However, once again the request fell on deaf ears, reflecting what one of the sources viewed as a lack of strategic thinking by top policymakers in the White House and State Department. law enforcement appealed to his contacts in Washington on Hernandez's behalf. The letter was provided to the AP by one of the people familiar with the matter.Īfter the request for humanitarian visas was rejected, a former senior Venezuelan official cooperating with U.S. It states that it is "in the child's best interests" if both Hernandez and his wife were granted visas to accompany the child during what was expected to be a two-month convalescence. Embassy in Venezuela from Boston Children's Hospital states that Hernandez's son had been authorized for surgery on March 14, 2017, for which the family had made a $150,000 deposit. That's why, with the benefit of hindsight, Hernandez's visa request stood out.Ī letter addressed to the U.S. influence in the armed forces, opportunities were limited. But after Hugo Chavez's thorough scrubbing of U.S. officials tried to identify ways to engage the military, the traditional arbiter of political disputes in Venezuela. official and two other people agreed to discuss details of the previously undisclosed interactions on the condition they not be identified because of the sensitive nature of what were private, high-level talks inside the Trump and Obama administrations.įor years, U.S. One clue to the military officers' apparent reluctance to join any U.S.-backed plot may be found in the story of their past, failed dealings with senior American officials. "They try to buy us as if we were mercenaries," Padrino said Thursday in remarks alongside Maduro. may have been duped by Cuban intelligence agents in Venezuela. Instead, they speculate that the opposition - and by extension, the U.S. Manuel Figuera, head of the feared SEBIN intelligence agency, did break ranks and has since disappeared.īut some analysts doubt top military officials who have amassed immense power under Maduro, and are sanctioned by the U.S., ever seriously considered betraying him. The three officials haven't directly denied they were in talks with the opposition, but they have reaffirmed their loyalty to Maduro and remain in their posts. "I am told the document is long -15 points, I think - and it talks of guarantees for the military, for a dignified exit for Maduro, and Guaidó as interim president," he told Venezuelan online TV network VPItv. special envoy Elliott Abrams said there was even a document with the outlines of a transitional government that top officials had agreed to. Opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez said Thursday he had been speaking for weeks with military commanders while under house arrest. Little is known about the extent of support for the plot. also rebuffed a back channel to the alleged ringleader of the would-be defectors, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez.īolton said Hernández, Padrino and Supreme Court Chief Justice Maikel Moreno chose to stick with Maduro at the moment of truth: when opposition leader Juan Guaidó appeared Tuesday on a highway overpass surrounded by a small cadre of armed troops ready for what he said was the "final phase" of a campaign to rescue Venezuela's democracy known as Operation Freedom. It might also have been one of several missed opportunities to curry favor with Venezuela's normally impenetrable armed forces. official and another person familiar with the internal discussions, might have gone unnoticed if National Security Adviser John Bolton hadn't admonished Hernandez this week on live TV as one of three regime insiders who backed out of a plan - allegedly at the last minute - to topple President Nicolás Maduro. That decision, revealed to The Associated Press by a former U.S. Ivan Hernández, head of both the presidential guard and military counterintelligence, wanted to send his 3-year-old son to Boston for brain surgery and needed visas for his family.Īfter days of internal debate, the still young Trump administration rejected the request, seeing no point in helping a senior member of a socialist government that it viewed as corrupt and thuggish but wasn't yet prepared to confront. CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Around May 2017, an unusual request from a prominent Venezuelan general made its way to the White House: Gen.
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