US aided Venezuelan opposition leader’s secret flight to Florida

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US diplomats on the ground in Colombia helped bring Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó to the United States, the State Department said on Tuesday, hours after he reportedly landed in Miami, Florida.

State Department senior deputy spokesman Vedant Patel said three American diplomats were working closely with the Colombian government to bring Guaidó to the United States “safely”.

“We are grateful to the Colombian government for supporting Venezuelans fleeing their country due to the persecution and humanitarian crisis inside Venezuela,” Patel said.

He would not say whether the opposition leader would apply for asylum, saying such applications were confidential. Patel further stated that the aid provided to Guaidó does not indicate a change in US policy regarding Venezuela.

Representative María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) tweeted that she would ask President Biden to grant Guaido and his family asylum in the United States.

The Biden administration has sought to walk a fine line between supporting democratic aspirations in Venezuela and achieving selective engagement with the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

“We continue to be clear on this, we expect the Venezuelan regime to make meaningful progress on some of the humanitarian and human rights concerns that we have consistently raised about the regime,” he said. Patel said.

Guaidó, who had served until January as interim president of a parallel Venezuelan government, tweeted that he was fleeing Colombia due to threats made against his family by the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Due to the direct threats against my family and my daughters from the Maduro regime, which have spread to Colombia, I am taking this flight. Until we achieve free elections in Venezuela, we will continue to fight. I will give you more details tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/atam1f4n6E

— Juan Guaidó (@jguaido) April 25, 2023

Guaidó said in a video posted on Twitter that he crossed on foot from Venezuela to Colombia, which drew criticism from Colombian government officials as an “illegal entry”.

“They are chasing me out of Colombia. The persecution of the dictatorship has unfortunately extended to Colombia today,” he said, an affront to “millions of people who want a better country, who want a solution.”

Guaidó posted the video from inside a plane, his eyes bloodshot, noting that he had traveled 60 hours to get to Bogotá.

“We’re going to move on, we’re going to keep fighting. This is an important moment for Venezuela,” he said, calling the push for fair elections in 2024 a chance “to bring freedom and democracy to our country.”

Colombian President Gustavo Petro rejected Guaidó’s expulsion from the country and said the opposition figure had an agreement to travel to the United States and that the Colombian government had allowed transit for “humanitarian reasons despite the ‘illegal entry into the country’.

Salazar criticized Petro for forcing Guaido to “please dictator Maduro”.

“Definitely Petro and Maduro play on the same team,” she tweeted in Spanish.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the second-highest ranking senator in the Democratic caucus, also criticized the Colombian government for failing to help the fugitive Venezuelan opposition leader.

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“Juan Guaidó made a patriotic gesture [and] heroic effort to bring democracy to the bankrupt criminal state of Venezuela. It’s disappointing that the Colombian government, historically generous to its Venezuelan neighbors, didn’t seem to treat it accordingly,” Durbin tweeted.

Guaidó served for three years as interim president of a parallel democratic government in Venezuela and won strong support from the United States and European nations who saw Maduro’s government as having usurped the democratic will of the people.

Yet Guaidó was ousted in January as interim president amid infighting within Venezuela’s democratic political coalition.

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