Pressure on Maduro after clashes
CARACAS/WASHINGTON: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro faced growing regional pressure yesterday after his troops repelled foreign aid convoys.
The United States threatened new sanctions and Brazil urged allies to join a ‘‘liberation effort’’.
Violent clashes with security forces over the opposition’s USbacked attempt on Sunday to bring aid into the economically devastated country left almost 300 wounded and at least three protesters dead near the Brazilian border.
Juan Guaido, recognised by most Western nations as Venezuela’s legitimate leader, urged foreign powers to consider ‘‘all options’’ in ousting Maduro, before a meeting of the regional Lima Group of nations in Bogota today, that will be attended by US Vicepresident Mike Pence.
Pence was set to announce ‘‘clear actions’’ at the meeting to address the crisis, a senior US administration official said.
The US last month imposed crippling sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry, squeezing its top source of foreign revenue.
‘‘What happened yesterday is not going to deter us from getting humanitarian aid into Venezuela,’’ the official said.
Brazil, for years a vocal ally of Venezuela while it was ruled by the leftist Workers Party, turned sharply against Maduro this year when farright President Jair Bolsonaro took office.
‘‘Brazil calls on the international community, especially those countries that have not yet recognised Juan Guaido as interim president, to join in the liberation effort of Venezuela,’’ the Brazilian Foreign Ministry said.
Colombian President Ivan Duque denounced Sunday’s ‘‘barbarity’’, saying the summit would discuss ‘‘how to tighten the diplomatic siege of the dictatorship in Venezuela’’.
Maduro says the opposition’s aid efforts are part of a USorchestrated coup.
His information minister, Jorge Rodriguez, yesterday gloated about the opposition’s failure to bring in aid and called Guaido ‘‘a puppet and a used condom’’.
Cuban President Miguel DiazCanel said Venezuela was the victim of US imperialist attempts to restore neoliberalism in Latin America.
Trucks laden with US food and medicine on the Colombian border repeatedly attempted to push past lines of troops on Sunday, but were met with tear gas and rubber bullets. Two of the aid trucks went up in flames, which the opposition blamed on security forces and the government on ‘‘druggedup protesters’’.
The opposition had hoped troops would baulk at turning back supplies so desperately needed by a population increasingly suffering malnutrition and diseases.
Winning over the military is key to their plans to topple Maduro, who they argue won reelection in a fraudulent vote, and hold new presidential elections.
Though some 60 members of security forces defected into Colombia and two to Brazil on Sunday, the National Guard at the frontier crossings held firm.
The Brazilian border state of Roraima said the number of Venezuelans being treated for gunshot wounds rose to 18 from five in the past 24 hours and all 18 were in serious condition. That was the result of constant gunbattles, which included armed men without uniforms, throughout Sunday in the Venezuelan town of Santa Elena, near the border.
The Venezuelan Observatory of Violence said it had confirmed three deaths on Sunday, all in Santa Elena, and at least 295 injured across the country. — Reuters