The Inflection Point: Venezuela’s Military Begins To Defect, March With Protesters
One month ago, when discussing the latest “explosive” turn in Venezuela’s political situation, we predicted that the worst case for president Nicolas Maduro who has so far managed to keep the army on his side even as Venezuela faces now daily violent and in some cases deadly protests, would be the start of the local army turning on the regime, and defecting to join the protesters. Overnight, according to Thor Halvorsen of the Human Rights Foundation, this “inflection point” appears to have arrived when he observed in a Tweet that “the military in parts of Venezuela has begun to defect. They are now marching *with* the protesters. Dozens of soldiers are under arrest.”