Defiant Juan Guaido plans return to Venezuela despite threat of arrest

First he declared a rival presidency. Then he made a play for Citgo. Last weekend he flouted a court travel ban. Now, Juan Guaido says he is headed back home to Venezuela in another challenge to President Nicolas Maduro. Guaido, recognised by most Western nations as the country’s legitimate leader, slipped into neighbouring Colombia last week to lead an ultimately failed effort to bring humanitarian aid, much of it from the United States, into the crisis-stricken country. After meeting with regional leaders including US Vice-President Mike Pence in Bogota, Guaido is expected to come back through the porous border in the coming days and resume his political activities in open defiance of a Supreme Court order. “I’m going to return to Caracas this week,” Guaido said in an interview with NTN24 broadcast on Tuesday. “My role and my duty is to be in Caracas despite the risks.” He travelled last week from Caracas across the country in a caravan and then slipped into Colombia via back roads along the 2,200km (1,367 miles) border, according to Colombian local media. Guaido said he received help from members of Venezuela’s armed forces. Representatives for Guaido declined to disclose a timetable for his return or whether he will return the same way. To return via an official route would pose an even more brazen challenge to Maduro’s authority. Maduro, who retains the backing of both Russia and China, has faced regional condemnation this week for violently driving back the opposition’s attempts to bring in the aid. He denies there is a crisis despite overseeing a hyperinflationary economic meltdown that has spawned widespread food and medicine shortages. Guaido’s return will force Maduro to decide whether to risk even greater international outrage by attempting to arrest the 35-year old congress chief or to allow him to openly disregard state institutions linked to the ruling Socialist Party. Caught in the middle of Venezuela’s power struggle, a worried China weighs its options “Trying to manage the Guaido situation has become a real problem for the government because (Guaido) has grown so much politically,” said Luis Salamanca, a political scientist and constitutional law professor at Venezuela’s Central University. Guaido invoked articles of the constitution to assume an interim presidency in January, declaring Maduro a usurper following his 2018 re-election in a vote widely boycotted by the opposition. State institutions including the chief prosecutor’s office, the Supreme Court, and the comptroller’s officer – all openly allied with Maduro – responded by opening investigations of Guaido. But no state institution has sought his arrest or even formally accused him of a crime. So far authorities have only frozen his local bank accounts and prohibited foreign travel. Maduro said in an ABC News interview that Guaido’s fate was up to the justice system: “He can’t just come and go. He will have to face justice, and justice prohibited him from leaving the country. I will respect the laws.” Hundreds of Venezuelan troops desert to Colombia as crisis puts conscience before duty Guaido said his team had a strategy should he be detained, without giving details on what that was. Many Venezuelans credit Guaido, a fresh face, with capturing the international community’s attention through his bold move to swear himself in as interim president, galvanising a once-fractured and weary opposition. Guaido’s team has won control over crucial offshore assets including US-based refiner Citgo, but still does not control the ports or central bank, or, most crucially, the armed forces. The US, meanwhile, will push for a vote on Venezuela this week in the UN Security Council, President Donald Trump’s envoy Elliott Abrams said. The Washington-drafted resolution will call for the admission of US-backed humanitarian aid into Venezuela, Abrams said ahead of a Security Council meeting. US security chief John Bolton’s notepad says ‘5,000 troops to Colombia’, hinting at secret US military option for Venezuela Vasily Nebenzia, the UN ambassador of Maduro’s ally Russia, compared the attempted delivery “force feeding” and said it was a violation of sovereignty. Chinese Ambassador Ma Zhaoxu stated bluntly that his government opposes using humanitarian aid “for political purposes to create instability or even turbulence inside Venezuela and in neighbouring regions”. Abrams said the US was not preparing to invade Venezuela with troops, as a Russian official claimed earlier on Tuesday. Acknowledging that Trump has said all options are on the table, Abrams commented that “presidents always say that”. The US will use as much diplomatic, economic and political pressure as possible, the envoy said. The Venezuelan opposition and the US are trying to persuade the Venezuelan army to turn against Maduro and to let the aid supplies through. More than 320 members of the Venezuelan security forces have defected and crossed into Colombia, the Colombian migration authority said Tuesday. However, they form only a tiny fraction of the Venezuelan security forces. The army has about 200,000 members and the vast majority of them remain loyal to Maduro. Additional reporting by Tribune News Service