Venezuela’s Maduro to throw concert rivaling Richard Branson
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Refusing to back down amid a mounting battle over Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis, the government of President Nicolas Maduro announced Monday that it will hold its own huge concert to rival one being organized by a billionaire backer of opposition leader Juan Guaido and import tons of aid from Russia.
Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez said the government will throw a concert Saturday and Sunday on Venezuela’s side of the border — opposite one in Colombia being spearheaded by Richard Branson, the wealthy British adventurer and founder of the Virgin Group.
Stepping up the standoff, Rodriguez also promised to deliver 20,000 boxes of government-subsidized food to the poor in the Colombian border city of Cucuta, where tons of aid from the United States is now sitting earmarked for struggling Venezuelans.
Maduro is vowing not to let the U.S. aid enter Venezuela, and he announced on state television Monday evening that 300 tons of aid would soon arrive from Russia. He said Venezuela paid for the Russian goods and isn’t a country of beggars, lashing out at President Donald Trump for thinking he can force in unwanted assistance.
“They want to enslave us,” Maduro said. “That’s the truth.”
The rival bids for aid and concerts to shore up support are part of a tense bid by both Maduro and the opposition to break Friday’s concert featuring Spanish-French singer Manu Chao, Mexican band Mana, Spanish singer-songwriter Alejandro Sanz and Dominican artist Juan Luis Guerra.
Branson said that it is not funded by any government and that all the artists are performing for free. The plan is to raise donations from viewers watching the concert on a livestream over the internet.
“Venezuela sadly has not become the utopia that the current administration of Venezuela or the past administration were hoping for, and that has resulted in a lot of people literally dying from lack of medical help,” Branson said in a telephone interview from Necker, his private island in the British Virgin Islands. “I think it will draw attention to the problem on a global basis.”
The concert is being held in Cucuta, a city of some 700,000 people that has been swollen by hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who have fled hardships in their homeland.
Branson said he hopes that Venezuela’s armed forces, until now loyal to Maduro, will allow the aid to reach Venezuelans.
“We want to make it a joyous occasion,” Branson said in his first interview since he announced the concert on a brief video posted online last week. “And we’re hoping that sense prevails and that the military allows the bridge to be open so that much-needed supplies can be sent across.”
He said he opposes trying to carry the aid in by force, but clearly favors Guaido in his stando with Maduro.