Guaido tells Venezuela police to stay away from his family

The Venezuelan opposition leader challenging Nicolas Maduro’s claim to the presidency warned officers from a feared state security unit Thursday to stay away from his family after he accused them of showing up at his apartment in a tense brush with the very force he is trying to persuade to switch allegiance and back him.

A visibly flustered but determined Juan Guaido told a crowd gathered at a university that members of a special police unit known for its brutal tactics had gone to his high-rise apartment in a middle-class neighborhood of Caracas while his 20-month-old daughter was inside.

“I hold you responsible for anything that might happen to my baby,” the 35-year-old lawmaker said as his wife stood beside him.

He rushed home and emerged an hour later holding his smiling daughter, named for Francisco de Miranda, a Venezuelan patriot who paved the way for Venezuela’s independence, and described how four agents from the police’s Special Action Force had arrived at the building and asked security guards stationed there for his wife.

“Children are sacred,” he admonished the agents as a crowd of supporters applauded. “Wives are sacred. So don’t cross that red line.”

In a statement on Twitter, Venezuela’s police denied that special agents had gone to Guaido’s home, dismissing the claim as “totally FALSE.”

Guaido is at the center of Venezuela’s political upheaval as he presses forward with establishing a transitional government after swearing himself in as the nation’s rightful president in a move denounced by Maduro as a U.S.-backed coup.

In a country where the socialist leader’s foes often end up behind bars, Guaido has thus far managed to avoid arrest, but in recent days authorities have let it be known that even as his powerful international support grows, Guaido isn’t untouchable.

On Tuesday, the government-stacked Supreme Court barred Guaido from leaving the country and froze his bank accounts while chief prosecutor Tarek William Saab, a Maduro ally, conducts an investigation into his anti-government activities.

“Once more they are playing the intimidation game,” Guaido said. “They’re not going to succeed in intimidating this Venezuelan family.”

Even while denouncing the special police force, Guaido appealed to them and the military to abandon Maduro and abide by the Constitution, which he contends instructs him as leader of the opposition-controlled National Assembly to take the presidency. The opposition and a large segment of the international community consider Maduro’s reelection fraudulent, in part because the president’s most popular adversaries were barred from running.

“You have time to put yourselves on the right side of history,” Guaido said.

U.S. officials, who have warned Maduro will face “serious consequences” if he harms Guaido, denounced the incident as a disgraceful intimidation tactic.

“Regime resorts to targeting a 20-month-old baby,” Kimberly Breier, the current U.S. assistant secretary of state for the region, wrote on Twitter. “Shame on you Maduro.”

Later Thursday, Guaido told The Associated Press that he will defy a government ban on humanitarian aid by sending large convoys of medicine into the country with the help of neighboring nations. He said the move will be a “new test” for Venezuela’s military.

“In a few weeks they will have to choose if they let much needed aid into the country, or if they side with Nicolas Maduro,” Guaido said.

Guaido explained that aid for Venezuela will include life-saving medicines that are scarce in Venezuela and will be transported by vehicles arriving at several border points, after it is shipped into “friendly ports” in neighboring countries.