The European parliament has voted to recognise Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country’s interim president.

In a move designed to keep pressure on president Nicolas Maduro, lawmakers voted in a non-binding resolution to recognise Mr Guaido as the country’s de-facto leader and called on all EU governments to follow suit.

“From Europe, we can help change the Venezuelan regime and make it known that tyrants will never enlighten any democratic possibility,” Spanish centre-right EU lawmaker Esteban Gonzalez Pons said in a statement.

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It comes amid an increasingly coordinated international effort to force Mr Maduro out, with US president Donald Trump also recognising Mr Guaido as leader and Washington announcing fresh sanctions against the country on Tuesday.

Mr Maduro, sworn in on 10 January for a second term after disputed elections last year, accuses Mr Guaido of staging a US-directed coup against him. Mr Maduro is backed by a number of countries, including Russia.

Mr Guaido has asked European Union governments to keep up the pressure on his rival.

The parliament in a statement recognised him as “the only legitimate interim president”, until new elections can be called “in order to restore democracy”.

In the motion, MEPs condemned “the fierce repression and violence [in the country], resulting in killings and casualties”.

They also demanded that the Venezuelan authorities “halt all human rights violations, hold those responsible for them to account, and ensure that all fundamental freedoms and human rights are fully respected”.

On Wednesday MEPs agreed to hold an emergency debate on the matter, with a vote on Thursday. The statement was backed by 439 votes for to 104 against, with 88 abstentions recorded.

Shape Created with Sketch. Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Show all 18 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government 1/18 Protesters clash with the Bolivarian National Police during a demonstration against the government of the Venezuela and president Nicolas Maduro in Caracas on 23 January 2019 EPA 2/18 Demonstrators cheer as Venezuela's National Assembly head Juan Guaido declares himself the country's "acting president" at a rally in Caracas AFP/Getty Images 3/18 Opposition supporters take part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS 4/18 Opposition supporters take part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS 5/18 Juan Guaido, head of Venezuela's opposition-run congress, declares himself interim president of the nation until elections can be held during a rally in Caracas demanding leader Nicolas Maduro's resignation AP 6/18 Opposition supporters carry letters to form the word "Democracy" while taking part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS 7/18 Police watch over marching anti-government protesters in Caracas EPA 8/18 A vehicle is overturned as opposition demonstrators block a road during a protest against the Venezuelan government AFP/Getty Images 9/18 A National Police officer fires rubber bullets during a protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS 10/18 A demonstrator throws back a gas canister while clashing with security forces during a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS 11/18 Security forces look on after clashing with opposition supporters participating in a rally against Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS 12/18 Demonstrators during a protest against the government of Nicolas Maduro at Plaza Altamira in Caracas Getty Images 13/18 Demonstrators during a protest against the government of Nicolas Maduro at Plaza Altamira in Caracas Getty Images 14/18 EPA 15/18 AFP/Getty Images 16/18 The remains of a statue of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez is seen hanging from a pedestrian bridge after it was destroyed in San Felix, Venezuela REUTERS 17/18 Riot police on motorcycles clash with opposition demonstrators during protests in Caracas AFP/Getty Images 18/18 Supporters celebrate Juan Guaido declaration that he is Venezuelan president EPA 1/18 Protesters clash with the Bolivarian National Police during a demonstration against the government of the Venezuela and president Nicolas Maduro in Caracas on 23 January 2019 EPA 2/18 Demonstrators cheer as Venezuela's National Assembly head Juan Guaido declares himself the country's "acting president" at a rally in Caracas AFP/Getty Images 3/18 Opposition supporters take part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS 4/18 Opposition supporters take part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS 5/18 Juan Guaido, head of Venezuela's opposition-run congress, declares himself interim president of the nation until elections can be held during a rally in Caracas demanding leader Nicolas Maduro's resignation AP 6/18 Opposition supporters carry letters to form the word "Democracy" while taking part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS 7/18 Police watch over marching anti-government protesters in Caracas EPA 8/18 A vehicle is overturned as opposition demonstrators block a road during a protest against the Venezuelan government AFP/Getty Images 9/18 A National Police officer fires rubber bullets during a protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS 10/18 A demonstrator throws back a gas canister while clashing with security forces during a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS 11/18 Security forces look on after clashing with opposition supporters participating in a rally against Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS 12/18 Demonstrators during a protest against the government of Nicolas Maduro at Plaza Altamira in Caracas Getty Images 13/18 Demonstrators during a protest against the government of Nicolas Maduro at Plaza Altamira in Caracas Getty Images 14/18 EPA 15/18 AFP/Getty Images 16/18 The remains of a statue of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez is seen hanging from a pedestrian bridge after it was destroyed in San Felix, Venezuela REUTERS 17/18 Riot police on motorcycles clash with opposition demonstrators during protests in Caracas AFP/Getty Images 18/18 Supporters celebrate Juan Guaido declaration that he is Venezuelan president EPA

British foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt said following talks with the opposition leader: “I said to him, what is your message for myself and the other foreign ministers?

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“He said two things: please keep up the pressure on Maduro who has done so much damage and remember this is about the humanitarian catastrophe that is going on at the moment.”

Mr Hunt also criticised Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn for having previously congratulated Mr Maduro when he became president in 2013.

“Simply because they share Maduro’s anti-western worldview is not a reason to turn a blind eye to someone who has driven his people into poverty where 70 per cent of children in some areas are facing malnutrition,” he said in a thinly veiled statement apparently aimed at the opposition leader.

Mr Corbyn has said he condemns violence in Venezuela and has called for a negotiated settlement, but warned against outside interference.

Additional reporting by agencies</s>GrayZone Project — Before the fateful day of January 22, fewer than one in five Venezuelans had heard of Juan Guaidó. Only a few months ago, the 35-year-old was an obscure character in a politically marginal far-right group closely associated with gruesome acts of street violence. Even in his own party, Guaidó had been a mid-level figure in the opposition-dominated National Assembly, which is now held under contempt according to Venezuela’s constitution.

But after a single phone call from US Vice President Mike Pence, Guaidó proclaimed himself as president of Venezuela. Anointed as the leader of his country by Washington, a previously unknown political bottom dweller was vaulted onto the international stage as the US-selected leader of the nation with the world’s largest oil reserves.

Echoing the Washington consensus, the New York Times editorial board hailed Guaidó as a “credible rival” to Maduro with a “refreshing style and vision of taking the country forward.” The Bloomberg News editorial board applauded him for seeking “restoration of democracy” and the Wall Street Journal declared him “a new democratic leader.” Meanwhile, Canada, numerous European nations, Israel, and the bloc of right-wing Latin American governments known as the Lima Group recognized Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela.

While Guaidó seemed to have materialized out of nowhere, he was, in fact, the product of more than a decade of assiduous grooming by the US government’s elite regime change factories. Alongside a cadre of right-wing student activists, Guaidó was cultivated to undermine Venezuela’s socialist-oriented government, destabilize the country, and one day seize power. Though he has been a minor figure in Venezuelan politics, he had spent years quietly demonstrated his worthiness in Washington’s halls of power.

“Juan Guaidó is a character that has been created for this circumstance,” Marco Teruggi, an Argentinian sociologist and leading chronicler of Venezuelan politics, told the Grayzone. “It’s the logic of a laboratory – Guaidó is like a mixture of several elements that create a character who, in all honesty, oscillates between laughable and worrying.”

Diego Sequera, a Venezuelan journalist and writer for the investigative outlet, Mision Verdad, agreed: “Guaidó is more popular outside Venezuela than inside, especially in the elite Ivy League and Washington circles,” Sequera remarked to the Grayzone, “He’s a known character there, is predictably right-wing, and is considered loyal to the program.”

While Guaidó is today sold as the face of democratic restoration, he spent his career in the most violent faction of Venezuela’s most radical opposition party, positioning himself at the forefront of one destabilization campaign after another. His party has been widely discredited inside Venezuela, and is held partly responsible for fragmenting a badly weakened opposition.

“‘These radical leaders have no more than 20 percent in opinion polls,” wrote Luis Vicente León, Venezuela’s leading pollster. According to Leon, Guaidó’s party remains isolated because the majority of the population “does not want war. ‘What they want is a solution.’”

But this is precisely why he Guaidó was selected by Washington: he is not expected to lead Venezuela towards to democracy, but to collapse a country that for the past two decades has been a bulwark of resistance to US hegemony. His unlikely rise signals the culmination of a two-decades-long project to destroy a robust socialist experiment.

Since the 1998 election of Hugo Chavez, the United States has fought to restore control over Venezuela and is vast oil reserves. Chavez’s socialist programs may have redistributed the country’s wealth and helped lift millions out of poverty, but they also earned him a target on his back. In 2002, Venezuela’s right-wing opposition briefly ousted him with US support and recognition before the military restored his presidency following a mass popular mobilization. Throughout the administrations of US Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Chavez survived numerous assassination plots before succumbing to cancer in 2013. His successor, Nicolas Maduro, has survived three attempts on his life.

The Trump administration immediately elevated Venezuela to the top of Washington’s regime change target list, branding it the leader of a “troika of tyranny.”Last year, Trump’s national security team attempted to recruit members of the military brass to mount a military junta, but that effort failed. According to the Venezuelan government, the US was also involved in a plot codenamed Operation Constitution to capture Maduro at the Miraflores presidential palace, and another called Operation Armageddon to assassinate him at a military parade in July 2017. Just over a year later, exiled opposition leaders tried and failed to kill Maduro with drone bombs during a military parade in Caracas.

More than a decade before these intrigues, a group of right-wing opposition students were hand selected and groomed by an elite, US-funded regime change training academy to topple Venezuela’s government and restore the neoliberal order.

Training from the “‘export-a-revolution’ group that sowed the seeds for a NUMBER of color revolutions”

On October 5, 2005, with Chavez’s popularity at its peak and his government planning sweeping socialist programs, five Venezuelan “student leaders” arrived in Belgrade, Serbia to begin training for an insurrection.

The students had arrived from Venezuela courtesy of the Center for Applied Non-Violent Action and Strategies, or CANVAS. This group is funded largely through the National Endowment for Democracy, a CIA cut-out that functions as the US government’s main arm of promoting regime change; and offshoots like the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. According to leaked internal emails from Stratfor, an intelligence firm known as the “shadow CIA,” “[CANVAS] may have also received CIA funding and training during the 1999/2000 anti-Milosevic struggle.”

CANVAS is a spinoff of Otpor, a Serbian protest group founded by Srdja Popovic in 1998 at the University of Belgrade. Otpor, which means “resistance” in Serbian, was the student group that gained international fame – and Hollywood-level promotion – by mobilizing the protests that eventually toppled Slobodan Milosevic. This small cell of regime change specialists was operating according to the theories of the late Gene Sharp, the so-called “Clausewitz of non-violent struggle.” Sharp had worked with a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, Col. Robert Helvey, to conceive a strategic blueprint that weaponized protest as a form of hybrid warfare, aiming it at states that resisted Washington’s unipolar domination.

Stratfor revealed that CANVAS “turned its attention to Venezuela” in 2005 after training opposition movements that led pro-NATO regime change operations across Eastern Europe.

While monitoring the CANVAS training program, Stratfor outlined its insurrectionist agenda in strikingly blunt language: “Success is by no means guaranteed, and student movements are only at the beginning of what could be a years-long effort to trigger a revolution in Venezuela, but the trainers themselves are the people who cut their teeth on the ‘Butcher of the Balkans.’ They’ve got mad skills. When you see students at five Venezuelan universities hold simultaneous demonstrations, you will know that the training is over and the real work has begun.”

The “real work” began two years later, in 2007, when Guaidó graduated from Andrés Bello Catholic University of Caracas. He moved to Washington DC to enroll in the Governance and Political Management Program at George Washington University under the tutelage of Venezuelan economist Luis Enrique Berrizbeitia, one of the top Latin American neoliberal economists. Berrizbeitia is a former executive director of the International Monetary Fund who spent more than a decade working in Venezuelan energy sector under the oligarchic old regime that was ousted by Chavez.

That year, Guaidó helped lead anti-government rallies after the Venezuelan government declined to to renew the license of Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV). This privately-owned station played a leading role in the 2002 coup against Hugo Chavez. RCTV helped mobilize anti-government demonstrators, falsified information blaming government supporters for acts of violence carried out by opposition members, and banned pro-government reporting amid the coup. The role of RCTV and other oligarch-owned stations in driving the failed coup attempt was chronicled in the acclaimed documentary, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.

That same year, the students claimed credit for stymying Chavez’s constitutional referendum for a “21st century socialism” that promised “to set the legal framework for the political and social reorganization of the country, giving direct power to organized communities as a prerequisite for the development of a new economic system.”

From the protests around RCTV and the referendum, a specialized cadre of US-backed class of regime change activists was born. They called themselves “Generation 2007.”

The Stratfor and CANVAS trainers of this cell identified Guaidó’s ally – a street organizer named Yon Goicoechea – as a “key factor” in defeating the constitutional referendum. The following year, Goicochea was rewarded for his efforts with the Cato Institute’s Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, along with a $500,000 prize, which he promptly invested into building his own Liberty First (Primero Justicia) political network.

Friedman, of course, was the godfather of the notorious neoliberal Chicago Boys who were imported into Chile by dictatorial junta leader Augusto Pinochet to implement policies of radical “shock doctrine”-style fiscal austerity. And the Cato Institute is the libertarian Washington DC-based think tank founded by the Koch Brothers, two top Republican Party donors who have become aggressive supporters of the right-wing across Latin America.

Wikileaks published a 2007 email from American ambassador to Venezuela William Brownfield sent to the State Department, National Security Council and Department of Defense Southern Command praising “Generation of ’07” for having “forced the Venezuelan president, accustomed to setting the political agenda, to (over)react.” Among the “emerging leaders” Brownfield identified were Freddy Guevara and Yon Goicoechea. He applauded the latter figure as “one of the students’ most articulate defenders of civil liberties.”

Flush with cash from libertarian oligarchs and US government soft power outfits, the radical Venezuelan cadre took their Otpor tactics to the streets, along with a version of the group’s logo, as seen below:

“Galvanizing public unrest…to take advantage of the situation and spin it against Chavez”

In 2009, the Generation 2007 youth activists staged their most provocative demonstration yet, dropping their pants on public roads and aping the outrageous guerrilla theater tactics outlined by Gene Sharp in his regime change manuals. The protesters had mobilized against the arrest of an ally from another newfangled youth group called JAVU. This far-right group “gathered funds from a variety of US government sources, which allowed it to gain notoriety quickly as the hardline wing of opposition street movements,” according to academic George Ciccariello-Maher’s book, “Building the Commune.”

While video of the protest is not available, many Venezuelans have identified Guaidó as one of its key participants. While the allegation is unconfirmed, it is certainly plausible; the bare-buttocks protesters were members of the Generation 2007 inner core that Guaidó belonged to, and were clad in their trademark Resistencia! Venezuela t-shirts, as seen below:

That year, Guaidó exposed himself to the public in another way, founding a political party to capture the anti-Chavez energy his Generation 2007 had cultivated. Called Popular Will, it was led by Leopoldo López, a Princeton-educated right-wing firebrand heavily involved in National Endowment for Democracy programs and elected as the mayor of a district in Caracas that was one of the wealthiest in the country. Lopez was a portrait of Venezuelan aristocracy, directly descended from his country’s first president. He was also the first cousin of Thor Halvorssen, founder of the US-based Human Rights Foundation that functions as a de facto publicity shop for US-backed anti-government activists in countries targeted by Washington for regime change.

Though Lopez’s interests aligned neatly with Washington’s, US diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks highlighted the fanatical tendencies that would ultimately lead to Popular Will’s marginalization. One cable identified Lopez as “a divisive figure within the opposition… often described as arrogant, vindictive, and power-hungry.” Others highlighted his obsession with street confrontations and his “uncompromising approach” as a source of tension with other opposition leaders who prioritized unity and participation in the country’s democratic institutions.

By 2010, Popular Will and its foreign backers moved to exploit the worst drought to hit Venezuela in decades. Massive electricity shortages had struck the country due the dearth of water, which was needed to power hydroelectric plants. A global economic recession and declining oil prices compounded the crisis, driving public discontentment.

Stratfor and CANVAS – key advisors of Guaidó and his anti-government cadre – devised a shockingly cynical plan to drive a dagger through the heart of the Bolivarian revolution. The scheme hinged on a 70% collapse of the country’s electrical system by as early as April 2010.

“This could be the watershed event, as there is little that Chavez can do to protect the poor from the failure of that system,” the Stratfor internal memo declared. “This would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate. At that point in time, an opposition group would be best served to take advantage of the situation and spin it against Chavez and towards their needs.”

By this point, the Venezuelan opposition was receiving a staggering $40-50 million a year from US government organizations like USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, according to a report by the Spanish think tank, the FRIDE Institute. It also had massive wealth to draw on from its own accounts, which were mostly outside the country.

While the scenario envisioned by Statfor did not come to fruition, the Popular Will party activists and their allies cast aside any pretense of non-violence and joined a radical plan to destabilize the country.

In November, 2010, according to emails obtained by Venezuelan security services and presented by former Justice Minister Miguel Rodríguez Torres, Guaidó, Goicoechea, and several other student activists attended a secret five-day training at the Fiesta Mexicana hotel in Mexico City. The sessions were run by Otpor, the Belgrade-based regime change trainers backed by the US government. The meeting had reportedly received the blessing of Otto Reich, a fanatically anti-Castro Cuban exile working in George W. Bush’s Department of State, and the right-wing former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

At the Fiesta Mexicana hotel, the emails stated, Guaidó and his fellow activists hatched a plan to overthrow President Hugo Chavez by generating chaos through protracted spasms of street violence.

Three petroleum industry figureheads – Gustavo Torrar, Eligio Cedeño and Pedro Burelli – allegedly covered the $52,000 tab to hold the meeting. Torrar is a self-described “human rights activist” and “intellectual” whose younger brother Reynaldo Tovar Arroyo is the representative in Venezuela of the private Mexican oil and gas company Petroquimica del Golfo, which holds a contract with the Venezuelan state.

Cedeño, for his part, is a fugitive Venezuelan businessman who claimed asylum in the United States, and Pedro Burelli a former JP Morgan executive and the former director of Venezuela’s national oil company, Petroleum of Venezuela (PDVSA). He left PDVSA in 1998 as Hugo Chavez took power and is on the advisory committee of Georgetown University’s Latin America Leadership Program.

Burelli insisted that the emails detailing his participation had been fabricated and even hired a private investigator to prove it. The investigator declared that Google’s records showed the emails alleged to be his were never transmitted.

Yet today Burelli makes no secret of his desire to see Venezuela’s current president, Nicolás Maduro, deposed – and even dragged through the streets and sodomized with a bayonet, as Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi was by NATO-backed militiamen.

The alleged Fiesta Mexicana plot flowed into another destabilization plan revealed in a series of documents produced by the Venezuelan government. In May 2014, Caracas released documents detailing an assassination plot against President Nicolás Maduro. The leaks identified the Miami-based Maria Corina Machado as a leader of the scheme. A hardliner with a penchant for extreme rhetoric, Machado has functioned as an international liaison for the opposition, visiting President George W. Bush in 2005.

“I think it is time to gather efforts; make the necessary calls, and obtain financing to annihilate Maduro and the rest will fall apart,” Machado wrote in an email to former Venezuelan diplomat Diego Arria in 2014.

In another email, Machado claimed that the violent plot had the blessing of US Ambassador to Colombia, Kevin Whitaker. “I have already made up my mind and this fight will continue until this regime is overthrown and we deliver to our friends in the world. If I went to San Cristobal and exposed myself before the OAS, I fear nothing. Kevin Whitaker has already reconfirmed his support and he pointed out the new steps. We have a checkbook stronger than the regime’s to break the international security ring.”

That February, student demonstrators acting as shock troops for the exiled oligarchy erected violent barricades across the country, turning opposition-controlled quarters into violent fortresses known as guarimbas. While international media portrayed the upheaval as a spontaneous protest against Maduro’s iron-fisted rule, there was ample evidence that Popular Will was orchestrating the show.

“None of the protesters at the universities wore their university t-shirts, they all wore Popular Will or Justice First t-shirts,” a guarimba participant said at the time. “They might have been student groups, but the student councils are affiliated to the political opposition parties and they are accountable to them.”

Asked who the ringleaders were, the guarimba participant said, “Well if I am totally honest, those guys are legislators now.”

Around 43 were killed during the 2014 guarimbas. Three years later, they erupted again, causing mass destruction of public infrastructure, the murder of government supporters, and the deaths of 126 people, many of whom were Chavistas. In several cases, supporters of the government were burned alive by armed gangs.

Guaidó was directly involved in the 2014 guarimbas. In fact, he tweeted video showing himself clad in a helmet and gas mask, surrounded by masked and armed elements that had shut down a highway that were engaging in a violent clash with the police. Alluding to his participation in Generation 2007, he proclaimed, “I remember in 2007, we proclaimed, ‘Students!’ Now, we shout, ‘Resistance! Resistance!’”

Guaidó has deleted the tweet, demonstrating apparent concern for his image as a champion of democracy.

On February 12, 2014, during the height of that year’s guarimbas, Guaidó joined Lopez on stage at a rally of Popular Will and Justice First. During a lengthy diatribe against the government, Lopez urged the crowd to march to the office of Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz. Soon after, Diaz’s office came under attack by armed gangs who attempted to burn it to the ground. She denounced what she called “planned and premeditated violence.”

In a televised appearance in 2016, Guaidó dismissed deaths resulting from guayas – a guarimba tactic involving stretching steel wire across a roadway in order to injure or kill motorcyclists – as a “myth.” His comments whitewashed a deadly tactic that had killed unarmed civilians like Santiago Pedroza and decapitated a man named Elvis Durán, among many others.

This callous disregard for human life would define his Popular Will party in the eyes of much of the public, including many opponents of Maduro.

Cracking down on Popular Will

As violence and political polarization escalated across the country, the government began to act against the Popular Will leaders who helped stoke it.

Freddy Guevara, the National Assembly Vice-President and second in command of Popular Will, was a principal leader in the 2017 street riots. Facing a trial for his role in the violence, Guevara took shelter in the Chilean embassy, where he remains.

Lester Toledo, a Popular Will legislator from the state of Zulia, was wanted by Venezuelan government in September 2016 on charges of financing terrorism and plotting assassinations. The plans were said to be made with former Colombian President Álavaro Uribe. Toledo escaped Venezuela and went on several speaking tours with Human Rights Watch, the US government-backed Freedom House, the Spanish Congress and European Parliament.

Carlos Graffe, another Otpor-trained Generation 2007 member who led Popular Will, was arrested in July 2017. According to police, he was in possession of a bag filled with nails, C4 explosives and a detonator. He was released on December 27, 2017.

Leopoldo Lopez, the longtime Popular Will leader, is today under house arrest, accused of a key role in deaths of 13 people during the guarimbas in 2014. Amnesty International lauded Lopez as a “prisoner of conscience” and slammed his transfer from prison to house as “not good enough.” Meanwhile, family members of guarimba victims introduced a petition for more charges against Lopez.

Yon Goicoechea, the Koch Brothers posterboy and US-backed founder of Justice First, was arrested in 2016 by security forces who claimed they found a kilo of explosives in his vehicle. In a New York Times op-ed, Goicoechea protested the charges as “trumped-up” and claimed he had been imprisoned simply for his “dream of a democratic society, free of Communism.” He was freed in November 2017.

David Smolansky, also a member of the original Otpor-trained Generation 2007, became Venezuela’s youngest-ever mayor when he was elected in 2013 in the affluent suburb of El Hatillo. But he was stripped of his position and sentenced to 15 months in prison by the Supreme Court after it found him culpable of stirring the violent guarimbas.

Facing arrest, Smolansky shaved his beard, donned sunglasses and slipped into Brazil disguised as a priest with a bible in hand and rosary around his neck. He now lives in Washington, DC, where he was handpicked by Secretary of the Organization of American States Luis Almagro to lead the working group on the Venezuelan migrant and refugee crisis.

This July 26, Smolansky held what he called a “cordial reunion” with Elliot Abrams, the convicted Iran-Contra felon installed by Trump as special US envoy to Venezuela. Abrams is notorious for overseeing the US covert policy of arming right-wing death squads during the 1980’s in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. His lead role in the Venezuelan coup has stoked fears that another blood-drenched proxy war might be on the way.

Four days earlier, Machado rumbled another violent threat against Maduro, declaring that if he “wants to save his life, he should understand that his time is up.”

The collapse of Popular Will under the weight of the violent campaign of destabilization it ran alienated large sectors of the public and wound much of its leadership up in exile or in custody. Guaidó had remained a relatively minor figure, having spent most of his nine-year career in the National Assembly as an alternate deputy. Hailing from one of Venezuela’s least populous states, Guaidó came in second place during the 2015 parliamentary elections, winning just 26% of votes cast in order to secure his place in the National Assembly. Indeed, his bottom may have been better known than his face.

Guaidó is known as the president of the opposition-dominated National Assembly, but he was never elected to the position. The four opposition parties that comprised the Assembly’s Democratic Unity Table had decided to establish a rotating presidency. Popular Will’s turn was on the way, but its founder, Lopez, was under house arrest. Meanwhile, his second-in-charge, Guevara, had taken refuge in the Chilean embassy. A figure named Juan Andrés Mejía would have been next in line but reasons that are only now clear, Juan Guaido was selected.

“There is a class reasoning that explains Guaidó’s rise,” Sequera, the Venezuelan analyst, observed. “Mejía is high class, studied at one of the most expensive private universities in Venezuela, and could not be easily marketed to the public the way Guaidó could. For one, Guaidó has common mestizo features like most Venezuelans do, and seems like more like a man of the people. Also, he had not been overexposed in the media, so he could be built up into pretty much anything.”

In December 2018, Guaidó sneaked across the border and junketed to Washington, Colombia and Brazil to coordinate the plan to hold mass demonstrations during the inauguration of President Maduro. The night before Maduro’s swearing-in ceremony, both Vice President Mike Pence and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland called Guaidó to affirm their support.

A week later, Sen. Marco Rubio, Sen. Rick Scott and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart – all lawmakers from the Florida base of the right-wing Cuban exile lobby – joined President Trump and Vice President Pence at the White House. At their request, Trump agreed that if Guaidó declared himself president, he would back him.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met personally withGuaidó on January 10, according to the Wall Street Journal. However, Pompeo could not pronounce Guaidó’s name when he mentioned him in a press briefing on January 25, referring to him as “Juan Guido.”

By January 11, Guaidó’s Wikipedia page had been edited 37 times, highlighting the struggle to shape the image of a previously anonymous figure who was now a tableau for Washington’s regime change ambitions. In the end, editorial oversight of his page was handed over to Wikipedia’s elite council of “librarians,” who pronounced him the “contested” president of Venezuela.

Guaidó might have been an obscure figure, but his combination of radicalism and opportunism satisfied Washington’s needs. “That internal piece was missing,” a Trump administration said of Guaidó. “He was the piece we needed for our strategy to be coherent and complete.”

“For the first time,” Brownfield, the former American ambassador to Venezuela, gushed to the New York Times, “you have an opposition leader who is clearly signaling to the armed forces and to law enforcement that he wants to keep them on the side of the angels and with the good guys.”

But Guaidó’s Popular Will party formed the shock troops of the guarimbas that caused the deaths of police officers and common citizens alike. He had even boasted of his own participation in street riots. And now, to win the hearts and minds of the military and police, Guaido had to erase this blood-soaked history.

On January 21, a day before the coup began in earnest, Guaidó’s wife delivered a video address calling on the military to rise up against Maduro. Her performance was wooden and uninspiring, underscoring the her husband’s limited political prospects.

At a press conference before supporters four days later, Guaidó announced his solution to the crisis: “Authorize a humanitarian intervention!”

While he waits on direct assistance, Guaidó remains what he has always been – a pet project of cynical outside forces. “It doesn’t matter if he crashes and burns after all these misadventures,” Sequera said of the coup figurehead. “To the Americans, he is expendable.”

Top Photo | 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, Jan. 26, 2019. Fernando Llano | AP

Dan Cohen is a journalist and filmmaker. He has produced widely distributed video reports and print dispatches from across Israel-Palestine. Dan is a correspondent at RT America and tweets at @DanCohen3000.

Max Blumenthal is the founder and editor of GrayzoneProject.com, the co-host of the podcast Moderate Rebels, the author of several books and producer of full-length documentaries including the recently released Killing Gaza. Follow him on Twitter at @MaxBlumenthal.</s>Guaidó says Maduro removal will be advantageous for Russia and China BUT they disagree

CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuelan National Assembly President Juan Guaidó, a self-proclaimed interim president, told Reuters that the change of government will be advantageous to major trading partners – Moscow and Beijing.

According to Guaidó, President Nicolás Maduro does not protect the interests of Venezuela or foreign investment, and thus, a bad partner. In addition, the president of the Venezuelan Parliament has noted that he has tried to contact Russia and China.

“What most suits Russia and China is the country’s stability and a change of government,” he said. “Maduro does not protect Venezuela, he doesn’t protect anyone’s investments, and he is not a good deal for those countries.”

But Russia did not have and does not plan to have any contact and does not recognize the opposition’s presidential status, noting that Nicolás Maduro is the president who was elected by the people and that the president of a country can not be determined by other countries.

China also opposes foreign interference in Venezuela’s affairs. Beijing supports the government of Nicolás Maduro to maintain national sovereignty and stability and recognizes Maduro as the legitimate president of Venezuela, despite all the pressure he has suffered.

On 31 January, the European Parliament called on EU diplomat Federica Mogherini and the governments of the Member States to join in the recognition of the opposition leader.

On January 23, the head of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, declared himself interim president of the country during anti-government protests in the streets of Caracas.

Not only did the US and the European Union support Guaidó, but also a number of countries in Latin America, including Brazil, expressed support for Guaido and the Venezuelan opposition. Alongside Nicolás Maduro are several countries, including Russia and China, but some shock additions including NATO-members Greece and Turkey, and other international allies such as Iran and Syria.</s>Three weeks ago, few Venezuelans knew Juan Guaidó’s name. Today, the 35-year-old is the international face of Venezuelan protest. More than a dozen countries have officially backed Guidó’s claim to be his country’s interim president and tens of thousands of people have turned out on the streets to support him.

After years of economic crisis and repression under Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian regime, politicians and the public have rallied around Guiado, who is leader of the opposition-held parliament, which was stripped of its powers in 2017. On Jan. 23, he was sworn in as acting president on the basis that Maduro’s second term was illegitimate and that the constitution says the parliament leader must take charge in a power vacuum. In the week since, Guaidó has appointed members of a parallel government and persuaded the U.S. to impose crippling sanctions that will make it harder and harder for Maduro to cling to power.

Now he’s thinking about the next step toward restoring Venezuela’s democracy. Less than an hour after addressing parliament on Jan. 31, Guaidó spoke to TIME over the phone from his home in Caracas.

“Maduro is clearly lost, he seems disoriented,” Guaidó tells TIME. “It’s been weeks and he has barely been able to respond. All he can do is defend himself.”

The challenges that remain are daunting, but Guaidó does not seem fazed. Venezuela’s powerful military — which has more than 2,000 generals, 100,000 active members and has enjoyed vast economic and political influence for two decades under the Socialist regime — is still backing Maduro. Analysts say the complicity of the armed forces in networks of corruption and organized crime means they have little incentive to withdraw their support. But Guaidó, who says he has held clandestine meetings with some members of the military, is hopeful that they are starting to listen. “No one is willing to sacrifice themselves for Maduro or take up arms to fight for him,” he says, dismissing the possibility of civil war. “Increasingly, the obvious choice is to put it all aside.

Nevertheless, Guaidó worries about being arrested — or worse. There are currently over 350 political prisoners in Venezuela, including his mentor and former leader of his Popular Will party Leopoldo Lopez. Pro-Maduro security forces have killed at least 40 in protests since Guaidó began to lay claim to power.

Hours before Guaidó spoke to TIME, members of a special police force, known as FAES, visited his home while his baby daughter was there. (He and his wife, Fabiana Rosales, were out.)

The tense situation in Venezuela and Washington’s support for Guaidó, have led some to raise the prospect of a U.S. military intervention in the country. Guaidó is keen to avoid that — although he has not ruled it out. Intervention, he says, is the last resort. “It’s feasible for us to achieve a peaceful transition in the short term, with pressure from Venezuela and internationally, and knowing that all the cards are on the table.”

The interview below has been condensed and edited for clarity.

You’re in danger of being arrested and your family have been threatened. How long can you go on like this?

Yes, my family has been threatened. We ares now being harassed. The very act of protest is dangerous in Venezuela. There are more than 350 political prisoners, over 1,000 exiles. They murdered [opposition councillor] Fernando Alban. It’s a latent threat. But this is a crucial moment for Venezuela. We have to keep fulfilling our responsibilities and doing our jobs.

Maduro is the face of the regime. But beneath him there’s an extensive system of corruption and organized crime. Do you think that will disappear just because Maduro goes?

There’s a system that’s been established over 20 years, a system that has ransacked the country. A system that has taken the world’s third largest oil company – which the national oil company PDVSA was at one point – and driven production down from 3.5 million barrels to 1 million, despite allegedly “investing” $300 billion in it. To achieve a successful transition, we don’t just have to remove Maduro. We also have to rescue our institutions themselves. That’s why we have set out three phases: ending Maduro’s usurpation of power, implementing a transition government and holding free elections.

You have held meetings with the military. Do they show any sign of withdrawing their support for Maduro? For many years most of us in the opposition didn’t communicate with them. But we’re trying to tell them that they have an important place in our society, like any other profession, such as farmers, or businessmen. I think they are starting to listen to us. Eighty percent of the armed forces suffer from the same problems as the rest of Venezuelans. We have seen them expressing discontent with what’s going on. The military controls Venezuela’s import business and oil industry, and many top commanders are accused of ties to organized crime. Don’t you think it’s going to be tough to convince them to give up all the benefits they’ve had under the regime? Importantly, there are fewer and fewer of those benefits. The mafia structure they have built in Venezuela is crumbling. We’re seeing the collapse of the dominant class. Now is the time to offer the military and other government officials the guarantee of amnesty. With the amnesty law, do you think Venezuelans can really forgive what’s happened in the last few years? It’s tough. We’ve suffered a lot in these years and the scars are deep. We’ve lost our democracy, we’ve seen the biggest emigration in the Western hemisphere. We’ve lost our quality of life. Today in Venezuela you can’t walk down the street, because it’s not safe. You can’t shower when you want because water doesn’t come out of the tap. You can’t buy food because you can’t afford it or there isn’t enough in the shops. But we have to find a way to restore normality. That means we have to find one way or another to forgive. Will those who have committed violent crimes be forgiven under the amnesty law? Will amnesty apply there or not? We need to remember that forgiveness doesn’t mean impunity. There will be justice. But for a transition process, you have to remember two words; transitional justice. That’s what will allow us to govern. Of course we have to look at things case by case, consider each element, but it is possible to give amnesty to all the officials and military who collaborate in order to help us restore democracy in Venezuela. Do you think there’s a risk of greater violence if some factions of the military support you and others don’t? I don’t see that as feasible. I know internationally Maduro has wanted to make [civil war] seem like a possibility, but in reality, 85 to 90% of the country wants change. There’s a small elite that wants to keep that control. But that is unsustainable now. No one is willing to sacrifice themselves for Maduro or take up arms to fight for him. Increasingly, the obvious choice is to put it all aside. Would you accept a U.S. military intervention? Obviously, when our priorities are to keep the social cost as low as possible and deal with the emergency and achieve stability in the shortest time frame possible, [intervention] seems like the very last resort. It’s feasible for us to achieve a peaceful transition in the short term, with pressure from Venezuela and internationally, and knowing that all the cards are on the table. In terms of your U.S. allies, what do you think of National Security Adviser John Bolton publicizing discussions he’s had with U.S. oil companies about them benefitting from regime change in Venezuela? In truth, I haven’t heard his remarks. But I do believe Venezuela should today be a power in terms of resources, a powerhouse in everything to do with mining, energy, gas, petrol. Right now, it’s impoverished. Our economy contracted 53% in five years and inflation is at over 1 million per cent. That’s not a way to do business. The most important element for any economy is confidence. A new government will generate certainty, which will in turn generate market stability, the possibility for investment, and returns. What is the mood like in Venezuela right now? The big difference this year is absolute hope. There’s certainty that we are going to change things. That energy is a very powerful motor. The despair, disillusionment, and frustration, has now become energy, strength, and a determination to fight. That’s why this is a pivotal moment for the future of our country.</s>Three weeks ago, few Venezuelans knew Juan Guaidó’s name. Today, the 35-year-old is the international face of Venezuelan protest. More than a dozen countries have officially backed Guidó’s claim to be his country’s interim president and tens of thousands of people have turned out on the streets to support him.

After years of economic crisis and repression under Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian regime, politicians and the public have rallied around Guiado, who is leader of the opposition-held parliament, which was stripped of its powers in 2017. On Jan. 23, he was sworn in as acting president on the basis that Maduro’s second term was illegitimate and that the constitution says the parliament leader must take charge in a power vacuum. In the week since, Guaidó has appointed members of a parallel government and persuaded the U.S. to impose crippling sanctions that will make it harder and harder for Maduro to cling to power.

Now he’s thinking about the next step toward restoring Venezuela’s democracy. Less than an hour after addressing parliament on Jan. 31, Guaidó spoke to TIME over the phone from his home in Caracas.

“Maduro is clearly lost, he seems disoriented,” Guaidó tells TIME. “It’s been weeks and he has barely been able to respond. All he can do is defend himself.”

The challenges that remain are daunting, but Guaidó does not seem fazed. Venezuela’s powerful military — which has more than 2,000 generals, 100,000 active members and has enjoyed vast economic and political influence for two decades under the Socialist regime — is still backing Maduro. Analysts say the complicity of the armed forces in networks of corruption and organized crime means they have little incentive to withdraw their support. But Guaidó, who says he has held clandestine meetings with some members of the military, is hopeful that they are starting to listen. “No one is willing to sacrifice themselves for Maduro or take up arms to fight for him,” he says, dismissing the possibility of civil war. “Increasingly, the obvious choice is to put it all aside.

Nevertheless, Guaidó worries about being arrested — or worse. There are currently over 350 political prisoners in Venezuela, including his mentor and former leader of his Popular Will party Leopoldo Lopez. Pro-Maduro security forces have killed at least 40 in protests since Guaidó began to lay claim to power.

Hours before Guaidó spoke to TIME, members of a special police force, known as FAES, visited his home while his baby daughter was there. (He and his wife, Fabiana Rosales, were out.)

The tense situation in Venezuela and Washington’s support for Guaidó, have led some to raise the prospect of a U.S. military intervention in the country. Guaidó is keen to avoid that — although he has not ruled it out. Intervention, he says, is the last resort. “It’s feasible for us to achieve a peaceful transition in the short term, with pressure from Venezuela and internationally, and knowing that all the cards are on the table.”

The interview below has been condensed and edited for clarity.

You’re in danger of being arrested and your family have been threatened. How long can you go on like this?

Yes, my family has been threatened. We ares now being harassed. The very act of protest is dangerous in Venezuela. There are more than 350 political prisoners, over 1,000 exiles. They murdered [opposition councillor] Fernando Alban. It’s a latent threat. But this is a crucial moment for Venezuela. We have to keep fulfilling our responsibilities and doing our jobs.

Maduro is the face of the regime. But beneath him there’s an extensive system of corruption and organized crime. Do you think that will disappear just because Maduro goes?

There’s a system that’s been established over 20 years, a system that has ransacked the country. A system that has taken the world’s third largest oil company – which the national oil company PDVSA was at one point – and driven production down from 3.5 million barrels to 1 million, despite allegedly “investing” $300 billion in it. To achieve a successful transition, we don’t just have to remove Maduro. We also have to rescue our institutions themselves. That’s why we have set out three phases: ending Maduro’s usurpation of power, implementing a transition government and holding free elections.

You have held meetings with the military. Do they show any sign of withdrawing their support for Maduro?

For many years most of us in the opposition didn’t communicate with them. But we’re trying to tell them that they have an important place in our society, like any other profession, such as farmers, or businessmen. I think they are starting to listen to us. Eighty percent of the armed forces suffer from the same problems as the rest of Venezuelans. We have seen them expressing discontent with what’s going on.

The military controls Venezuela’s import business and oil industry, and many top commanders are accused of ties to organized crime. Don’t you think it’s going to be tough to convince them to give up all the benefits they’ve had under the regime?

Importantly, there are fewer and fewer of those benefits. The mafia structure they have built in Venezuela is crumbling. We’re seeing the collapse of the dominant class. Now is the time to offer the military and other government officials the guarantee of amnesty.

With the amnesty law, do you think Venezuelans can really forgive what’s happened in the last few years?

It’s tough. We’ve suffered a lot in these years and the scars are deep. We’ve lost our democracy, we’ve seen the biggest emigration in the Western hemisphere. We’ve lost our quality of life. Today in Venezuela you can’t walk down the street, because it’s not safe. You can’t shower when you want because water doesn’t come out of the tap. You can’t buy food because you can’t afford it or there isn’t enough in the shops. But we have to find a way to restore normality. That means we have to find one way or another to forgive.

Will those who have committed violent crimes be forgiven under the amnesty law? Will amnesty apply there or not?

We need to remember that forgiveness doesn’t mean impunity. There will be justice. But for a transition process, you have to remember two words; transitional justice. That’s what will allow us to govern. Of course we have to look at things case by case, consider each element, but it is possible to give amnesty to all the officials and military who collaborate in order to help us restore democracy in Venezuela.

Do you think there’s a risk of greater violence if some factions of the military support you and others don’t?

I don’t see that as feasible. I know internationally Maduro has wanted to make [civil war] seem like a possibility, but in reality, 85 to 90% of the country wants change. There’s a small elite that wants to keep that control. But that is unsustainable now. No one is willing to sacrifice themselves for Maduro or take up arms to fight for him. Increasingly, the obvious choice is to put it all aside.

Would you accept a U.S. military intervention?

Obviously, when our priorities are to keep the social cost as low as possible and deal with the emergency and achieve stability in the shortest time frame possible, [intervention] seems like the very last resort. It’s feasible for us to achieve a peaceful transition in the short term, with pressure from Venezuela and internationally, and knowing that all the cards are on the table.

In terms of your U.S. allies, what do you think of National Security Adviser John Bolton publicizing discussions he’s had with U.S. oil companies about them benefitting from regime change in Venezuela?

In truth, I haven’t heard his remarks. But I do believe Venezuela should today be a power in terms of resources, a powerhouse in everything to do with mining, energy, gas, petrol. Right now, it’s impoverished. Our economy contracted 53% in five years and inflation is at over 1 million per cent. That’s not a way to do business.

The most important element for any economy is confidence. A new government will generate certainty, which will in turn generate market stability, the possibility for investment, and returns.

What is the mood like in Venezuela right now?

The big difference this year is absolute hope. There’s certainty that we are going to change things. That energy is a very powerful motor. The despair, disillusionment, and frustration, has now become energy, strength, and a determination to fight. That’s why this is a pivotal moment for the future of our country.</s>Interim President Juan Guaidó of Venezuela unveiled what he called the “Plan País,” or “Nation Plan,” on Thursday, his policy prescription for ending the humanitarian crisis in the country created by two decades of socialist policies.

Guaidó became president after taking an oath of office last week, replacing socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro, who has refused to leave the presidential palace. As Maduro assumed his latest term in office following an election universally considered fraudulent, the Venezuelan constitution mandates that the National Assembly, the federal legislature, replace him with an interim president tasked with organizing free and fair elections.

Upon assuming the presidency, Guaidó made his priority requesting international humanitarian aid, which Maduro had for years rejected, claiming that the United States and other Western powers would sneak soldiers onto aid convoys. Venezuela is facing a near-complete shortage of all medicines needed to run a functional healthcare system, as designated by the World Health Organization, and an estimated 80 percent of Venezuelans do not have access to the amount of food necessary to maintain their weight. The average Venezuelan lost 24 pounds involuntarily in 2017, the latest year for which statistics are available.

Guaidó also demanded that the armed forces no longer follow Maduro’s orders, as he is no longer president. Maduro has maintained control over the higher levels of the military, using force to subdue peaceful pro-democracy protests.

Amid the turmoil, Guaidó had not yet issued any policy proposals outside of removing Maduro and feeding Venezuelans. That changed on Wednesday with the unveiling of the “Plan País.”

The plan consists of three key elements: social renewal, economic renewal, and control of petroleum supplies. Guaidó and his team described the social aspect of the plan as “returning to Venezuela the ability to live off of their work.” First, the government would create 11 social programs, all part of a larger social security plan, that would help Venezuelans back on their feet.

The economic plan would consist of government subsidies to “every family that needs them,” as well as heavy investment in government education and health care.

The petroleum plan saw Guaidó’s government vow to return Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the state-run oil company, to pre-socialist production levels. The opposition team promised not to privatize the industry, but to return it to the hands of capable oil experts who can adequately find and process the crude oil. Under dictator Hugo Chávez, PDVSA’s management was largely expelled and replaced by Chávez’s socialist cronies, who had minimal experience in the oil industry. Maduro continued the policy, leaving the nation with the world’s largest known oil reserves forced to import oil to survive.

Venezuela’s economy is arguably the world’s worst, currently home to the world’s highest inflation rate (1.7 million percent) and plagued by outstanding debts to rogue nations like China and Russia. It is an intensely resource-rich nation, however, particularly in oil and gold, which is where Guaidó expects to generate the funds for his major social security project. Rather than hand out Venezuelan oil for free to nations like Cuba, Venezuela will expand its production and sell those resources on the market, then the government, he argued, will invest it into social programs.

Guaidó told the audience that the plan was partially drafted by Leopoldo López, the leader of his Popular Will party and a political prisoner in Venezuela for the past four years.

Popular Will is one of Venezuela’s largest opposition parties and a member party of the Socialist International. Its party manifesto states that it accepts government-provided food, shelter, and education as basic human rights and has condemned Maduro to not investing sufficient government funding into social programs for the poor. Despite this, Maduro loyalists and radical Marxists in the West have attempted to brand Guaidó a conservative or right-wing politician, without highlighting any policy proposals that reflect this ideology.

Guaidó made clear on Thursday that he considers the reintegration of the Venezuelan armed forces into his legitimate government a key issue in rehabilitating the country. His supporters have printed out and begun distributing to low-level troops a four-page pamphlet explaining the National Assembly’s amnesty law, which allows soldiers to defect to Guaidó and not face prosecution for any human rights abuses they may have committed under Maduro’s orders. Guaidó has gone as far as to say that he would consider offering Maduro himself amnesty if he steps down and allows Popular Will to take over and organize free elections.</s>MOSCOW, Russia – The head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian Senate, Konstantin Kosachev, declared on Wednesday that the status of President of Venezuela is determined by the people, so Russia does not recognize the presidential status of opposition candidate Juan Guaidó.

“Guaidó’s status can not be determined by the outside world, be it the president of the United States or any other country. It can only be determined by the people of Venezuela and only by constitutional means,” said the senator.

“In this sense, for Russia, the presidential status of Guaidó does not exist,” emphasized Kosachev.

The US has previously announced that Nicolás Maduro no longer recognizes Venezuela’s president, and considers National Assembly leader Juan Guaidó as the country’s head of state.

US leader Donald Trump spoke to Venezuela’s self-proclaimed president on Wednesday and congratulated him on his “historic takeover”, confirming strong support for Venezuela’s struggle to restore democracy.

Opposition leader Juan Guaidó said he had held “confidential meetings” with the Venezuelan army for support. According to the Russian expert of the School of Economics, Andrei Suzdaltsev, we must take these statements very carefully, adding that the current situation depends mainly on the Armed Forces.

Juan Guaidó wrote in an article in The New York Times that he had clandestine meetings with members of the Armed Forces and security forces, noting that withdrawal of military support to Maduro is crucial to allow a change in government.”

“For me, it is difficult to believe that the opposition meets with [Nicolás] Maduro’s intelligence services. Such contacts can not occur, nor with the army,” said Suzdaltsev.

“If there had been meetings, there would have been results, of course in this case they would have informed us, so these statements are just pressure on the government,” he said.

“As long as the military and the security forces support Maduro, he will remain unshakable, but it is not known how long this can continue. So now the future of the government is in the hands of the military,” he concluded.</s>Three weeks ago, few Venezuelans knew Juan Guaidó’s name. Today, the 35-year-old is the international face of Venezuelan protest. More than a dozen countries have officially backed Guidó’s claim to be his country’s interim president and tens of thousands of people have turned out on the streets to support him.

After years of economic crisis and repression under Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian regime, politicians and the public have rallied around Guiado, who is leader of the opposition-held parliament, which was stripped of its powers in 2017. On Jan. 23, he was sworn in as acting president on the basis that Maduro’s second term was illegitimate and that the constitution says the parliament leader must take charge in a power vacuum. In the week since, Guaidó has appointed members of a parallel government and persuaded the U.S. to impose crippling sanctions that will make it harder and harder for Maduro to cling to power.

Now he’s thinking about the next step toward restoring Venezuela’s democracy. Less than an hour after addressing parliament on Jan. 31, Guaidó spoke to TIME over the phone from his home in Caracas.

“Maduro is clearly lost, he seems disoriented,” Guaidó tells TIME. “It’s been weeks and he has barely been able to respond. All he can do is defend himself.”

The challenges that remain are daunting, but Guaidó does not seem fazed. Venezuela’s powerful military — which has more than 2,000 generals, 100,000 active members and has enjoyed vast economic and political influence for two decades under the Socialist regime — is still backing Maduro. Analysts say the complicity of the armed forces in networks of corruption and organized crime means they have little incentive to withdraw their support. But Guaidó, who says he has held clandestine meetings with some members of the military, is hopeful that they are starting to listen. “No one is willing to sacrifice themselves for Maduro or take up arms to fight for him,” he says, dismissing the possibility of civil war. “Increasingly, the obvious choice is to put it all aside.

Nevertheless, Guaidó worries about being arrested — or worse. There are currently over 350 political prisoners in Venezuela, including his mentor and former leader of his Popular Will party Leopoldo Lopez. Pro-Maduro security forces have killed at least 40 in protests since Guaidó began to lay claim to power.

Hours before Guaidó spoke to TIME, members of a special police force, known as FAES, visited his home while his baby daughter was there. (He and his wife, Fabiana Rosales, were out.)

The tense situation in Venezuela and Washington’s support for Guaidó, have led some to raise the prospect of a U.S. military intervention in the country. Guaidó is keen to avoid that — although he has not ruled it out. Intervention, he says, is the last resort. “It’s feasible for us to achieve a peaceful transition in the short term, with pressure from Venezuela and internationally, and knowing that all the cards are on the table.”

The interview below has been condensed and edited for clarity.

You’re in danger of being arrested and your family have been threatened. How long can you go on like this?

Yes, my family has been threatened. We ares now being harassed. The very act of protest is dangerous in Venezuela. There are more than 350 political prisoners, over 1,000 exiles. They murdered [opposition councillor] Fernando Alban. It’s a latent threat. But this is a crucial moment for Venezuela. We have to keep fulfilling our responsibilities and doing our jobs.

Maduro is the face of the regime. But beneath him there’s an extensive system of corruption and organized crime. Do you think that will disappear just because Maduro goes?

There’s a system that’s been established over 20 years, a system that has ransacked the country. A system that has taken the world’s third largest oil company – which the national oil company PDVSA was at one point – and driven production down from 3.5 million barrels to 1 million, despite allegedly “investing” $300 billion in it. To achieve a successful transition, we don’t just have to remove Maduro. We also have to rescue our institutions themselves. That’s why we have set out three phases: ending Maduro’s usurpation of power, implementing a transition government and holding free elections.

You have held meetings with the military. Do they show any sign of withdrawing their support for Maduro?

For many years most of us in the opposition didn’t communicate with them. But we’re trying to tell them that they have an important place in our society, like any other profession, such as farmers, or businessmen. I think they are starting to listen to us. Eighty percent of the armed forces suffer from the same problems as the rest of Venezuelans. We have seen them expressing discontent with what’s going on.

The military controls Venezuela’s import business and oil industry, and many top commanders are accused of ties to organized crime. Don’t you think it’s going to be tough to convince them to give up all the benefits they’ve had under the regime?

Importantly, there are fewer and fewer of those benefits. The mafia structure they have built in Venezuela is crumbling. We’re seeing the collapse of the dominant class. Now is the time to offer the military and other government officials the guarantee of amnesty.

With the amnesty law, do you think Venezuelans can really forgive what’s happened in the last few years?

It’s tough. We’ve suffered a lot in these years and the scars are deep. We’ve lost our democracy, we’ve seen the biggest emigration in the Western hemisphere. We’ve lost our quality of life. Today in Venezuela you can’t walk down the street, because it’s not safe. You can’t shower when you want because water doesn’t come out of the tap. You can’t buy food because you can’t afford it or there isn’t enough in the shops. But we have to find a way to restore normality. That means we have to find one way or another to forgive.

Will those who have committed violent crimes be forgiven under the amnesty law? Will amnesty apply there or not?

We need to remember that forgiveness doesn’t mean impunity. There will be justice. But for a transition process, you have to remember two words; transitional justice. That’s what will allow us to govern. Of course we have to look at things case by case, consider each element, but it is possible to give amnesty to all the officials and military who collaborate in order to help us restore democracy in Venezuela.

Do you think there’s a risk of greater violence if some factions of the military support you and others don’t?

I don’t see that as feasible. I know internationally Maduro has wanted to make [civil war] seem like a possibility, but in reality, 85 to 90% of the country wants change. There’s a small elite that wants to keep that control. But that is unsustainable now. No one is willing to sacrifice themselves for Maduro or take up arms to fight for him. Increasingly, the obvious choice is to put it all aside.

Would you accept a U.S. military intervention?

Obviously, when our priorities are to keep the social cost as low as possible and deal with the emergency and achieve stability in the shortest time frame possible, [intervention] seems like the very last resort. It’s feasible for us to achieve a peaceful transition in the short term, with pressure from Venezuela and internationally, and knowing that all the cards are on the table.

In terms of your U.S. allies, what do you think of National Security Adviser John Bolton publicizing discussions he’s had with U.S. oil companies about them benefitting from regime change in Venezuela?

In truth, I haven’t heard his remarks. But I do believe Venezuela should today be a power in terms of resources, a powerhouse in everything to do with mining, energy, gas, petrol. Right now, it’s impoverished. Our economy contracted 53% in five years and inflation is at over 1 million per cent. That’s not a way to do business.

The most important element for any economy is confidence. A new government will generate certainty, which will in turn generate market stability, the possibility for investment, and returns.

What is the mood like in Venezuela right now?

The big difference this year is absolute hope. There’s certainty that we are going to change things. That energy is a very powerful motor. The despair, disillusionment, and frustration, has now become energy, strength, and a determination to fight. That’s why this is a pivotal moment for the future of our country.</s>The European Parliament adopted a resolution Thursday recognizing Venezuela's opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the country's interim president, and called on EU countries to support him until new "free, transparent and credible" presidential elections could be held.

The resolution — initiated by the European People's Party — was backed by 439 votes to 104, with 88 abstentions.

MEPs urged EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and member states to also recognize Guaidó "as the only legitimate interim president," until new elections can be called "in order to restore democracy," the Parliament said in a statement.

MEPs condemned "the fierce repression and violence [in Venezuela], resulting in killings and casualties," and they demanded the Venezuelan authorities "halt all human rights violations, hold those responsible for them to account, and ensure that all fundamental freedoms and human rights are fully respected."

"From Europe, we can help change the Venezuelan regime and make it known that tyrants will never enlighten any democratic possibility," Spanish center-right lawmaker Esteban González Pons said in a statement, Reuters reported.

Guaidó declared himself Venezuela's interim president on January 23, in an attempt to oust President Nicolás Maduro. Guaidó has said that Maduro's reelection last year was rigged and that there was therefore no democratically elected president available.

Guaidó has since urged western powers, including the EU, to keep up pressure on Maduro in order to bring about elections in Venezuela within four weeks, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Thursday.

Also Thursday, the U.K. called for joint EU sanctions on Maduro after he dismissed what he called an "ultimatum" from EU countries calling on him to launch an election.

The United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada and others have already recognized Guaidó as Venezuela's interim president. Russia, China and Turkey continue to back Maduro.

Read this next: How to make Google stronger: Punish it</s>MIAMI (CBSMiami) – The European Parliament on Thursday dealt a huge blow Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro by recognizing Juan Guaidó as ‘the legitimate interim president of Venezuela.’

‘The result of the vote was 439 votes in favor, 104 against and 88 abstentions,’ said Antonio Tajani, president of the organization.

After the vote, Tajani urged all member states of the European Union to take “a unique and strong position” with respect to the crisis in the country.

Guaidó said on Thursday that his recognition by the European Parliament is a “great step” in his struggle for democracy in Venezuela.

“We have taken a big step in our fight for democracy! We appreciate the decision of the European Parliament to recognize all the effort that we Venezuelans have put forward for the restoration of constitutional order,” he posted on his Twitter account.

Four major European member states had told Maduro to call new elections by the weekend or they will recognize Guaidó.

Maduro has refused to budge, calling international support for Guaidó a coup d’état led by US President Donald Trump.

Guaidó, leader of the democratically elected National Assembly was recognized last week as the legitimate president of Venezuela by dozens of nations, including the United States.

The leader of the country’s National Assembly has called Maduro the “usurper” of power.

Maduro had won presidential elections last May in which the opposition was not allowed to take part and which the international community called fraudulent.

The National Assembly called Maduro’s second six-year term “illegitimate,” and Guaidó became interim president of the nation, as per the Venezuelan constitution.

Guaidó has called for a new round of worldwide protests for Saturday.

Maduro has jailed hundreds since Guaidó became interim president on January 23, 700 just in one day, and at least 40 have been killed in the streets, according to the United Nations.

International journalists from France, Chile have also been jailed covering the events in Venezuela.
The European Parliament votes to recognize Juan Guaidó as interim President of Venezuela.