{"id":182659,"date":"2019-01-24T16:03:20","date_gmt":"2019-01-24T16:03:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=182659"},"modified":"2019-01-26T05:53:10","modified_gmt":"2019-01-26T05:53:10","slug":"venezuela-crisis-what-happens-now-after-two-men-have-claimed-to-be-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=182659","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela crisis: what happens now after two men have claimed to be president?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u201cThere is no doubt that the behavior of guys with guns will define much of what will happen in the coming days and shape politics in Venezuela.\u201d<\/em> — Moises Naim, Former Venezuelan minister<\/h5>\n

Tom Phillips \u2013 The Guardian Jan 24, 2019<\/h1>\n
\"Youthful<\/a>

Youthful and photogenic, like a younger Obama, Juan Guaido is an obvious pick for the Western powers to do their bidding. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Venezuela\u2019s political crisis was turned on its head on Wednesday as a succession of world powers declared they were recognizing the opposition leader Juan Guaid\u00f3<\/a><\/strong> as the South American country\u2019s rightful interim president.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe citizens of Venezuela have suffered for too long at the hands of the illegitimate Maduro regime,\u201d Donald Trump tweeted<\/a><\/strong><\/span> as he announced what some believe could prove a game-changing decision.<\/span><\/p>\n

Soon after, Canada, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, Paraguay and Costa Rica said they would follow suit \u2013 although Mexico\u2019s left-leaning government said there would be no change of policy for now and Bolivia\u2019s president, Evo Morales, attacked what he called an imperialist assault on South America\u2019s right to democracy and self-determination.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBrazil will politically and economically support the transition process so that democracy and social peace return to Venezuela,\u201d tweeted<\/a><\/strong><\/span> Brazil\u2019s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro.<\/span><\/p>\n

A senior US administration official said the move meant \u201cMaduro and his cronies\u201d now needed to understand they had no future and had no choice but to accept \u201ca peaceful transition\u201d and \u201can exit solution\u201d from the country.<\/span><\/p>\n

But as the dramatic news sunk in, Venezuela<\/a> specialists said they were unsure what the immediate impact might be \u2013 and how Maduro might react.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eric Farnsworth, a former US diplomat and vice-president of the Council of the Americas<\/a>, said Guaid\u00f3\u2019s move \u2013 and Trump\u2019s swift recognition \u2013 which came on a day of rare mass protests in Venezuela \u2013 was \u201ca clear inflection point\u201d that could prove the tipping point for Maduro\u2019s embattled regime. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we can automatically assume he is on the way out. But I do think today is the most serious threat he has faced,\u201d said Farnsworth.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet it was also a moment fraught with danger, both for the regime and the country. \u201cMaduro can\u2019t acquiesce to this shift \u2013 he is going to have to react in some way,\u201d Farnsworth predicted.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"maduro\"<\/a>Maduro wasted no time in launching his counter-attack. From the presidential palace\u2019s \u201cpeople\u2019s balcony\u201d he announced he was breaking diplomatic relations with the US and gave US diplomatic personnel 72 hours to leave the country.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maduro claimed an attempted coup backed by the \u201cgringo empire\u201d was under way and urged supporters \u2013 and crucially the armed forces \u2013 to resist it \u201cat all costs\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are defending the right to the very existence of our Bolivarian Republic,\u201d Maduro said, accusing his foes of trying to steal Venezuela\u2019s oil, gas and gold: \u201cThey intend to govern Venezuela from Washington. Do you want a puppet government controlled by Washington?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond breaking ties with the US, many now expect Maduro to order the arrest of Guaid\u00f3 or other opposition leaders. Farnsworth said Maduro might also \u201cturn sharpshooters on crowds and try to scare everybody back home\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

If that happened, the US and the international community would be forced to react. The US official said it had \u201ca host of options\u201d if such a crackdown occurred: \u201cEverything is on the table \u2013 all options.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ratcheting up oil sanctions in an attempt to economically strangle Maduro\u2019s regime would be the most likely step, with the official warning \u201cwe haven\u2019t even scratched the surface\u201d with sanctions.<\/span><\/p>\n

But David Smilde, a Venezuela expert from the Washington Office on Latin America advocacy group, said the US in fact had few good options were Maduro to respond with violence or political repression.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe US and other countries have really upped the ante \u2026 but it\u2019s not clear that it breaks new ground,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Increased economic sanctions could exacerbate an already severe humanitarian emergency that the UN says has created the biggest migration crisis in recent Latin American history<\/a><\/strong><\/span>. A military intervention that would potentially lead to massive destruction and great loss of life and could drag the US into a messy and protracted occupation and reconstruction process was also undesirable.<\/span><\/p>\n

Smilde said: \u201cLook at Somalia, look at Afghanistan, look at Iraq: all of those cases were supposed to be short military actions and actually what they do is end up generating enormous costs in terms of loss of life and infrastructure.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The US official said Trump hoped Maduro and those around him would understand they now had no \u201cimmediate future\u201d and had to seek a peaceful exit route that would see democracy restored to Venezuela.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s remain optimistic and hope Maduro and his cronies saw the magnitude of the message [from today\u2019s protests],\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Farnsworth said he saw turbulence ahead and warned of a possible breakdown of civil authority and \u201cchaos on the ground\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is going to be a very important date which portends some very volatile and uncertain days and weeks ahead,\u201d he predicted. \u201cThere is no question in my mind about that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Guys with guns\u2019 will determine what happens next in Venezuela, former minister says<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Current_Affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=182659"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182670,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182659\/revisions\/182670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=182659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=182659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=182659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}