CARACAS, Venezuela ��The prize is Venezuela's military � and both sides of the deepening crisis in Caracas worked Sunday to win it.
Around Caracas, small groups passed out copies of an amnesty offer for any military member who defects to the opposition now claiming to lead Venezuela. Some in uniform tolerated it, maybe even more. Others burned their copies.
Meanwhile, at a military fort east of the capital, the embattled president, Nicolas Maduro, oversaw tanks firing round after round into a dusty valley. The show of force was not subtle: the military �� which some experts say he has essentially bribed to remain loyal to him �� is still on his side.
"They want our armed forces to throw a coup," Maduro told the troops, broadcast on state television. "Well, we're going to prepare our weapons so no one dares to think of touching our sacred land."
"Traitors never," he said. "Loyal always."
Whoever wins the loyalty of the military will probably also win leadership of the country.
Last week, Juan Guaido, president of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, declared Maduro's rule and recent re-election illegitimate and declared himself Venezuela's leader.
With improbable swiftness, that declaration was almost immediately recognized by the U.S. and other nations, many in Latin America, agonized over Venezuela's plunge from prosperity to poverty and lawlessness under Maduro.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the United Nations Saturday that now "is time for every other nation to pick a side."
"Either you stand with the forces of freedom, or you're in league with Maduro and his mayhem," he said.
Critics say that Maduro has essentially bought off the military, allowing money laundering, fraud, illegal mining and other crimes. And he is counting on them now that his rule is in question.
But Guaido's supporters are intent on winning them over as he reaches out to people who would run the government and finances of any new government. Maduro's top military attache in Washington, Col. Jose Luis Silva, declared loyalty to Guaido on Saturday.
Guaido told The Washington Post Sunday that he was in behind-the-scenes talks with "government officials, civilian and military men."
"This is a very delicate subject involving personal security," he said. "We are meeting with them but discreetly."
Critics caution it's too early to predict any sort of success � Guaido holds no palpable power over Maduro or the nation � but his supporters nonetheless worked to persuade individual soldiers to defect.
Congressman Ismael Leon and other Guaido supporters walked up to the gates of the army command building in the Caracas' neighborhood of San Bernardino and slipped the amnesty offer through the bars. The group asked the silent group of guards on the other side to "not raise their weapons against those peacefully protesting."
"They didn't want to receive us," Leon said. "But with their eyes they told us they knew why we were doing what we were doing. They understood us."
A group of four national guardsmen in the neighborhood of La Florida said two people had come up to them in the morning and respectfully described the amnesty to them. The response was less friendly outside of commands in El Paraiso and Petare, Caracas' biggest slum, where reports on local media show guards burning the copies that were handed to them.
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(Fabiola Zerpa contributed to this report.)
