred by opposition leader Juan Guaido’s call on the military to rise up against President Nicolas Maduro, whose government said it was putting down an attempted coup.
An apparently carefully planned attempt by Guaido to demonstrate growing military support disintegrated into rioting as palls of black smoke rose over eastern Caracas.
The government said it was “deactivating” an attempted coup by a small group of “treacherous” soldiers but Guaido was immediately backed the United States, where President Donald Trump said in a tweet Washington was standing behind the Venezuelan people and their “freedom.”
As rioting and confusion raged, there was little early sign Maduro’s iron grip on the military — which has kept him in power in a months-long standoff with Guaido — had slipped.
On Twitter, he claimed the military chiefs had assured him of their “total loyalty.”
Guaido rallied his supporters with an early morning video message that showed him — for the first time — with armed troops he said had heeded months of urging to join his campaign to oust Maduro.
The 35-year-old National Assembly leader was filmed outside the La Carlota air base, where he asked the armed forces inside to join him.
The video had the extra shock value of featuring key opposition figure Leopoldo Lopez at his side, saying soldiers had released him from years of house arrest.
Guaido claimed the move was the “beginning of the end” of Maduro’s regime, and there was “no turning back”.
– ‘Nerves of steel’ –
Thousands of opposition supporters flocked onto a highway near the air base, many waving Venezuelan flags, but they were met with gunfire and tear-gas fired by soldiers at the compound’s perimeter.
Lopez later entered the Chilean embassy with his wife and one of his children to claim asylum, Chile’s Foreign Minister Roberto Ampuero announced in Santiago.
Soldiers backing Guaido wore blue armbands to demonstrate their allegiance to the opposition leader — recognized as interim president by more than 50 countries — but there appeared to be few of them.
Brazil said later a number of Venezuelan troops had sought asylum at its Caracas embassy. Brazilian media put that number at 25.
Maduro had called on his forces to show “nerves of steel” and troops in riot gear, backed by armored vehicles and water tankers, lined up against the demonstrators.
Several vehicles ploughed into the crowd, injuring some of the protesters. Rioters later blocked the highway with a bus and set it on fire.
