Removing a Socialist Dictator - Or Not

"People of Venezuela, the end of usurpation has arrived. At this moment, I am with the main military units of our armed forces, starting the final phase of Operation Liberty."
"People of Venezuela, we will go to the street with the armed forces to continue taking the streets until we consolidate the end of usurpation, which is already irreversible."
"The armed forces have taken the right decision. With the support of the Venezuelan people and the backing of our constitution they are on the right side of history."
Venezuelan opposition leader and declared President, Juan Guaido

"Steel nerves."
"I have talked to commanders in all the regions of the country and they've manifested their total loyalty to the People, the Constitution, and the Homeland."
"I call for maximum popular mobilization to ensure the victory of peace."
"We will win!"
Nicholas Maduro, contested Venezuelan president

"If Guaido and Lopez fail to split the military and rally top brass to their cause, then a big question is what happens to them personally, and to the opposition cause more broadly."
"They could end up tonight in jail or worse. They are taking a huge leap today."
Shannon O'Neil, Venezuela expert, Council on Foreign Relations

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó greets supporters in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday. He took to the streets with a small contingent of armed troops and called for the military to rise up and oust President Nicolás Maduro.

Fernando Llano/AP

Opposition leader and head of Venezuela's national assembly Juan Guaido, who has declared himself the true president of the country, and whose claim has been supported by neighbouring countries along with an estimated 50 other national heads of state worldwide launched a military-backed challenge to reigning Nicolas Maduro. He has called on Venezuelans to take to the streets in mass popular demonstrations against Maduro.

Those majority members of the military who remain loyal to the socialist Chavista government have responded with rubber bullets and tear gas. Local hospitals have been busy in response. A video captured an armoured vehicle in Caracas running into a crowd of protesters and people were being detained, taken away on motorcycles by military personnel. "Operation Liberty" has drawn the attention of the world community.

"There is no other way out of this", Hamilton Mourao, vice-president of Brazil noted, other than that either opposition leader Guaido and the Venezuelan Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez would "be prisoners" or Maduro "would be leaving". Surrounded by armed men in military uniforms, Guaido urged other troops to join Operation Liberty, to enable the opposition to force Maduro from power.

Leopoldo Lopez, Guaido's political mentor, the opposition leader placed under house arrest had, with the help of the military personnel guarding him, escaped to stand beside Guaido, a powerful support from a popular opposition figure. "I want to tell the Venezuelan people: This is the moment to take to the streets and accompany these patriotic soldiers", he announced, even while Maduro claimed the military was loyal to him.

An anti-government protester walks near a bus that was set on fire by other protesters during clashes between rebel and loyalist soldiers in Caracas, Venezuela, on Tuesday.

Fernando Llano/AP

Cuba has denied American claims that it has dispatched 20,000 of its own military to Venezuela in aid of Maduro, instead it said the 20,000 figure was correct, but they were all Cuban medical personnel. And if so, they'll have their work cut out for them in hospitals where equipment has failed and basic drugs and items as elemental as bandages and anaesthetics are in critically short supply.

Moscow has warned Washington to stop meddling in Venezuela's affairs. "This is our hemisphere. It's not where the Russians should be interfering. this was a mistake on their part", responded national security adviser John Bolton, raising the potential of sanctions. The Kremlin responded by accusing America of supporting an attempted "coup", that Washington's interference represented a "gross violation of international law".

At the street gatherings mostly young men armed themselves with makeshift shields and tossed rocks at state security forces. It was expected that Guaido's stirring cries to the populace would result in a number of high-ranking defections to ultimately loosen Maduro's grip on power, while some analysts predicted Maduro would emerge more emboldened, even as the chief of Venezuela's intelligence agency broke ranks, while others remained with Maduro.

According to John Bolton, Venezuela's defence minister, the chief justice of the Supreme Court and head of the presidential guard were preparing to usher the peaceful transfer of power to Guaido; none of those defections, however, took place. Leopoldo Lopez took refuge in the Spanish embassy, along with his family. A number of Venezuelan troops applied for asylum in the Brazilian embassy.

A rumour circulated that Maduro planned to leave the country, that an airplane had been in readiness on the tarmac, but that Russia convinced  him to remain. The Russian foreign ministry characterized the rumour as "absolute disinformation and fake news", something that Russia knows a great deal about.

The armed forces did not appear to heed Mr Guaidó's call to defect    EPA