In one corner of Venezuela’s capital, hundreds of government supporters held guns to their chests, as one speaker after another, microphone in hand, urged them to defend the nation with their lives.
In another corner, businessmen and diplomats worried about the escalating tensions between Venezuela and the United States, about what they see as a lost opportunity for dialogue between the two countries and about the possibility of a U.S. strike that could unleash bloodshed and chaos.
Still, in other parts of the capital, Caracas, there was a battle-weary calm and skepticism that there will ever be political change in Venezuela.
Granted a rare visa for foreign journalists, I spent a week in Venezuela at a particularly tense time. Relations with the United States are at a crossroads, with the Trump administration sending warships into the Caribbean. The buildup’s size and President Trump’s public threats against President Nicolás Maduro have raised the specter of strikes, of commando raids in the South American nation, or of some broader conflict.
Mr. Trump has said he wants to unleash the military on cartels and stop trafficking to the United States, and his administration has called Mr. Maduro the head of a terrorist organization threatening the United States and flooding it with drugs.
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The post Fear and Hope in Venezuela as U.S. Warships Lurk appeared first on New York Times.
