Humanitarian aid and mobilizations in Venezuela: this is what happens

CÚCUTA, Colombia – With flags and slogans against the government, the Venezuelan opposition has successfully lifted President Nicolás Maduro's blockade at the border to allow at least one truck carrying humanitarian aid from Brazil.

But violence has also erupted on the border with Colombia, a sign of the risks that Maduro's opponents have taken in their campaign to leave power.

The truck with the help went through Paracaima, in the north of Brazil, a brief but symbolic break, to say opponents, with the promise of Maduro not to authorize the step of badistance that ". he has not allowed.

"We have done it," said María Teresa Belandria, Venezuelan opposition leader sent to Brazil Juan Guaidó. "It's a big win."

However, by midday, there was still no sign that he could have crossed other sites of the blockade. And there were problems in mobilization by a pedestrian bridge to Colombia, which escalated into clashes between young protesters and security forces.

This mobilization, in the border town of Ureña, aimed to open a path through which aid could be routed on the pedestrian bridge, but was blocked by the Maduro security forces. Residents attempted to bypbad the blockade and enter the bridge, but Venezuelan security forces fired tear gas dispersing them and clashes left damage and vehicles burned.

Ureña protesters also went to a school with about 100 members of government militias, many of whom have retired. Some joined the demonstrations.

Guaidó, the 35-year-old opposition leader who was inaugurated president of Venezuela in January, said on the Colombian side of the border that he expects more security forces Venezuelans are withdrawing to let the aid pbad.

Earlier Saturday, Guaidó published on Twitter that "several members of the National Guard" guarding the Simón Bolívar bridge, which connects Venezuela and Colombia, had joined the opposition. He published a video showing three men in uniform while he was escorted by a policeman on the Colombian side.

"They decided to side with the people and the Constitution!" Writes Guaidó. "Welcome, the arrival of freedom and democracy in Venezuela is already unstoppable."

In a conflict-like spectacle of aid, Venezuelan security forces near the Brazilian border opened fire on a crowd on Friday, killing two and injuring a dozen.

Friday, at nightfall, the Maduro government added three bridges to the Colombian border on its list of closed sites at the pbad, which includes the borders with Brazil and three Caribbean islands, thus sealing the main points of sea ​​and land entry of the country. Country.

Saturday morning, at dawn, several hundred Venezuelans had gathered in a wasteland near the bridge. Small shopsin Cucuta under a huge flag hanging from a crane. Many slept outdoors in an improvised encampment, while opposition activists organized prayer circles and salsa dancing while demanding the fall of Maduro.

"I know the night has been long, but let's go ahead," said Adolfo Marín, an opposition member. "Do not forget that there is a blockage, but the power of the man is supernatural, believe me, with a small group, we can move these containers."

"Middle and lower clbad soldiers also need this humanitarian aid"Victor Barboza, the camp organizer, said about the security forces on the other side of the bridge." They have children who only eat once a day. They have sisters who can not get drugs for their diseases. "

Border confrontation is one of the most unusual and strained in the history of the region.

Guaidó was already recognized as the president in charge of Venezuela by more than fifty countries, including the United States. He focused his challenge on Maduro on the promise to do what the president refuses to do: open the country, facing a deadly shortage of food and medicine, to international aid shipments.

The White House has been deeply involved in the confrontation, allowing military aid shipments and a rally this week in which US President Donald Trump warned the military to leave Maduro on pain of "losing everything." In response to the deaths on Friday, the White House condemned the use of force by the Maduro government and warned that human rights violations "will not go unpunished" and called on the armed forces to "fulfill their constitutional duty. " protect the citizens of Venezuela "and let the humanitarian convoys pbad.

Maduro says that containers with help are part of a plan that will lead to an American invasion. His government blocked the Las Tienditas bridge with this argument.

Before closing the border with Colombia, Guaidó had managed to visit the country for a concert organized in support of the opposition and sponsored by British billionaire Richard Branson. Guaidó was received as a rock star among the slogans against Maduro.

Guaidó was expected to be among those who would lead the march to cross the bridge, but it was not clear whether the authorities would allow him to return to Venezuela or whether he would be arrested for having challenged a travel ban imposed by the Maduro government.

Some Colombians expressed their sympathy for Guaidó's cause and their solidarity with those on the other side of the border.

"We have come to help Venezuelans," said Claudia Perez, a 38-year-old resident of Cucuta, a town hard hit by the wave of Venezuelans fleeing the country. "We at the border have suffered from the deterioration of public services due to overcrowding and growing insecurity".

On the Venezuelan side of the border, soldiers surveyed said they had low morale. Many said that they were suffering from the same shortage of food as the protesters and that they did not want to shoot them if they broke into the bridge.

But the presence of armed groups called collective has raised concerns about the possibility of violence. They have arrived at the border since Friday morning and mingled with those who support the government.

Jorge Gil, 50, from Guatire, Venezuela, said he went to Cucuta last year, on the death of his wife, suffering from a brain injury and unable to find a drug. While waiting for what would happen on the bridge, he remembered better times in his country.

"My youth has been great," he said. "I loved it a lot, with my kids, I was not rich, but I had a good job."

Recently, he added: "We eat once, sometimes twice a day, after living peacefully with three meals a day and sometimes a stew on a Sunday, we had nothing."

Nicholas Casey and Albinson Linares were reported in Cúcuta, Colombia, and Anatoly Kurmanaev, Ureña, Venezuela. They collaborated with the report Isayen Herrera de Cúcuta; Ana Vanessa Herrero, from Caracas; Ernesto Londoño from Rio de Janeiro, and Megan Specia and Rick Gladstone from New York.

* Copyright: c.2019 New York Times News Service