I’ll bring in aid, says leader of Venezuela unrest

JUAN GUAIDO: ‘I’m going to give this order to the armed forces: allow in the humanitarian aid.’ OPPOSITION LEADER Juan Guaido has said he will try to run caravans of badly-needed food and medicine into Venezuela.

Surrounded by thousands of cheering supporters, Mr Guaido set February 23 as the date for bringing in the badly needed US assistance that has been warehoused on the Colombian border since last week, but he provided few details.

More than two million people have fled the country’s soaring hyperinflation and severe food and medical shortages over the last two years. “Right now, I’m going to give this order to the armed forces: allow in the humanitarian aid. That’s an order,” Mr Guaido said in Caracas.

Despite the authoritativesounding assertion, there has been little evidence that the allegiance of the security forces – the country’s key powerbroker – has swung behind Mr Guaido, a virtually unknown politician until last month, when he took the helm of the National Assembly.

Mr Guaido provided few details on how the aid would be brought in from the Colombian border city of Cucuta, except to call for mobilising caravans of Venezuelans – a daring and potentially dangerous manoeuvre that could lead to more violent confrontation with the security forces.

At least 40 people have already been killed in clashes since the 35-year-old declared himself interim president on January 23.

Jose Manuel Olivares, Mr Guaido’s representative in helping lead the aid mission from Colombia, acknowledged the risk, saying he and other politicians plan to be at the front of the February 23 push to get the aid in, even if it means risking their lives.

“We have never told people to do something we are not willing to do,” he said. “We’re going to be there with people taking the risk.”

Diego Moya-Ocampos, a Venezuela analyst with the Londonbased consulting firm IHS Global Insight, said Mr Guaido has gained broad support beyond the middle classes and deep into Venezuela’s slums, once a stronghold of the ruling socialist party.