Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado said that increasing military pressure is the only way to force authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro from power.
“Rising pressure and the ongoing escalation are the only ways to make Maduro understand that it’s time to step aside and allow a peaceful and orderly transition of power,” she told Bloomberg.
Machado said she has a plan of action for the first 100 hours after the possible fall of the regime and continues to coordinate her movement’s efforts, despite some of its members being imprisoned or forced into exile. “It’s a decentralized structure — I’m talking about hundreds of thousands of people,” she emphasized. “People will come out when the time is right, and that system is being built right now.”

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The statements came amid reports that the Trump administration has decided to carry out strikes on military sites inside Venezuela. According to the Miami Herald, the attacks could begin at any moment and are aimed at “decapitating the leadership” of the Cartel of the Suns, which U.S. officials claim is controlled by senior members of Maduro’s regime. The newspaper’s sources allege the cartel exports about 500 tons of cocaine annually.
It is unclear whether Maduro himself is a target of the potential strikes, but the sources warned that his position is becoming untenable. “Maduro will soon find himself trapped and may realize that he won’t be able to leave the country even if he decides to,” one source said.
“What’s even worse for him is that there’s now at least one general ready to capture and hand him over, fully aware that it’s one thing to talk about death and quite another to see it approaching.”
The Wall Street Journal also reported that President Trump has been presented with a list of potential targets for strikes on Venezuela. It includes sites allegedly linking Nicolás Maduro’s regime to drug trafficking operations, including the Cartel of the Suns—military ports and airports, naval bases, and airstrips.