Government repression, however, threatens to push militants within the protest movement underground and into the formation of paramilitary or rebel groups in a country awash with weapons, according to political analyst and pollster Luis Vicente Leon.
“As the government radicalizes, these groups will tend to grow and the future could be full of conflict,” Leon told Reuters.
He did not elaborate, but other analysts have also spoken of the threat of a low-intensity civil war in Venezuela barring some reversal in the country’s current decline.
In what could be a harbinger of more violent tactics by protesters, an improvised explosive device wounded seven police officers on motorbikes during the election of the constituent
assembly on July 30.
Maduro has said he is facing an “armed insurrection” designed to end socialism in Latin America and let a U.S.-backed business elite get its hands on the OPEC nation’s massive crude reserves.
On the surface, at least, the prospect of a decisive military coup to oust the former union leader, who was narrowly elected in 2013 after being hand-picked by former President Hugo Chavez to succeed him, seems far off.
There have been no outward signs of any split between Maduro and the military leadership, which continues to publicly back him.
But the purported leader of Sunday’s raid on the military base, fugitive former National Guard captain Juan Carlos Caguaripano, has called on his “brothers in arms” to disobey orders from military leaders.
And Oscar Perez, a rogue police pilot who attacked government buildings in a helicopter attack in Caracas in June, has said he is keeping up the fight while on the run.
“We support the military uprisings,” said Maria Rodriguez, 35, a cheese seller who was blocking roads in Caracas’ wealthier Altamira district on Sunday. “We citizens can’t do this alone.”
