Standoff as Venezuelan troops block aid delivery
International pressure mounted against Venezuela’s leader Nicolas Maduro on Sunday, with Washington vowing to take action after opposition efforts to bring humanitarian aid into the country descended into bloody chaos.
Self-declared interim president Juan Guaido called on the international community to consider “all measures to free” Venezuela after clashes at the border crossing left at least two people dead.
Guaido announced he would participate in Monday’s Lima Group meeting of mostly Latin American countries in Bogota, and called on the international community to be prepared for “all possibilities” regarding Maduro.
US Vice-President Mike Pence will represent Washington at the meeting.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US “will take action” as he condemned violence perpetrated by Maduro’s “thugs”.
President Donald Trump has said Washington has not ruled out armed action.
Humanitarian aid, much of it from the US, has become the centreece of the standoff between Maduro and Guaido, the 35-year-old leader of Venezuela’s National Assembly who declared himself interim president a month ago.
The country is gripped by a humanitarian crisis that has seen poverty soar during a prolonged recession and hyperinflation.
Maduro claims the aid is a smokescreen for a US invasion, and has ordered several crossings on Venezuela’s borders with Colombia and Brazil closed.
Two people, including a 14year-old boy, were killed in clashes on Saturday with Venezuelan security forces that left more than 300 people wounded at various border posts.
Guaido had set a Saturday deadline for delivering food and medical aid stockpiled in Colombia and Brazil. Hundreds of Venezuelans were frustrated in their attempts to collect the aid at the Colombian border, where they were pinned back by Maduro’s security forces.
Trucks with aid were prevented from entering the country, and force was used to keep out Venezuelan nationals trying to cross from Colombia carrying aid parcels.
Colombia ordered aid trucks to return from the border after the violence.
International aid is also being held on the Caribbean island of Curacao.
A ship with aid from Puerto Rico was forced to turn back after receiving a “direct threat of fire” from Venezuela’s military, the governor of the US territory Ricardo Rossello said. Canada, a Lima Group member, called on Maduro to allow “safe and unrestricted access” for the humanitarian aid, and said it was deeply concerned by the violence allegedly perpetrated by the Maduro regime aimed a blocking the entry of aid.
Protesters in the border towns of Urena and San Antonio were kept at bay by the Venezuelan National Guard firing tear gas and rubber bullets.
Civil defence officials in Colombia said at least 285 people were wounded in clashes at border bridge crossings.
But the most serious incident came hundreds of kilometres away, at the Santa Elena de Uairen crossing point on the southern border with Brazil where the killings took place. Another 31 people were wounded when Venezuelan troops opened fire on civilians hoping to collect aid across the border with Colombia, according to rights group Foro Penal.
Maduro’s supporters also halted and set ablaze two trucks loaded with aid driven through barricades on a border bridge.
Some Venezuelan National Guard troops however took advantage of the confusion to abandon their posts and cross into Colombia. Guaido has offered amnesty to all security personnel switching sides.
Colombia’s immigration service said at least 60 armed forces members had deserted the “Maduro dictatorship”. –