Venezuela entry points closed
CARACAS: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro yesterday started closing the nation’s entry points and soldiers blocked the movements of National Assembly leader Juan Guaido as opposition supporters prepared to bring humanitarian aid across the borders.
Three buses carrying lawmakers sympathetic to Guaido left Caracas heading for the town on the Colombian border that is the focus of the aid effort, but were stopped in Carabobo state. Guaido, travelling separately for security reasons, was held up by army trucks blocking a tunnel east of the capital, spokesman Edward Rodriguez said.
Maduro, who has said the aid effort is a pretext for a United States intervention, also announced that Venezuela’s land crossings with Brazil would shut at 8pm (local time), and said he was also weighing ‘‘a total closure of the border with Colombia.’’ He already had sealed off access from Curacao, Aruba and Bonaire.
Maduro’s government and the resurgent opposition are readying for a showdown this weekend over donated food and medicine stockpiled in neighboring Colombia, Brazil and Curacao. Maduro’s government says the country has no need of help, despite widespread shortages, while US President Donald Trump has demanded the Venezuelan military allow the aid in, warning that ‘‘all options are open’’ in the event they refuse.
The neighbouring cities of San Antonio de Tachira, Venezuela, and Cucuta, Colombia, have emerged as the arena for a spectacle that mixes entertainment and danger. Duelling concerts, one promoted by Maduro and another by Virgin Atlantic founder Sir Richard Branson, are being planned for today on either side of the border. The next morning, Guaido’s supporters — all clad in white — will try to cross four bridges into Venezuela, opposition official Jose Manuel Olivares said.
Traditional aid groups have shunned the aid effort, saying basic human needs should not be tied to politics. But the Trump administration and Guaido’s supporters have made the food an incentive to overthrow Maduro, whose regime has overseen hyperinflation and malnutrition.
Yesterday, lawmaker Delsa Solorzano led the group of her peers aboard the buses.
‘‘We’re on the presidential caravan on our way to the border,’’ she said in a video posted on her Twitter account. ‘‘We’re going for humanitarian aid and for peace.’’
Then, the transport was halted.
During a transportation workers’ rally on Thursday, Guaido called on supporters to march to military installations tomorrow.
‘‘You have three days to follow the order of the president in charge and support the constitution. This help will save lives,’’ the lawmaker wrote to the military on Twitter. — Bloomberg News