Defections from the Bolivarian Revolution occurred under the administrations of Presidents Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. The 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis concerning who is the legitimate President of Venezuela has been underway since 10 January 2019, when the opposition-majority National Assembly declared that incumbent Nicolás Maduro's 2018 reelection was invalid and the body declared its president, Juan Guaidó, to be acting president of the nation. Guaidó encouraged military personnel and security officials to withdraw support from Maduro, and offered an amnesty law, approved by the National Assembly, for military personnel and authorities who help to restore constitutional order.
Maduro's government states that the crisis is a "coup d'état led by the United States to topple him and control the country's oil reserves." Guaidó denies the coup allegations, saying peaceful volunteers back his movement. As of March 2019, Guaidó has been recognized as the interim president of Venezuela by 54 countries, "including the US and most Latin American and European countries".
Several top military figures recognized Guaidó, and hundreds of military personnel have defected to Colombia, but top military command has not broken ranks with Maduro as of mid-April 2019. Following the 23 January events, some Venezuelan diplomats in the United States supported Guaidó; the majority returned to Venezuela on Maduro's orders.
Prior to 2019 presidential crisis Defections occurred before the 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis.
Chávez presidency In 2007, Defense Minister Raúl Baduel publicly broke with Chavez and announced his opposition to the constitutional changes proposed in the 2007 constitutional referendum. Baduel became a "prominent voice of dissent", concerned that Chávez was taking Venezuela down an authoritarian "road to ruin". He became the highest-ranking military person opposed to Chavez's constitutional changes that would "concentrate power in the executive".
In October 2008, a military prosecutor claimed there had been financial irregularities, amounting to US$14 million, during Baduel's tenure as Defense Minister. The New York Times stated, "Chávez has moved against a wide range of domestic critics, and his efforts in recent weeks to strengthen his grip on the armed forces have led to high-profile arrests and a wave of reassignments." In 2009, Baduel was arrested; he said that his arrest was politically motivated, with Chávez allies admitting same in private. He was imprisoned, and according to The Guardian, said "his crime was to realise—and declare—that the president was a tyrant". The 2009 Human Rights Watch report mentions Baduel as an example of political persecution.
In May 2010, Baduel was convicted by a military court of corruption and sentenced to seven years and eleven months in prison; Baduel says he is innocent. He was released in 2015.
Maduro presidency In December 2014, security official Leamsy Salazar defected to the United States after communicating with the US Drug Enforcement Administration for about two months about Diosdado Cabello's alleged involvement with international drug trade. Salazar claimed that Cabello headed the Cartel of the Suns, a military drug trafficking organization in Venezuela; he fled to the US and was placed in witness protection. After Salazar defected, he said that the date that Hugo Chávez died as stated by the Venezuelan government was wrong. Based on information from Salazar, ambassador to the Organization of American States, Guillermo Cochez, stated that Chávez died on 30 December 2012, contrasting the 5 March 2013 date given by Maduro. The date of Chávez's death is controversial since laws were passed in his name after the date Salazar stated he was to have died.
2017 constitutional crisis
On 12 January 2017, Rául Baduel was re-arrested on allegations that he was plotting to overthrow the government. Multiple other opposition politicians were detained in what opposition politicians called trumped up charges.
In 2017, Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz denounced the rupture of democracy in Venezuela when the Venezuelan Supreme Court, in a move both nationally and internationally considered a power grab, assumed powers constitutionally attributed to the National Assembly. The Supreme Court barred her from leaving the country and froze her assets, due to alleged "serious misconduct" in office, and she was dismissed as Prosecutor General by the newly established National Constitutional Assembly. Tarek William Saab, the replacement Chief Prosecutor appointed by the Constituent Assembly, claimed that she and her husband, German Ferrer, operated an extortion group and a day later, the Constituent Assembly ordered their arrest. Ferrer said the charges are political in nature. Ortega and Ferrer left Venezuela, with Ortega stating that the Maduro government would "deprive me of my life". Maduro has said he is seeking an international arrest warrant for both her and her husband, claiming they had been involved in serious crimes.
On 28 November 2017 after differences with Venezuela's government, Rafael Ramírez was fired as Venezuela's Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York. In December, he confirmed that he had resigned from the UN post at the request of the Venezuelan president. Maduro aides presented no evidence of alleged graft during Ramírez's tenure, and critics say the president was engaged in a "purge aimed at helping the embattled leader consolidate power over the country;s lifeblood oil industry", according to the Wall Street Journal. "Once among Venezuela's most powerful politicians", Ramírez said he resigned on "pressure for expressing his opinions over how the country could overcome its crippling economic crisis".
Along with Ortega Díaz, Minister of Interior Affairs Miguel Rodríguez Torres become increasingly critical of the government in 2017. In June, he expressed his opposition to the presidential initiative to convene a National Constituent Assembly, and called instead for new elections. In 2018, Rodríguez Torres, who had spoken the previous day at an opposition rally, was arrested by SEBIN agents; the Bolivarian government stated that the general had attempted to sow discord among the Venezuelan armed forces.
2019 presidential crisis
At the time of Maduro's second inauguration on 10 January 2019, The Washington Post reported that US intelligence had allegedly learned that Minister of Defense, Vladimir Padrino López, had requested that Maduro step down, threatening to resign if Maduro did not. On 15 January 2019, Padrino López swore loyalty to Maduro, stating that members of the National Bolivarian Armed Forces of Venezuela (FANB) "are willing to die to defend that Constitution, those people, those institutions and you as supreme magistrate, president of Venezuela".
It was also reported that though the top military swore allegiance to Maduro, many secretly supported Guaidó and had spoken to exiled and defected soldiers saying they would not suppress any uprising that could oust Maduro. Rocío San Miguel, Executive Director of Control Ciudadano and a Venezuelan attorney and human rights activist who specializes in the military, told Spanish newspaper El País that the Venezuelan National Guard had acknowledged 4,009 defections as of January 2019; she believed that because of the problem in the Armed Forces, Maduro had called for incorporating the people's militia as conscripts.
The National Assembly offered an amnesty law for military defectors. On 11 January, plans to offer incentives for the armed forces to disavow Maduro were revealed. Venezuelan political experts, like David Smilde from the Washington Office on Latin America, suggested that this action would enrage Maduro, who already called the National Assembly "traitors" for not attending his inauguration, and who might arrest or attack more of its members. A friend of Guaidó, in response, said that they were aware of the risks but believed it needed to be done to allow democracy to reappear in Venezuela.
During the 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis, after the National Assembly declared Guaidó acting president, the Miami Herald reported that the Maduro regime feared a military uprising and defections, had made many arrests, and Padrino López ordered a counterintelligence effort to locate conspiracists or possible defectors. According to France 24, Maduro declared "military deserters who fled to Colombia have become mercenaries" as part of a US-backed coup. CBS News reported that rank-and-file troops, who made about US$6 per month, were "hungry and pushed to a tipping point".
Guaidó declared that the opposition had held secret meetings with military officials to discuss the Amnesty Law. An opposition representative stated that the meetings were focused on army officers, who were amenable to the idea and "expressed concern about the Trump administration's past threats of military intervention in Venezuela and [...] that the armed forces would be outgunned in any fight". Analysts warned that the meetings could potentially only win partial support and divide the military, which could lead to a civil war or coup.
Maduro's government stated that the positions against him were the "result of imperialism perpetrated by the United States and allies" that put Venezuela "at the centre of a world war".
Defectors Guaidó encouraged military personnel and security officials to withdraw support from Maduro. One soldier who fled to Colombia during the 2019 shipping of humanitarian aid to Venezuela said that the majority of rank-and-file soldiers opposed Maduro, but top commanders have not broken rank with Maduro.
Key officials
Signs of impending crisis showed when a Supreme Tribunal Justice and Electoral Justice seen as close to Maduro defected to the United States just a few days before the 10 January 2019 second inauguration of Nicolás Maduro. The justice, , said that Nicolás Maduro was "incompetent" and "illegitimate".* According to The New York Times, he "called the May presidential election unfair and described Maduro's rule as 'a dictatorship.' He also accused Maduro of frequently taking direct orders from Cuban officials."
Hugo Carvajal, the head of Venezuela's military intelligence for ten years during Hugo Chávez's presidency and "one of the government's most prominent figures", Also available online. publicly broke with Maduro in mid-February and endorsed Guaidó as acting president. Also available online. Serving as a National Assembly deputy for the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, The Wall Street Journal said the retired general is considered a pro-Maduro legislator. In a video released online on 21 February, he called for Venezuelan military forces to break ranks and to allow the entry of humanitarian aid to Venezuela. Directed to soldiers he said, "we do not have the technical capacity to confront any enemy ... he who says otherwise lies." Directed to Maduro, he said, "You have killed hundreds of young people in the streets for trying to claim the rights you stole. This without even counting the dead for lack of medicines and security."