Facing Jail in Caracas, Guaido Hopscotches Across South America
(Bloomberg) -- Juan Guaido’s first stop after he skipped out of Venezuela last week was Colombia. But after he failed to push food and medicine across the borders to hasten the end of autocratic President Nicolas Maduro’s rule, he headed to Brazil.
Today, he’s in Paraguay and now, Ecuador is extending an invitation.
The opposition leader insists he’ll be home soon, but his lengthening regional tour raises questions about just how and when he intends to get back to Caracas. Guaido, head of the opposition-dominated National Assembly, risks not only being blocked from re-entering Venezuela, but being tossed into jail after violating a foreign-travel ban. Meanwhile, the amnesty he promised military officers who join him languishes in his own legislature and resurgent street protests have lost their focal point.
The U.S., which along with some 50 other nations recognizes Guaido as Venezuela’s rightful leader after sham elections, has threatened severe repercussions if Maduro takes direct action against his chief rival. Still, Venezuela’s ruling socialists have already exiled and thrown hundreds of dissidents behind bars.
Guaido, a 35-year-old congressman, says his tour is meant to deepen ties with allies and plan how to defeat a dictatorship. Yet the longer Guaido stays abroad, the more the likelihood grows that his movement to unseat Maduro will lose momentum after the effort to bring humanitarian aid into Venezuela was brutally crushed last week.
Maduro insisted that aid was the precursor to an invasion, and he used security forces to repel waves of activists moving the food and medicine. They sent volleys of tear gas, plastic pellets -- and sometimes even bullets -- flying around international crossings, killing at least four, injuring hundreds and leaving Guaido stuck outside his country.
The regime has since extended carnival holidays, urging Venezuelans to leave the cities for the beach. Guaido, meanwhile, says he will rally supporters when he arrives.
He is scheduled to meet with Paraguayan President Mario Abdo on Friday, while Ecuador’s Lenin Moreno invited him late Thursday evening. Guaido has not yet confirmed a Ecuadorian leg of his tour, but has acknowledged he’s concerned for his safety upon heading home.
“Of course it’s a risk, even life threatening,” he told reporters in Brasilia on Thursday after meeting with President Jair Bolsonaro. “But that’s how politics in Venezuela is."
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