Juan Guaidó interview: Venezuelan opposition politician on escape to Miami
Guaidó, fleeing what he says were threats of arrests by the Venezuelan government, crossed the border to Colombia and made his way to Bogotá. The international summit here, he hoped, would provide a window of opportunity in which sympathetic officials of the U.S. and other foreign governments could keep him safe and support his cause — the end of the authoritarian socialist government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Instead, he said in an interview with The Washington Post, he was met with “threats of deportation” from the Colombian government and felt “pressure” from a U.S. official to get on a plane out of Colombia.
U.S. and Colombian officials tell a different story. And as Guaidó makes a tour through Washington to meet with Biden administration officials and lawmakers, some analysts are describing his journey as political theater by a once-influential figure capitalizing on his last remaining relevance: The support of politicians in the United States.
“He’s trying to present himself as a victim,” said David Smilde, a Tulane University sociologist who studies Venezuela. “It was fundamentally dishonest, but it played to his strength, and his strength is in D.C.”
Guaidó was scheduled to speak at an event at the Wilson Center on Wednesday and the meet with Democratic and Republican lawmakers Wednesday and Thursday.
Three years ago, Guaidó was recognized by the United States and more than 50 other countries as Venezuela’s rightful leader. Maduro had claimed victory in a fraudulent election, the argument went, and Guaidó, as president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, was the highest-ranking government official who had been democratically elected.
But mass protests, appeals to foreign governments and an abortive uprising failed to dislodge Maduro, and in December, fellow opposition leaders voted to dissolve Guaidó’s so-called interim government.
Government threats against his safety escalated, he told The Post, and the 39-year-old father of two began exploring options to leave Venezuela. Around early April, he said, he received phone calls from two high-ranking officials in the Maduro government who warned his arrest was imminent.
The Maduro government has long prohibited Guaidó from leaving the country, meaning the best option would be to slip across the border to Colombia over land. He decided to do so last week, a day before Colombian President Gustavo Petro was due to host an international summit in aimed at jump-starting a dialogue between Venezuela’s government and its adversaries. Neither Maduro’s government nor the opposition were invited to participate.
Once in Colombia, Guaidó contacted Ambassador James Story, who heads the Venezuela Affairs Unit of the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá, and Juan González, the senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs on the U.S. National Security Council. Guaidó’s intention, he said, was to meet with officials in town for the summit and stay in Colombia for a stretch. But he felt “pressured” by Colombian officials and González to leave the country immediately.
Jonathan Reynaga, a Guaidó adviser who met him in Bogotá and traveled with him to Miami, said he saw a conversation in which González “at no stage showed empathy for his security or his family’s.”
“All that Juan González implies and cares about is that he take the plane as soon as possible because he doesn’t want to take the spotlight away from the summit,” Reynaga said.
A U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, said it was not accurate to characterize the journey as an expulsion by Colombian authorities. Guaidó decided to leave Colombia voluntarily, the official said. Had he turned down the U.S. offer of a flight to Miami, the U.S. delegation would have offered him a seat on their plane returning to the United States after the summit. Had he chosen to stay in Colombia, the U.S. official said, it was unlikely Guaidó would have been deported to Venezuela. He could have stayed and requested asylum.
Guaidó’s public attempt to crash an international conference frustrated Colombian officials, according to the U.S. official and others who were closely involved.
While Venezuelan opposition leaders were not invited to the conference itself, the Petro government convened a meeting a few days earlier with key members of their negotiating team and invited Guaidó’s Popular Will party to send a representative. The representative did not attend the meeting; Guaidó blamed logistical challenges.
When Guaidó himself entered the country uninvited, Colombian officials feared his presence would disrupt and distract from the conference.
In an attempt to defuse the tension and ensure Guaidó’s safety, the official said, his U.S. contacts invited him to Story’s residence, where Colombian authorities interviewed him. The two governments then arranged for his transport to a comfortable location at Bogotá’s El Dorado International Airport — in neither a terminal nor a VIP room nor a detention area — and his flight to Florida, the official said. He was escorted to the airport by Colombian officials and accompanied by U.S. officials.
Some Colombian authorities suspected Guaidó was considering entering Colombia, according to a Colombian who is closely involved in discussions between the Colombian and Venezuelan governments. “He was waiting for the right moment to do it, to generate the greatest political impact,” said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about the matter. Guaidó’s party, the person said, wanted to “torpedo” Colombia’s efforts to restart negotiations between the Maduro government and the opposition.
Colombian Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva said last week that Guaidó had come to the country “for the noise that he himself produces.” He said his arrival caught Colombian officials by surprise.
“Here we have not closed our doors to anyone,” Leyva said. “This is not a country that expels, this is a country that simply looks to comply with the Constitution and the law.”
Petro tweeted that the Colombian government would have “gladly offered” Guaidó asylum if he had asked for it. “There was no need to enter the country illegally,” he said. “He was offered a transit permit, he was not deported back to his country and with the permission of the U.S. he flew to that country.”
Geoff Ramsey, a senior fellow on Venezuela at the Atlantic Council, said it was clear they decided they could have more impact in Miami than in Caracas.”
“Guaidó had an opportunity for his representative to meet with Petro,” Ramsey said. “The fact that they boycotted that meeting raises questions about his commitment to the overall negotiations.”
Guaidó, once a unifying figure in Venezuela against the Maduro government, has seen his popularity at home plummet. As opposition politicians prepare for a primary election this year ahead of planned presidential elections in 2024, polls show Guaidó behind several candidates. His party has been critical of efforts to negotiate directly with Maduro; he has argued instead for more international pressure and sanctions against Maduro and his government.
But Guaidó also faced repeated threats against his safety. After his escape from Venezuela, he said, those threats extended to his wife and children back in Caracas.
His wife, Fabiana Rosales, told The Post that relatives began receiving phone calls threatening to kidnap and harm her and the couple’s daughters, ages 6 and 1. She decided to leave the country, but feared she could be barred from doing so: her Venezuelan passport has expired and the children lacked proper Venezuelan travel documents.
So Rosales and the children also traveled by land. She packed her bags and told their 6-year-old daughter that her father had found work outside of the country and they were going to go meet him. “We’re going to live the adventure of Dora,” Rosales told her daughter, a fan of Dora the Explorer. She took the 6-year-old to her school to say a brief goodbye to her friends.
After a drive of nearly 10 hours, at times on poorly lit roads and close to running out of gas, Rosales and her daughters crossed the border by foot. Rosales wore a face mask to avoid being recognized.
They had heard that border authorities on the bridge entrances were carefully checking documentation of Venezuelans crossing into Colombia. So she went a different way, crossing a river in an area known to be controlled by guerrilla groups. As the water reached nearly waist high, her daughters were carried on the shoulders of people helping them cross. They finished the last stretch of the river by boat, and then walked through a forested area to find a taxi to an immigration office.
“The most difficult day of my life was waiting for my daughters to cross the border,” Guaidó said.
Rosales and their daughters eventually made it to Bogotá and then to Miami. They reunited with Guaidó Monday at Miami International Airport.
Guaidó said he does not know how long the family will stay in the United States. They are currently in the country on tourist visas. Guaidó said he hopes to return to Venezuela to travel the country and campaign in the upcoming primary for the opposition’s nomination. But he’ll be staying in Miami, he said, “until we know it is safe to return.”
Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.
