Tag Archives: Venezuelan military

U.S. sends food, medical aid to Colombia-Venezuela border

People cross into Venezuela over the Simon Bolivar international bridge in Cucuta, Colombia February 4, 2019. REUTERS/Luisa Gonzalez

By Lesley Wroughton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is sending food and medical supplies to Colombia’s border with Venezuela where it will be stockpiled until it can be delivered to the economically shattered nation, U.S. officials with knowledge of the plan said on Tuesday.

One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the aid will be prepositioned at the main Colombian-Venezuelan border crossing at Cucuta.

It is unclear how the supplies will get into Venezuela without the blessing of President Nicolas Maduro and cooperation of the Venezuelan military, which has remained loyal to the socialist leader and is stationed on the Venezuelan side of the border.

The U.S. officials said trucks carrying the humanitarian aid were headed to Cucuta and would arrive later this week at the request of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, who last month declared himself to be the South American nation’s interim president.

Prepositioning aid in warehouses or in truck convoys at border posts for weeks, or sometimes months, is common while officials negotiate the safe passage of humanitarian supplies to those in need. In countries like Myanmar, South Sudan and Syria, aid has often been stockpiled as sides negotiated the terms of allowing aid into areas.

Pressure is growing on Maduro to step down after more than a dozen European Union nations, including Britain, Germany and France, on Monday joined the United States, Canada and a group of Latin American countries in recognizing Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate leader.

However Russia, China and Turkey continue to back Maduro, accusing Western nations of meddling in Venezuela’s internal affairs.

The 35-year-old Guaido, the head of Venezuela’s National Assembly, has galvanized the opposition with a hopeful message. He has repeatedly called on Venezuela’s military, which has remained loyal to Maduro, to support a transition to democracy.

The United States could attempt to seek the approval of the United Nations Security Council to deliver aid without Maduro’s cooperation, but Russia could block such a move.

So far, Maduro has rejected foreign aid. “We are not beggars. You want to humiliate Venezuela, and I will not let our people be humiliated,” he said on Monday.

FLOW OF MIGRANTS

Maduro’s government, overseeing an economic collapse that has prompted 3 million Venezuelans to flee the country, lashed out at the EU nations, saying their move would affect relations with Caracas.

In a statement, it accused them of submitting to a U.S. “strategy to overthrow the legitimate government” and singled out Spain, which had previously led mediation efforts, for acting “cowardly.”

With almost no information about how aid will be distributed, the Cucuta crossing from Venezuela appeared to be quiet on Tuesday.

The largest city along the frontier, Cucuta has borne the brunt of the arriving migrants. Thousands of people cross the pedestrian bridge daily lugging suitcases and plastic bags.

“Maduro doesn’t want help,” said Carolina Rozo, 20, as she crossed the bridge with a wheeled metal shopping cart. “He wants us to be poor. We have to come to buy food because we cannot even get cooking oil and eggs in Venezuela.”

Those who settle in Cucuta are often Venezuela’s poorest.

Others walk and bus hundreds of kilometers to other cities in Colombia, or follow thousands of others to Brazil, Peru, Chile and Argentina.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Additional reporting by Michelle Nicols at the United Nations, Roberta Rampton in Washington, Helen Murphy in Bogota and Anggy Polanco and Nelson Bocanegra in Cucuta; Editing by Paul Simao)

With inflation soaring, Venezuela prices shed five zeros

A 2.4 kg chicken is pictured next to 14,600,000 bolivars, its price and the equivalent of 2.22 USD, at a mini-market in Caracas, Venezuela. It was the going price at an informal market in the low-income neighborhood of Catia. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

By Tibisay Romero

VALENCIA, Venezuela (Reuters) – Venezuela on Monday slashed five zeros from prices as part of a broad economic plan that President Nicolas Maduro says will tame hyperinflation but critics call another raft of failed socialist policies that will push the chaotic country deeper into crisis.

Streets were quiet and shops were closed due to a national holiday that Maduro decreed for the first day of the new pricing plan for the stricken economy, which the International Monetary Fund has estimated will have 1 million percent inflation by year-end.

The price change comes with a 3,000 percent minimum wage hike and tax increases meant to shore up government revenue and a plan to peg salaries, prices and the country’s exchange rate tied to the petro, an elusive state-backed cryptocurrency.

Economists say the plan announced on Friday is likely to escalate the crisis facing the once-prosperous country that is now suffering from Soviet-style product shortages and a mass exodus of citizens fleeing for nearby South American countries.

Venezuelans are mostly baffled by the monetary overhaul and skeptical it will turn the country around.

“This is out of control, prices are sky high,” said Betzabeth Linares, 47, in a supermarket in the central city of Valencia. “What worries me is how we’ll eat, the truth is that the way things are going, I really don’t know.”

After a decade-long oil bonanza that spawned a consumption boom in the OPEC member, many poor citizens are now reduced to scouring through garbage to find food as monthly salaries currently amount to a few U.S. dollars a month.

The new measures spooked shopkeepers already struggling to stay afloat due to hyperinflation, government-set prices for goods ranging from flour to diapers, and strict currency controls that crimp imports.

Growing discontent with Maduro has also spread to the military as soldiers struggle to get enough food and many desert by leaving the country, along with hundreds and thousands of civilians who have emigrated by bus across South America.

Two high-ranking military officers were arrested this month for their alleged involvement in drone explosions during a speech by Maduro, who has described it as an assassination attempt.

The chaos has become an increasing concern for the region. In recent days, Ecuador and Peru have tightened visa requirements for Venezuelans, and violence drove hundreds of Venezuelan migrants back across the border with Brazil on Saturday.

Maduro, re-elected to a second term in May in a vote widely condemned as rigged, says his government is the victim of an “economic war” led by political adversaries with the help of Washington and accuses the United States of seeking to overthrow him.

The United States has denied the accusations. But it has described the former bus driver and union leader as a dictator and levied several rounds of financial sanctions against his government and top officials.

(Writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Alexandra Ulmer and Susan Thomas)