Venezuelans work to remove a roadblock created by National Guards on the Simon Bolivar Bridge in La Parada, near Cucuta, Colombia. Photos / AP
Venezuelans work to remove a roadblock created by National Guards on the Simon Bolivar Bridge in La Parada, near Cucuta, Colombia. Photos / AP
Venezuela's opposition looked towards foreign allies to take further steps to unseat President Nicolás Maduro, a day after a plan to coax his military to abandon him and allow in hundreds of tonnes of humanitarian aid ended in brutal violence.
Opposition leader Juan Guaidó - who had secretly gone across the border into Colombia to lead the aid effort, running the risk of being barred from re-entry or arrested upon return - was scheduled to meet regional leaders, including US Vice-President Mike Pence, in Bogota tomorrow.
In a tweet yesterday, Guaidó suggested that he would entertain more radical solutions to try to oust Maduro, a reference taken by observers to mean that he may broach the subject of additional moves by the United States, which has already imposed deep sanctions on Venezuela.
The Trump Administration has also repeatedly said that a military option in Venezuela is not off the table.
"Today's events force me to make a decision: to pose to the international community in a formal way that we must have all options open to achieve the liberation of this country that is fighting and will continue to fight," Guaidó tweeted.
Guaidó's comments suggested the opposition's limitations after a plan it had hoped would cause deep fissures in Maduro's military structure instead produced only a few cracks.
In the face of Maduro's military blockade of aid, they largely failed to bring in the live-saving assistance they had hoped to deliver to Venezuelans in the direst need.
The opposition's strongest American backers, including Senator Marco Rubio, R, sharply criticized Maduro and suggested repercussions.
"After discussions tonight with several regional leaders it is now clear that the grave crimes committed today by the Maduro regime have opened the door to various potential multilateral actions not on the table just 24 hours ago," Rubio tweeted.
Yet as Guaidó and other opposition leaders prepared for a pivotal meeting with the US and other regional allies, they also appeared to be running out of options.
Last month, the United States imposed sweeping sanctions that effectively cut off Maduro's biggest source of hard currency - oil sales to the US. In doing so, the US has already pulled the most powerful economic lever it had.
Venezuelan migrants wait in line behind a vehicle for free food being handed out by Colombian residents near the Simon Bolivar International Bridge.
The sanctions risk worsening a humanitarian crisis here, since the nearly-bankrupt Government - now even more cash-strapped - is the chief importer of food and medicines. The US calculation is that the sanctions will make Maduro's rule untenable. But there are still no guarantees they will do anything more than make a bad situation worse on the ground.
After an aid operation that failed to achieve the rupture of military, the opposition is also in danger of losing its greatest ally: momentum. Guaidó is likely to seek faster solutions that don't risk deepening the misery at home.
The opposition and its American and regional allies will continue trying to court military officials - promoting the promise of amnesty if they turn against Maduro. But observers say that worse-case scenarios loomed larger "than ever".
"There is no question that a military intervention to resolve the Venezuela crisis is more plausible than ever," said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think-tank. "Guaidó's insistence that 'all options are on the table' echoes President Trump's words, first uttered in August 2017 and widely interpreted as serious consideration of military action."
No military option would be clean or easy, while critics say its threat potentially helps Maduro - an autocratic leader who has used repression against his own people - portray himself globally as a leftist martyr persecuted by the Trump Administration.
US forces, experts say, could take out Venezuela's areal defences within hours, but an outright American invasion would be unprecedented in South America. It also risks deep divisions in the region, and could potentially spark a guerrilla war by leftists while leaving Washington with the morass of rebuilding a failed state.
More surgical strikes - as the US operation that nabbed Panama's Manuel Noriega in 1989 - remain potentially more likely, but also present massive problems.
"When Noriega left, the regime collapsed, and there wasn't much behind him," said Eric Farnsworth, vice-president of the Council of the Americas and the Americas Society. " In Venezuela, you can decapitate the regime, but there will still be (leftists) and armed goon squads who may be spoiling to fight."
Colombian officials said more than a 100 members of the Venezuelan armed forces and other security services abandoned posts at the weekend, but the power structure of Maduro's armed forces, at least for the moment, appeared intact.
In a televised press conference in Caracas, Maduro's communications minister Jorge Rodriguez insisted that yesterday's effort by the opposition was simply a rouse to encourage a foreign invasion.
"There was no humanitarian intention," Rodriguez said. "The intention was to encourage aggression by a foreign country, an armed aggression against a country.
"Guaidó, a pathetic character, can no longer explain this coup attempt based on the constitution."
Guaidó is the head of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, a body stripped of its power in 2017. Last month, he declared Maduro a usurper after elections last year widely viewed as fraudulent, and claimed a constitutional right as Venezuela's legitimate leader. In doing so, he electrified a moribund opposition and positioned himself as a national hero.
Yet, by leaving the country to lead the aid effort, he now faced a crucial hurdle. His exit violated a standing travel ban imposed on him by Maduro's supreme court, meaning he now risked detention or potential exile.
His calculation is that international pressure might prevent both, but there are no guarantees.
"All the scenarios left for the opposition are terrible scenarios," said Dimitris Pantoulas, a Caracas-based political analyst.
Colombian President Iván Duque arrived at the Simón Bolívar bridge - site of intense exchanges of tear gas and rubber bullets - with a convoy of white SUVs and armoured vehicles from the Colombian armed forces. Police said American officials were among the large delegation seen touring the bridge.
With tensions still high on the border, Colombian authorities announced that Duque had ordered the closure of his country's three main bridge crossings to Venezuela in the North Santander region until tomorrow. Aid trucks had sought to cross there before confrontations began between pro-government troops and operatives and the Venezuelan opposition.
The opposition, meanwhile, said one of its leaders - Freddy Superlano - had been poisoned with a drug called "burundanga" in the Colombian border city of Cúcuta and remained hospitalised. Superlano's assistant had died of the same poison. The opposition called for an investigation into the poisonings, while making no claims on who the culprits were.
The bloodiest clashes took place on the border with Brazil, where pro-government paramilitary groups killed four people and injured 34 by gunfire, according to nonprofit legal group Foro Penal, opposition leaders, and witnesses at the hospital that received the victims in Santa Elena de Uairen. Patients and their families panicked as buses and motorbikes with armed men swarmed outside the hospital.
"Too many people shot by bullets kept coming in. It's terrifying," said Yolderi Garcia, a 62-year-old volunteer at the Hospital Rosario Vera Surita. "It's a horrible day, we are very worried because this is a small town."
1/ Democrats need to be careful about a potential trap being set by Trump et al in Venezuela. Cheering humanitarian convoys sounds like the right thing to do, but what if it's not about the aid? What if the real agenda is laying a pretext for war? Follow my logic for a second.
George Bello, spokesman for the mayor of the Gran Sabana district on the Brazilian border, said the situation today remained tense in the area, where pro-government militias known as colectivos ruled the streets.
"I'm in hiding," Bello said, adding that his team believed the mayor, Emilio Gonzales, was at risk of being kidnapped.
The western border remained tense. In the the border town Ureña, Colombian police said tear gas volleys were fired inside Venezuela to disperse small protests. Anti-Maduro protesters once again were gathering on the Colombian side of the border, and vowing to continue the running battles they engaged yesterday with Maduro's military and irregular forces.
On the Colombia side, hundreds of police arrived in dozens of buses and trucks to the Simón Bolívar bridge. A small crowd began growing at the edge of the bridge in the morning, but Colombian authorities later dispersed them.
Hector Abreu, 23, an opposition member and former mechanic from Caracas, waited outside the bridge and said he planned to protest and challenge Venezuelan guards as he had yesterday.
"We want a free Venezuela so that's why we'll continue," he said.
