Venezuela’s leaders avoid internal rupture as they prepare for a possible US invasion

In Venezuela, the governing Chavistas have gone from disbelief to surprise, from surprise to indignation, and from indignation to horror. “All that’s left is for them to shoot at the buildings we’re sitting in, damn it,” sums up a senior official who is close to President Nicolás Maduro. The Venezuelan leader and his closest circle initially thought, when a military fleet was deployed on the border with Venezuelan waters, that it was a U.S. tactic to open up some kind of political negotiation. As the days passed, however, they have become convinced that Washington is preparing for an invasion. A priest is currently walking around the country sprinkling holy water on Bolivarian Army tanks.

“They’re in the first phase of the threat,” the same source adds. “With this, they’re hoping to make people panic and start stockpiling food. And no, they didn’t succeed. That was a way to trigger an internal rift, to get military units to rebel. Without that, what’s left for them to do? To destroy this country at missile point,” concludes the same source. The government, in any case, doesn’t trust its internal solidity and is conducting constant investigations among its troops. The regime’s number two, Diosdado Cabello, shows up for televised events wearing a cap that reads “Doubting is treason,” just in case anyone had any doubts.

Cabello is a man of arms, an army captain who accompanied Commander Hugo Chávez in a failed coup d’état in 1992. Riding in a tank that day, he earned the respect of the Bolivarian Revolution. Chávez considered him as his successor shortly before dying of cancer in 2013, but ultimately opted for Maduro. Regardless, one would be number one and the other number two, and they would complement each other in controlling every nook and cranny of the state. Astute as Chávez was, he wasn’t mistaken. The pair govern Venezuela in perfect harmony. Those who once mocked Maduro for being illiterate and unsophisticated didn’t see him as a man who could sustain the Bolivarian Revolution. They were wrong: he has become an autocrat who rules with an iron fist, with only a year and a half left to match Chávez’s time in power.

Cabello and Maduro are risking everything in this gamble with the United States. Even their survival. Although he doesn’t come from a military background, the Venezuelan president has shown himself to be the commander-in-chief of a force willing to confront any armed aggression. He announced what he calls Operation Independence 200: “We are activating all our action and deployment capabilities to be prepared. If Venezuela were attacked by the American empire, we must activate the armed struggle of the Venezuelan people in a perfect popular-military-police fusion! For the homeland! For Bolívar!” He has also called for the initiation of massive military training: “The people, to their barracks to receive training and learn how to shoot at the shooting ranges.”

The political power of the Chavista government rests with the Rodríguez siblings, Delcy and Jorge, a lawyer and a psychiatrist respectively. They have no military career, but Delcy has rallied the militiamen and soldiers to defend the homeland. The defense of Chavismo will be armed, or it won’t be at all. Venezuelan leaders believe the armed attack is so imminent that they have already acknowledged that the U.S. Navy launched a missile at a boat that had departed the Venezuelan coast shortly before.

Communications Minister Freddy Ñáñez initially claimed that the video of the attack had been created using artificial intelligence. Cabello has denied this and asserts that he has spoken with the families of the 11 dead people who were traveling on that barge: “We have conducted our investigations, and the families of the missing persons are there, demanding their relatives back. When we asked in the towns, none of them were from the Tren de Aragua, nor were they drug traffickers, nor were they carrying drugs. Today, world public opinion is awakening, and the real questions are beginning. Why were they murdered? What is the United States’ objective? Is it to attack the fight against drugs? If that is true, it should have its fleet in the Pacific, which is where 85% of the drugs produced in Colombia depart from.”

The most seasoned of them all is the Minister of Defense, for obvious reasons. Vladimir Padrino López claims to have everything ready when the time comes: “While they’re applying pressure, carrying out a brutal exercise in psychological pressure, we’re here at maximum readiness,” said Padrino López at Fuerte Tiuna, the country’s main military complex. He was leading the training session called by Maduro. “We’re willing to give our lives, and I’m not exaggerating. I’m not just speaking for the National Armed Forces, I’m speaking for all the people,” he emphasized.

But the concern is evident at Miraflores Palace, the presidential residence. Maduro has never felt so endangered, although he has shown no signs of weakness in any of his public appearances. “The people have someone to defend them!” he shouted the other night in front of his troops. The danger comes from the sea.

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