The Venezuelan dictatorship carried out two operations against opponents on Monday (12). In one of them, former parliamentarian Freddy Guevara was approached on the road to Prados del Este, in the Las Mercedes neighborhood of Caracas, and was arrested. In the other, Special Action Force (Faes) agents armed themselves in the garage of the building where opposition leader Juan Guaidó lives, who was in a van with security guards.
There were gunshots and the threat of using a grenade to open the vehicle – the driver was forcibly pulled from the car. During the action, Guaidó’s wife, Fabiana, posted a message on Twitter warning that her husband was surrounded. So the reporters went into the building and started making noise outside. Neighbors also showed up to pressure the officers, who eventually left.
Right after the episode, Guaidó told reporters that just as the regime took Guevara, the intention was to take him too. “AND [a intenção era] to scare us, because they do not want to enter into the dialogue of national salvation, “he said, referring to the negotiations between the dictatorship and the opposition with the mediation of Norway.
Earlier in the morning, the opposition leader expressed his support on his social networks for the demonstrators who took to the streets of Cuba on Sunday (11). “From Venezuela, we reiterate our support for every pro-democracy movement in Cuba. We are united in the struggle to see ourselves free and democratic.”
Guevara, in turn, was taken to the Helicoid, where the regime’s political prisoners are held. He took refuge at the Chilean embassy in Caracas in November 2017 and did not leave the area until September of last year. In a video recorded shortly before his arrest, he said he decided to stay in the country despite the possibility of being detained “because it is important to work on this agreement”. The video was then cut short when a policeman knocks on the window and orders Guevara to leave the vehicle.