Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido said he was threatened by the government of Colombian president Gustavo Petro last week when he went there to try to take part in talks with Venezuelan officials.
By Argus Media – Carlos Camacho
May 03, 2023
At an event at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC, today Guaido said he was surprised by the attitude of the Colombian government when he snuck out of Venezuela “… as they seemed too close to the Maduro government,” he said.
If the Petro government forced his return to Venezuela “I would suffer the same fate as Navalny,” he said, referring to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who has been jailed for several years.
Guaido was heckled by three people from the crowd in what appeared to be a coordinated effort during the event, with one calling him a liar and another holding up a banner that said in Spanish “Guaido is a criminal.”
“Thank you for the kind and warm reception,” Guaido said to the protestors.
Guaido described the situation in Venezuela as bleak, accusing the government of President Nicolas Maduro of sabotaging every effort of the opposition.
“We were naïve … we underestimated Maduro’s links with Russia and with international criminal organizations,” he said in trying to explain Maduro’s staying power despite years of sanctions.
Guaido said the US should not follow a “false dichotomy” between maximum pressure tactics, like sanctions brought by the administration of former US president Donald Trump, and “negotiations” that those restarted last year with Maduro. Rather the US should try both at once if it is really interested in seeing positive change in Venezuela.
“If we are kind to the dictatorship we are normalizing the dictatorship,” he said. “We cannot resign ourselves, we have to do our best, but we need more support than ever [from US and other western countries]. The fight for democracy is one of resistance, not of resignation.”
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