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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro warned on Wednesday that he would be “ruthless” with the opposition if they attempted a coup d’etat, after his government said it had thwarted a plot to assassinate him.
“We would be ruthless in a revolutionary counteroffensive against a attempted fascist coup – ruthless!” an agitated Maduro said in an address broadcast nationwide on radio and television.
Earlier, Maduro’s spokesman Jorge Rodriguez said on state television that a network of mostly retired police officers and soldiers planned to bomb a key government building, seize a Caracas airbase and loot Venezuela’s central bank.
He also said the plotters wanted to edge opposition leader Juan Guaido out of Venezuela’s political landscape.
Guaido, leader of the opposition-dominated National Assembly, is seeking to remove Maduro from power with backing from more than 50 nations. In January, he invoked the constitution to declare himself interim president, calling Maduro’s 2018 re-election illegitimate.
Rodriguez said the purported network wanted to steal a helicopter to liberate Raul Baduel, a former defence minister now in jail and install him as president.
The government has claimed various plots over the years, generally offering little or no evidence to back its charges. The opposition contends Maduro uses such claims to justify his crackdown on dissent.
Guaido dismissed the latest claim as yet another attempt by the government to distract from Venezuela’s real problems.
Maduro came under attack last August by two drones loaded with explosives, which detonated near the president while he spoke at an outdoor military celebration. He was not harmed in the attack, which officials called an assassination attempt.
Rodriguez charged that Colombian President Ivan Duque and Chilean President Sebastian Pinera backed the purportedly thwarted coup plot, but he did not provide evidence.
Rodriguez showed what he said were scenes from 56 hours of intercepted video conference calls with the alleged plotters hashing out a strategy for the attack planned for June 23.
The spokesman said first lady Cilia Flores and Diosdado Cabello, leader of Venezuela’s governing socialist party, were among those also targeted for assassination.
