Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was detained for several hours today after leaving a rally to protest President Nicolas Maduro's disputed swearing-in on Friday, her allies said.
Machado and her party members hold that their candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, won a July presidential election, a claim supported by the US and many Latin American and other countries. The US kept in place broad sanctions against Venezuela's crude and energy industry in the wake of the contested election.
Multiple black SUVs intercepted Machado while she traveled on motorcycle after the rally and forcibly took her while drones circled overhead, her allies confirmed. She was later released, they said, but she had not made a public appearance as of late Thursday afternoon.
The Maduro government did not confirm Machado's detention.
US representative Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Florida) vowed a response.
"Our message to the Maduro regime is clear: If you attack Maria Corina Machado, we, the United States, will attack you", Salazar posted on social media.
Venezuelan interior minister Diosdado Cabello has in turn threatened to "neutralize" any aircraft in national airspace carrying Gonzalez, who has said he will try to enter Venezuela on Friday to take the oath of office instead of Maduro.
Gonzalez has been visiting multiple leaders in the region in the run-up to Maduro's ceremony, meeting with US president Joe Biden and president-elect Donald Trump's designated White House national security adviser Mike Waltz in Washington earlier this week. He has most recently visited the Dominican Republic and met with President Luis Abinader and other dignitaries there.
Sources in Caracas say low turnout at pro-Maduro counter demonstrations today may have triggered the decision to arrest Machado.
Trump's advisers have not disclosed whether they plan to tighten the US' sanctions against Venezuela, including whether they would remove exemptions allowing Chevron, Eni and Repsol to lift cargoes of oil produced in their joint ventures with state-owned PdV.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Jim Risch (R-Idaho) unveiled a bill today that would condition a future removal of sanctions against Venezuela on the establishment of a democratically elected government in Caracas. But the bill, which enjoys backing of key Democrats on his committee, does not directly address Chevron's upstream exemption.
