MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Guaidó denounces Maduro intelligence forces intimidation against his family

Guaido appeared at his building with his wife and daughter, saying, “They will not intimidate Venezuelan families”

Declared interim president Juan Guaido said on Thursday that agents from a feared special police unit had called at his home and asked for his wife, who was out at an event with her husband while their 20-month-old daughter was at their residence.

“Such acts of intimidation are seen as very serious, very egregious by the United States,” a senior U.S. administration official told reporters on a conference call. “There will be consequences for those engaged in such acts.”

Guaido appeared at his building with his wife and daughter, saying, “They will not intimidate Venezuelan families.” Neighbors said men who identified themselves as belonging to the Special Actions Forces arrived at the gate of Guaido’s apartment building in a white SUV. There was no obvious police presence by the time journalists arrived at Guaido’s house.

Maduro, who says he will remain for his second six-year term, has accused the opposition of attempting a U.S.-backed coup.

Venezuela’s interior minister, Nestor Reverol, said on Thursday that security forces captured five men including a retired army colonel and other army officers on accusations of plotting a coup.

The men were captured over the last few days, Reverol said. He said they had with them two AK-47 rifles, two satellite phones and 500 bracelets bearing the symbol of Operation Constitution, a political group dedicated to toppling Maduro.

The government accuses one of the leaders of the group, retired Colonel Oswaldo García Palomo, of participating in an apparent attack at a Maduro event last yet. Garcia Palomo was among the captured men.

Maduro frequently accuses the opposition, Colombia and the United States of backing coups or assassination attempts. Such claims have usually been dismissed as a smokescreen to distract from problems at home, but a drone exploded at a Maduro event last year, in an apparent attack.

Maduro also says the opposition strategy of trying to push him from office is illegal and led by hawks in the Trump administration, such as the recently appointed U.S. special envoy to Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, a veteran diplomat involved in the armed interventions in Central America in the 1980s.