Embassy of Venezuala holds out against siege by Guaido supporters as coup fails
On the 30th of April, after a battle was fought in the streets of Caracas, supporters of Juan Guaido laid siege to the Embassy ofVenezuala in Georgetown. The building is being defended by the Embassy Protection Collective, a group of US based antiwar/anti-imperialist activists given the keys by Venezuala's diplomats when Trump expelled them.
Raw video from the front line at 1:45PM 41 sec
At least three times, the Juan Guadio supporters attempted to enter the embassy by a rear entrance. All three times they were defeated and at the end of the day the Embassy of Venezuala was still firmly in the hands of its designated caretakers. In one of the failed attacks the right-wing attackers swatted at multiple cameras being used by the media, implying they had something to hide. The events of the day turned into a quite literal siege of the embassy. While police did not join the attackers and try to storm the building, they physically blocked attempts to deliver food and water to the embassy's defensers. Nothing in or out is the definition of a siege, a term coming from the Romans and the Latin word for "to sit."
Back in Venezuala, the attempted coup failed, with coup leader Leopoldo López fleeing to the embassy of Chile after walking out of house arrest to appear alongside Juan Guaido for what was supposed to be the "final phase" of the overthrow of government of Venezuala. While most of the military stayed loyal to the existing government and President Maduro, the 25 coup plotters tried and failed to take power. Meanwhile the supporters of both sides duked it out in the streets of Caracas. Against this backdrop it was no surprise that there would be a push to invade Venezuala's embassy here in DC. Like the coup attempt, the attack was expected and three times the attackers were defeated.
As of sunset, the siege continues but numbers are greatly reduced, and the beseigers have made no headway whatsoever in taking over the embassy for themselves. They simply cannot do it unless the police join forces with them. The police did NOT do this, probably because right up until the point a coup takes power the Embassy remains in the legal posession of the existing government. For the US to assist or even permit the invasion of any country's embassy violates international law and exposes US embassies worldwide to similar or reciprocal attack. Thus neither Secret Service nor the US Marine Corps benefits from any successful storming of Venezuala's embassy so long as Maduro himself can defeat the coup attempts and stay in power.
