Ever since Venezuela’s pro-American uprising “fizzled on April 29, the Trump White House has faced a choice about Venezuela: negotiations or “regime change.”
A negotiated settlement and peaceful transition is the goal of the talks sponsored by the government of Norway. Representatives of President Nicholas Maduro’s government and the U.S.-backed opposition lead by Juan Guaido have attended the talks. But when the U.S. government announced a new round of sanctions, the Maduro government pulled out. Now Norway is trying to get the talks started again.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues on the “regime change” track, seeking to split Maduro’s government by negotiating with one of his top allies, Diosdado Cabello.
The administration tried this approach with Manuel Figuera, head of the country’s intelligence service, SEBIN. Figuera defected to the United States but Maduro didn’t fall.
Now the U.S. is meeting with Cabello with the same intention, according to the Associated Press.
Cabello has long been seen as a rival to Maduro, someone who has more pragmatic economic views and is less ideologically aligned with communist Cuba. He sat to the right of Hugo Chávez when the late socialist designated Maduro, to his left, to be his successor in his last public appearance before dying of cancer in 2013.By all accounts Cabello was not among the high-placed officials who were in on a plot to remove Maduro in April, when Guaidó and his mentor Leopoldo López appeared on a bridge in eastern Caracas surrounded by a small contingent of armed troops. Since the uprising’s failure, the retired army lieutenant has seen his influence in the government and security forces expand, with the appointment of close allies to head the army and the feared SEBIN intelligence police.”
See: Inside SEBIN: Venezuela’s Powerful Intelligence Agency”
Source: AP Exclusive: US talks secretly to Venezuela socialist boss
