Maduro accuses Colombia of plotting attack, alerts military

CARACAS: President Nicolas Maduro ordered Venezuela’s military to hold exercises along the border with Colombia, accusing the neighbouring nation’s president of ploting an atack as tensions mounted Tuesday between the two South American countries.

It was the latest salvo between Maduro and Colombian president ivan du que, who have accused each other in recent days of harboring militants.

“Columbia’s government doesn’t want peace,” Ma du rot old a class of officers in a nationally televised military ceremony. “It wants war. It wants violence.”

Friction escalated in recent days amid a protracted struggle between Maduro and Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who seeks to oust the socialist president with backing from the United States, Colombia and more than 50 other nations.

Venezuela is locked in a crisis marked by hunger and mass migration, which critics blame on more than two decades of socialist mismanagement.

Guaidó, the leader of Venezuela’s oppositionled National Assembly, says he is seeking to end Maduro’s “dictatorship” and argues his re-election in 2018 was a fraud.

Animosity between Colombia and Venezuela flared last week when the former chief negotiator for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia announced in a video that he would take up arms, alleging the Colombian government has failed to uphold a 2016 peace accord.

Duque and Guaidó — firm allies backed by the U.S. administration — both accused Maduro of harboring letist guerrillas in Venezuela.

Addressing his soldiers Tuesday night, Maduro ordered Venezuela’s armed forces to be on alert and called for more than two weeks of maneuvers to start Sept. 10.

The announcement came hours ater Guaidó said he has approved the use of satellites to hunt down guerrillas crossing into Venezuela from neighboring Colombia.

Collaboration has begun between Venezuela’s opposition and Colombian officials to collect intelligence on guerrilla camps and planes that Guaidó said they use to transport drugs. He offered no details, such as who would collect the satellite imagery.