By Alex Vasquez, Bloomberg News–
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro started closing the nation’s entry points on Thursday and soldiers blocked the movements of National Assembly leader Juan Guaido as opposition supporters prepared to bring humanitarian aid across the borders.
Three buses carrying lawmakers sympathetic to Guaido left Caracas heading for the town on the Colombian border that’s the focus of the aid effort, but were stopped in Carabobo state. Guaido, traveling separately for security reasons, was held up by army trucks blocking a tunnel east of the capital, said Edward Rodriguez, a spokesman.
Maduro, who has said the aid effort is a pretext for a U.S. intervention, also announced that Venezuela’s land crossings with Brazil would shut at 8 p.m., and said he was also weighing “a total closure of the border with Colombia.” He already had sealed off access from Curacao, Aruba and Bonaire.
Maduro’s government and the resurgent opposition are readying for a showdown this weekend over donated food and medicine stockpiled in neighboring Colombia, Brazil and Curacao. Maduro’s government says that the ravaged country has no need of help, despite widespread shortages, while U.S. President Donald Trump has demanded that the Venezuelan military allow the aid in, warning that “all options are open” in the event they refuse.
The neighbor cities of San Antonio de Tachira, Venezuela, and Cucuta, Colombia, have emerged as the arena for a spectacle that mixes entertainment and danger. Dueling concerts, one promoted by Maduro and another by Virgin Atlantic founder Sir Richard Branson, are being planned for Friday on either side of the border. The next morning, Guaido’s supporters — all clad in white — will try to cross four bridges into Venezuela at 9 a.m., opposition official Jose Manuel Olivares said.
Brazil’s foreign ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Venezuela’s decision to close the border. A presidential spokesman said that Brazil did not see any possibility of friction with Venezuela over the issue.
Traditional aid groups have shunned the aid effort, saying basic human needs shouldn’t be tied to politics. But the Trump administration and Guaido’s supporters have made the food an incentive to overthrow Maduro, whose regime has overseen hyperinflation and malnutrition.
On Thursday, lawmaker Delsa Solorzano led the group of her peers aboard the buses.
“We’re on the presidential caravan on our way to the border”, she said in a video posted on her Twitter account. “We’re going for humanitarian aid and for peace.”
Then, the transport was halted.
During a transportation workers’ rally on Wednesday, Guaido called on supporters to march to military installations on Saturday.
“You have three days to follow the order of the president in charge and support the constitution. This help will save lives,” the lawmaker wrote to the military on Twitter.
–With assistance from Samy Adghirni and Oscar Medina.
To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Vasquez in Caracas Office at avasquez45@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Patricia Laya at playa2@bloomberg.net, Fabiola Zerpa, Bruce Douglas
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©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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