A key opposition lawmaker risked arrest and returned to Venezuela to lead a protest march through Caracas, just as the government’s branches appeared to form a wall of mutual support against the protests that have plagued the country in the past few weeks.

Conservative congresswoman and activist Maria Corina Machado was greeted by her supporters, after her appearance at the Organization of American States meeting.  She spoke as a guest of Panama, which the head of the legislature says contravenes the constitution, and automatically strips her of congressional immunity from prosecution.  Prosecutors want to charge Machado with encouraging the protests in which at least 32 people on both sides have been killed.

Meanwhile the military released a statement of solidarity with the government of Socialist President Nicolas Maduro, pledging to continue “protecting our people, guarding our homeland's sovereignty and supporting the constitutionally elected president and commander in chief.”

The statement came a day after Maduro announced the arrests of three Air Force Generals for allegedly plotting a coup d’etat.  The generals haven’t been identified, but their contact was allegedly an American-educated lawyer and military analyst.  Rocio San Miguel issued a denial on her Twitter feed reading, “I am a Venezuelan through and through. Nobody can attribute to any crime in my 47 years.”  Her watchdog group, Control Ciudadano, monitors the military.

Maduro’s third wave of support after the congress and military came from the Supreme Court, which this week sentenced an opposition mayor to jail for failing to heed a court order requiring him to protect his town and remove the protesters’ barricades.