‘Terrorist attack’ on military base in Venezuela foiled

In other parts of Venezuela, news of the attack triggered street demonstrations, with people banging on pots and honking their horns in apparent solidarity with the attackers. The day was marred by violence, as over a dozen people were killed including a candidate and two teenagers, while police arrested over 100 people.

He said a group had entered the Paramacay Fort base in Valencia early in the morning, with witnesses reporting gunshots and loud patriotic singing.

A new assembly loyal to President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday fired attorney-general Luisa Ortega, one of the president’s most vociferous critics, triggering a firestorm of condemnation from the United States and Latin American nations. He joins us now.

After a meeting in Brazil’s financial center, Sao Paulo, Brazilian Foreign Minister Aloysio Ferreira, told reporters: “We are saying: Stop with this!”

The person says bursts of gunfire could be heard coming from the base in the central city of Valencia starting around 4:30 a.m. Sunday.

“There’s lots of unease, but they can’t provoke a political change without a clear horizon of what comes after Maduro”, Garcia Plaza said.

He returned to Venezuela to lead Sunday’s uprising, said Giomar Flores, a mutinous naval officer who said he is a spokesman for the group from Bogota, Colombia.

Hours before the attack began, a video was posted to social media showing a group of uniformed men declaring themselves against Maduro’s “murderous tyranny”. Several of them have guns, and they’re in front of a guy who identifies himself as a captain.

Far from resolving Venezuela’s problems, a coup would trigger a full-blown worldwide crisis and likely split the military, leading to even higher levels of violence approaching a civil war, Briscoe said. “This is a civic and military action to re-establish constitutional order”. “Those who dream of the contrary, will push the morale of the national armed Forces bolivarian”, he warned. And he appeared a few years back on CNN and gave a very strongly critical interview about what he perceives to be the failures of the government here.

A MILITARY uprising has been suppressed in Venezuela, according to the authorities yesterday.

SMITH: What are you hearing from people about this uprising?

President Maduro claims the new constituent assembly is meant to bring calm to a country that has seen months of violent unrest. And, actually, the military put out a statement. It said the others were civilians wearing uniforms. With a majority of seats in cabinet and heavily implicated in corruption and drug-trafficking, Venezuela’s military has so far shown no sign of abandoning its support for the embattled Mr Maduro.

Security forces surrounded the entrance to Venezuela’s chief prosecutor’s office on Saturday ahead of a session of the newly installed Constituent Assembly that is expected to debate removing the one-time loyalist turned arch government critic.

She refused to recognise her sacking, or the assembly’s swearing in of national ombudsman Tarek William Saab in her place.