Cucuta, Colombia, Feb 23 (EFE).- Venezuela’s National Police on Saturday impeded a human cordon that formed on a border crossing to accompany several trucks carrying humanitarian aid from this northeastern Colombia city.



In blocking the aid deliveries, the security forces fired tear gas at hundreds of civilians who had taken up positions on the Simon Bolivar International Bridge in the early-morning hours.



The civilians, who had demanded that the aid be allowed to cross and also called on the police to abandon their posts, responded by throwing rocks at the security forces.



Colombia’s police did not intervene in the conflict and remained positioned at the Migracion Colombia (migration agency) posts set up on that bridge to control the movement of people and goods across the border.



Several members of the National Police who were assigned to that border crossing deserted on Saturday and crossed over to the Colombian side of the frontier.



Several Colombian police escorted their Venezuelan counterparts to the other side amid the applause of Venezuelans gathered in the area.

 Migracion Colombia confirmed that at least 11 members of Venezuela’s National Guard and two police deserted on Saturday amid the attempts to deliver humanitarian aid from Colombia to Venezuela, which has been racked by severe food and medicine shortages and hyperinflation.



“At this time, Migracion Colombia, in Norte de Santander province, is expediting interviews with 10 members of the Venezuelan National Guard and two women with the Bolivarian National Police who arrived in the country fleeing Nicolas Maduro’s dictatorship,” that migration agency said.



One other member of Venezuela’s security forces deserted and crossed the border into the northeastern Colombian province of Arauca, according to the official report.



These isolated instances notwithstanding, the vast majority of Venezuela’s armed forces have remained loyal to leftist President Nicolas Maduro.



Separately, Venezuelan authorities on Saturday blocked the entry of trucks being used to carry humanitarian aid over two other border crossings – the Francisco de Paula Santander and Tienditas bridges.



They fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators on both of those bridges.



The speaker of Venezuela’s opposition-led National Assembly, Juan Guaido, who proclaimed himself interim president last month, traveled to Cucuta on Friday for a massive aid concert organized by British businessman Richard Branson and also to receive the international humanitarian aid stockpiled in Colombia.



He said Saturday that the trucks carrying the aid from Colombia were already in Venezuelan territory but that the leftist government was impeding their advance.



“The usurper regime is blocking (the trucks). They can’t deal with our irreversible decision to live in freedom,” Guaido wrote on Twitter.



The opposition leader said earlier Saturday that humanitarian aid trucks had entered Venezuela via that country’s border with Brazil.



Maduro has ordered both of those borders closed, saying that the humanitarian aid is a Trojan horse for a US-led military intervention.



Venezuela’s opposition, as well as the United States and much of the international community, regards Maduro’s May 2018 re-election victory to be fraudulent.



The US has also imposed severe sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry in a bid to expedite regime change.



The major European nations – save Italy – also are among the roughly 50 governments that have recognized Guaido.



Several dozen other countries, including Russia, China and India, continue to recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s president. </s> President Nicólas Maduro's regime continues to prevent humanitarian aid from reaching its people by blocking off a bridge that connects Venezuela and Colombia.

The ruling socialist party dumped another shipping container on the Venezuelan side of the Simón Bolívar International Bridge early Thursday morning, adding to the two already there.

Video images show the moment workers operating a tractor fill up three storage containers with sand.

The containers were reportedly welded together to stop opposition and international groups removing them.

Colombian officials have raised concerns over the 300-meter long bridge, which was opened in 1962.

The bridge once served as a primary trade route between the South American neighboring countries before Maduro shut it down to vehicles in 2015.

The sand-filled containers have added an additional 30 tons of dead weight to the Simón Bolívar International Bridge.

The Colombian government is afraid the structure that connects the city of Cúcuta with the Venezuelan state of Táchira could collapse, if Maduro and his regime don't back down.

On Friday, the United States Department of Treasury issued sanctions against six Venezuelan security officials loyal to the embattled leader for blocking off the delivery of the humanitarian aid on February 23.

It sparked off a showdown between forces loyal to Maduro and supporters of the opposition.

Maduro's regime was accused of burning down two trucks filled with food and medical supplies at the Francisco de Paula Santander Bridge connecting Colombia and Venezuela.

The sanctions targeted Richard Jesús Lopez, the Major General and the Commanding General of the Venezuelan National Guard; Jesús María Mantilla, the Major General and the Commander of Strategic Integral Defense in the Guayana region; Alberto Mirtiliano Bermúdez, the Division General for the Integral Defense Zone in the state of Bolivar; and José Leonardo Norono, the Division General and Commander for the Integral Defense Zone in Táchira.

Also named were José Miguel Domínguez, the Chief Commissioner of the Special Unite Force in Táchira; and Cristhiam Abelardo Morales, the Director of the National Police and a Colonel within the National Guard.

'Maduro's border blockades of trucks and ships loaded with humanitarian aid are the latest example of his illegitimate regime weaponizing the delivery of food and critically needed supplies in order to control vulnerable Venezuelans,' Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said in a statement.

'We are sanctioning members of Maduro's security forces in response to the reprehensible violence, tragic deaths, and unconscionable torching of food and medicine destined for sick and starving Venezuelans.'

The Trump administration, which is fully supporting Juan Guaidó as interim president, also issued a round of sanctions on four pro-government governors, including a close Maduro ally who negotiated the release of an American in jail more than two years.

While meeting with the Lima Group and Guaidó in Colombia, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence urged regional partners to freeze oil assets controlled by Maduro, transfer the proceeds to Guaidó and restrict visas for Maduro's inner circle.

'It's time to do more,' said Pence. 'The day is coming soon when Venezuela's long nightmare will end, when Venezuela will once more be free, when her people will see a new birth of freedom, in a nation reborn to liberated.' </s> Volunteers make a human chain to prepare for the arrival of aid at the foot of the Simón Bolívar International Bridge near Cúcuta, Colombia, on Feb. 23, 2019.

It started with smiling faces waving white roses and strangers linking arms with one another on Saturday. Then, thousands of supporters of Juan Guaidó, Venezuela’s self-proclaimed interim president, climbed aboard flatbeds loaded with bags of rice, bandages and wheelchairs for their compatriots in need. Others swarmed the cabs. The engines started. With blazing sunlight beating down on them, they headed for the border.

This is the scene of the Venezuelan opposition’s challenge to strongman, and current President, Nicolas Maduro’s legitimacy. In a sticky, humid valley speckled with palm trees and dusty yellow roads, thousands of Venezuelans prepared to join caravans hauling tons of aid destined for their counterparts on the other side of the Venezuela-Colombia border.

“The idea is to talk to them first,” said 33-year-old Elio Herrera from the Tienditas bridge outside of Cúcuta, Colombia, home to the opposition’s main headquarters and where the aid was stored in warehouses. The Tienditas bridge is one of the bridges where the opposition hoped to ferry aid, but didn’t try because of the blockade. “We hope they won’t impede. The military over there is suffering just as much as all of Venezuela. If they do block us, then they’re basically complicit in a murder.”

The chance to talk seems to have passed. After arriving at the border crossings, this U.S.-backed effort to deliver tons of aid to relieve Venezuelans reeling from a political and economic crisis quickly devolved into violent clashes along the outskirts of Cúcuta, on Venezuela’s western border. At least 86 people were reported injured, according to Colombia’s National Disaster Unit. Two others were reported dead in a separate clash on the Venezuela-Brazil border.

At the border, aid caravans pressed through crowds along narrow two-lane bridges. But their momentum was halted when the Venezuelan army blocked the pass and fired canisters of tear gas into the trucks’ path. Protesters gathered and swarmed, clogging the crossings.

Atop one of the flatbeds, 29-year-old Neyerson Cisneros from Caracas insisted he would wait out the regime’s resistance for as long as it takes to get the aid in. “Depends,” he told TIME. “Four? Five? Six days? We’ll stay here until the aid gets in.”

“We’re tired of this Maduro staying in power,” said 27-year-old Yesica, an aid activist from Barquisimeto, as her fellow marcher piled rocks into the remains of a beat-up suitcase. He then dragged his load toward the center of Simon Bolivar bridge, another site of an attempted aid crossing, where others slung bricks and buried their faces in rags to fend off tear gas canisters returned by Venezuelan security forces.

Relentlessly the activists fought as the aid sat under canvas tarps and shouting buried the idling truck engines.

“We don’t want any more dictatorship,” said 35-year-old William Leal from Tachira state in Venezuela. “We don’t have anything. We’re dying from hunger.”

“They blocked us off,” 24-year-old Yondri from Caracas said about the aid impasse as he squinted through a homemade blue balaclava. “But we’ll keep fighting. We’re not going to give up that easily.”

Guaidó said on Saturday: “We’re not going to rest. We’re keeping all our cards on the table.”

Both sides seemed to dig in for what could be a prolonged confrontation. And yet fighting was never the plan.

Opposition leader Guaidó broke a travel ban Friday evening and crossed into Colombia. There, he joined Colombian President Iván Duque and Chilean President Sebastian Piñera to rally anti-Maduro supporters, in what he hoped would be a peaceful delivery of aid to opposition members on the other side of the border. He called for the military backing Maduro to rebel against the installed President’s orders, something he and other opposition leaders have appealed for in recent weeks.

“It’s clearly a loyalty test where the opposition, with the help of the United States, is throwing everything they’ve got, hoping Maduro will fall,” says Geoff Ramsey, assistant director of the Venezuela program at the Washington Office of Latin America.

Guaidó’s hope was that Venezuelan security forces guarding the border checkpoints would defect en masse once the aid trucks arrived at the border. Although some military figures did defect on Saturday, the strategy of triggering widespread defections seems to have been stymied.

“Their thrust is to turn more military figures. But the military who are truly positioned to remove Maduro seem to be staying with him,” added Ramsey.

Over 3 million have fled their homes since 2014 to escape Maduro’s Venezuela, where the right to dissent is illegal and its economy is plagued by obscene hyperinflation. A minimum wage monthly salary fails to buy even a bottle of breastmilk formula.

Elected in 2013, Maduro insists the crisis is manufactured, economic warfare authored by the United States. He points to U.S. sanctions on his loyalists and the state oil company as evidence.

Meanwhile, opposition leaders point to a slow disintegration of democratic institutions starting with Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s charismatic predecessor. Chávez was elected to office in 1998 and promoted a socialist project he hoped would spread throughout the continent. Although extreme poverty and infant mortality fell during his term, Chávez’s unbridled spending on social programs and mismanagement of the country’s currency set the stage for instability. In 2014, one year after Chávez’s death, Venezuela’s oil-based economy collapsed when the price of crude oil bottomed out.

That collapse is what Guaidó is trying to leverage against Maduro. In January, as the leader of Venezuela’s parliament, Guaidó invoked authority embedded in the country’s constitution and declared himself interim President. His touted goal is to lead a transition where Maduro would step down from power and hold free and fair elections.

Saturday’s clashes were reminiscent of earlier protests between anti-Maduro opposition and pro-government Chavistas. In 2017, clashes left 165 dead and the affair deepened hostilities on both sides, when neither would accept responsibility for the deaths.

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump declared the “twilight of socialism” and urged Venezuelan military to abandon Maduro or “lose everything.” Maduro fired rebukes that the aid operation is a “show” and calls the caravans a trojan horse loaded with “contaminated” food. More, he defended his belief that Guaidó’s support for the aid is part of a U.S. conspiracy to invade Venezuela.

Trump and his advisors have hinted that a military option is on the table. “The problem is that (military involvement) could very easily lead to conflict,” says Ramsey.

“People like to point to Panamá or Granada,” he says, referring to swift and short-lived U.S. military interventions in the Western hemisphere. “But this could turn into Libya or Iraq.”

A clash on Saturday between pro-opposition aid backers and the Venezuelan National Guard on Ureña bridge, north of Cúcuta caused aid to burn. Black smoke billowed into the blue sky. The number of injured rose from the confrontations and opposition leaders called their aid trucks back to the warehouses. International humanitarian organizations like the UNHCR and Oxfam condemned Venezuelan opposition leaders for politicizing the aid effort.

Some pro-opposition marchers want to get more political. They think military intervention is the way to go.

“We feel like France in the second World War when they were waiting for the Allies to come,” said Carlos Molina Tamayo, a former Venezuelan admiral living in exile after participating in a failed attempt to remove Chavez from power in 2002.

TIME asked the former admiral what would happen if the aid doesn’t get allowed in.

“The next step is international intervention with military force to protect the humanitarian aid,” he says, his graying hair waving in the strong breeze on Tienditas bridge this afternoon.

“It’s going to be like rock n’ roll.” </s> Sen. Marco Rubio and coup leaders claim the Venezuelan National Guard burned US aid trucks on the bridge in Colombia. But all available evidence points in the opposite direction.The Trump administration's coup against Venezuela culminated on February 23 with US-backed opposition attempting to ram several trucks loaded with boxes of USAID "humanitarian aid" across the previously unused Francisco de Paula Santander bridge (also know as the Puente Binacional Tienditas) connecting Colombia to Venezuela.The trucks failed to reach the other side - but that was never really the point of the stunt. As Father Sergio Munoz, a right-wing Venezuelan activist posted on the Colombian side of the border, explained to journalist Dan Cohen , the humanitarian "aid" was a purely symbolic provocation aimed at discrediting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in international eyes and generating waves of destabilizing violence.By the end of the day, the trucks lined up on the Francisca de Paula Santander bridge were flanked by gangs of guarimberos.These were the nihilistic masked youth who form the shock troops of the right-wing opposition, and who placed Caracas under siege with violent barricade protests, known as guarimbas, at several points between 2014 and 2017. A mob of guarimberos burned to death Orlando Figuera, a 22-year old black Venezuelan accused of supporting Maduro, on an eastern Caracas street in broad daylight, back in June 2017.On the Santander bridge this February 23, the guarimberos rained down a hail of rocks and molotov cocktails on Venezuelan national guardsmen holding the line against the USAID trucks. Suddenly, the trucks caught fire and the masked youth began unloading boxes of aid before they burned. Within minutes, pro-opposition media reported that the Venezuelan national guard forces were responsible for the fires.A reporter for the private anti-government channel NTN24 claimed without evidence that the Venezuelan security forces had caused the fires with tear gas:The claim was absurd on its face. I have personally witnessed tear gas canisters hit every kind of vehicle imaginable in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, and I have never seen a fire like the one that erupted on the Santander bridge.In 2013, the San Bernadino Sheriff's Department deployed special incendiary teargas canisters ("burners") to torch the house where fugitive cop killer Chris Dorner had holed up. But it is highly unlikely that the Venezuelan national guardsmen had anything like this weapon in their arsenal when they confronted the rioters on February 23.The total lack of evidence of Venezuelan culpability did not stop Cuban-American Senator Marco Rubio from tweeting this accusation from nearby in Cucuta, Colombia:Sen. Dianne Feinstein , who is facing calls for her own resignation after video appeared of her condescendingly browbeating a group of environmentalist children, repeated Rubio's baseless allegation, using it to call for Maduro to step down.Yet neither he nor anyone in the "whole world" had seen the national guard set the fire, as he claimed. In fact, the evidence pointed in the exact opposite direction, suggesting that the masked opposition youth had torched the trucks themselves.Colombian writer Humberto Ortiz produced footage from a pro-opposition channel showing what appears to be the exact moment when a guarimbero sets the aid on fire with a molotov cocktail:Telesur reporter Madelein Garcia published photographs showing a guarimbero with a gas canister next to one of the burning trucks:Meanwhile, the International Red Cross issued a statement condemning Venezuelan opposition activists disguising themselves as Red Cross workers - a blatant breach of humanitarian protocol. A screenshot from pro-opposition NTN24 coverage shows a fake Red Cross worker near one of the burning trucks:Days ago, self-proclaimed interim president Juan Guaido announced that he would lead a "human wave" across the bridge and into Venezuela. But as darkness fell on February 23, Guaido found himself at a stormy press conference with other right-wing, US-aligned Latin American leaders. By his side was Colombian President Ivan Duque, who repeated thethat Venezuelan security forces had burned the aid trucks.Having failed miserably at every phase of the coup he had attempted engineer, Rubio ended the day with a Twitter tantrum that peaked with a call for " multilateral actions " against Venezuela's government. What form that action could take is still unclear, but it will certainly be justified by a series of baseless claims about what took place on the Santander bridge. </s> The Venezuelan National Guard (GNB) clashed with citizens in Urena, Venezuela, on the border with Colombia.

Protesters threw projectiles at the armed forces, who replied by firing in their directions.

The armed forces closed a road to control the border and prevent humanitarian aid, which has been stockpiled for days on the Colombian side of the border, to enter Venezuela.

The aid has been sent by Colombia and the US to help Venezuelan citizens, who are suffering from widespread shortages of food and medicine caused by an economic crisis.

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro denies that the country is economically struggling and has refused that aid crosses the border into Venezuela, shutting the country's border with Brazil and blocking the border with Colombia with shipping containers. </s> The standoff for humanitarian aid for Venezuela turned deadly Friday when a woman of an indigenous group was killed and another dozen injured after clashes with security forces at a border town with Brazil.

The victim was identified as Zoraida Rodriguez, a member of the Pemon ethnic group that clashed with the Venezuela National Guard and army, who were moving tanks near the border town of Gran Sabana, Mayor Emiliano Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez said that while soldiers fired rubber bullets and tear gas, Rodriguez was shot dead during the clashes. The injured people were taken for medical treatment.

There was no immediate information on the condition of the injured, though television news showed images of three men on gurneys being treated for bloody wounds.

GUAIDO'S TRUCKS CLASH WITH MADURO'S MILITARY IN ATTEMPT TO FORCE AID INTO VENEZUELA

The violence came a day after embattled President Nicolas Maduro ordered the border with Brazil closed to prevent aid from neighboring countries to enter Venezuela. He also blocked air and sea travel between Venezuela and the nearby Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao, where the first cargo of relief supplies arrived earlier that day.

Maduro denies any humanitarian crisis exists, and the plan to bring in aid is one of the most ambitious — and potentially dangerous — the opposition has attempted since opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself interim president in January.

"We're not beggars," he said. "What the U.S. empire is doing with its puppets is an internal provocation. They wanted to generate a great national commotion, but they didn't achieve it."

US SAYS IT WILL DELIVER AID BLOCKED BY VENEZUELA, SETTING UP CONFRONTATION WITH MADURO REGIME

The deadly clashes were not the only to turn violent in Venezuela over humanitarian aid.

Trucks driven by Guaido supporters nearly rammed into a blockade by security forces in an attempt to reach aid in Colombia.

Images showed a red truck trying to forcefully pass through a checkpoint in Mariara, in northern Venezuela a few hours outside of Caracas, on Thursday as the security forces appeared to stand their ground.

The national guardsmen in anti-riot gear positioned a trailer truck in front of a tunnel, blocking the highway westward. A shouting match and scuffle ensured, with the guardsmen firing tear cag before the lawmakers eventually forced their way through and resumed their journey.

VENEZUELA TO CLOSE BORDER WITH BRAZIL AMID MADURO'S REFUSAL OF HUMANITARIAN AID

The truck is part of a cross-country caravan led by Guiado for the border with Colombia, where much of the U.S.-supplied aid is warehoused. Guaido has called for thousands of ordinary Venezuelans to assemble at the Colombian border on Saturday to help bring the aid across.

Meanwhile, dueling concerts began on the country's western border with Colombia, where much of the U.S.-supplied aid is being stored in a warehouse.

British billionaire and adventurer Richard Branson is sponsoring a Live Aid-style concert featuring dozens of musicians including Latin rock star Juanes on one side of a crossing that Colombian officials have renamed the "Unity Bridge," while Maduro's socialist government is promising a three-day festival deemed "Hands Off Venezuela" on the other.

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The Trump administration said it's sent nearly 200 metric tons of humanitarian assistance over the past two weeks to the Colombian-Venezuelan border for distribution inside Venezuela.

The U.S. Agency for International Development said Friday that about 191 tons of relief supplies have been delivered to a depot in Cucuta, Colombia since Feb. 4. That includes food for 2,000 people for a month and medical material such as hygiene kits, wheelchairs, crutches, bandages, and examination gloves.

The Associated Press contributed to this report </s> CUCUTA, Colombia/URENA, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan troops fired tear gas at angry protesters unable to cross into Colombia on Saturday after President Nicolas Maduro closed the border to stop the opposition bringing U.S. humanitarian aid into the South American nation.

Demonstrators set up barricades and burned tires in the Venezuelan border town of Urena, as attention turned to whether National Guard troops stationed at the border crossing would fulfill Maduro’s orders to block humanitarian aid from reaching a sick and hungry population.

Four National Guard troops at the frontier disavowed Maduro’s socialist government on Saturday, following an appeal from Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido to let aid through.

A social media video showed the troops driving armored vehicles across a bridge linking the two countries, knocking over metal barricades in the process, and then jumping out of the vehicles and running to the Colombian side.

“Among the troops, whether they are in the army, air force, navy or National Guard, many people disagree (with what is happening),” one of the troops, an officer whose uniform carried the name Linarez, told reporters after entering Colombia, according to another video on social media. “You can’t say anything against the government. It’s treason.”

Colombia’s migration authority confirmed the defection of the four Venezuelan soldiers.

Leaders of Venezuela’s ruling Socialist Party call the aid effort a veiled invasion backed by Washington, and insist that the United States should instead help Venezuela by lifting crippling financial and oil sector sanctions.

Venezuela’s opposition says that while the need for basic food and medicines is desperate, the aid operation is also meant to embarrass military officers who continue to support Maduro’s increasingly isolated government.

Demonstrators in Urena who blocked roads and burned tires also threw rocks at security forces who responded with volleys of tear gas.

The troops had earlier blocked people from crossing the border into Cucuta, where many Venezuelans now work, shop or send their children to school amid Venezuela’s continued economic collapse.

“We were all going to work. We want to work: the people attempted to force their way through,” said Viviana Meza, 29, who works in a Cucuta restaurant.

Guaido, recognized by most Western nations as Venezuela’s legitimate head of state, defied court orders not to leave the country when he traveled on Friday to Cucuta, where aid from the U.S. and Colombian governments is stockpiled in warehouses.

Guaido was due to hold a news conference with the presidents of Colombia, Chile and Paraguay in Cucuta on Saturday morning before escorting the aid toward the border on foot.

A line of heavy trucks packed with aid supplies waited to attempt the crossing, in front of rows of television cameras.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton canceled plans to travel to South Korea to prepare for a summit addressing North Korea’s nuclear program in order to focus instead on events unfolding in Venezuela, his spokesman said on Friday.

“To Maduro’s military cronies attacking civilians at the Brazilian border - the world is watching and the perpetrators will face justice,” Bolton wrote on Twitter. “The Venezuelan military should protect civilians, not shoot them.

Guaido, 35, head of the opposition-run Congress, has provided few details on the transport plan. Trucks are expected to be driven by Venezuelan volunteers and some opposition figures have suggested forming human chains.

Maduro blames the country’s dire situation on U.S. sanctions that have blocked the country from obtaining financing and have hobbled the OPEC nation’s oil industry.

Concerns about the potential for violence flared on Friday when the Venezuelan army opened fire in an village near the Brazilian border after indigenous leaders attempted to prevent them from advancing, killing a woman and her husband.

The U.S. government condemned the killings.

The U.S. envoy for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, who traveled to Cucuta on Friday, called them “a crime and a disgrace”, while the U.S. State Department said “egregious violation of human rights by Maduro and those who are following his orders will not go unpunished.”

Venezuelan troops on Saturday morning had blocked the Brazilian border despite protests by villagers in the nearby town of Santa Elena de Uairen who burned a bus, a truck and a National Guard office overnight.

“The situation is critical and we should be all united to allow the aid to pass,” said shopkeeper Jeremy Ortega, 21.

Brazil sent two small trucks with food and medicine to the border on Saturday, after the border closure foiled its plan to have more Venezuelans drive vehicles to pick up the 200 tonnes of aid it has stockpiled in the northern city of Boa Vista.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo urged Venezuela’s military to let the trucks in.

Nearly 200,000 people attended a benefit concert in Cucuta on Friday featuring Latin pop stars, including Luis Fonsi of “Despacito” fame, many of whom called on Maduro to step down.

A rival concert held by the ruling Socialist Party on the Venezuelan side was sparsely attended.

Guaido in January invoked articles of the constitution to assume interim presidency and denounced Maduro as a usurper, arguing his 2018 re-election was illegitimate. </s> Image copyright AFP Image caption Thousands of people are fleeing the worsening economic crisis in Venezuela

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has demanded Venezuela open a bridge on the Colombian border for an aid shipment organised by the opposition.

Venezuelan soldiers have blocked the crossing ahead of a delivery arranged by opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who has declared himself interim president.

President Nicolás Maduro, who has the support of the army, has rejected letting it into the country.

In a tweet, Mr Pompeo demanded Mr Maduro let the aid through.

"The Maduro regime must LET THE AID REACH THE STARVING PEOPLE," the post reads.

Venezuela is in the grip of a worsening humanitarian crisis.

Mr Guaidó is head of Venezuela's National Assembly and says the constitution allows him to assume power temporarily when the president is deemed illegitimate.

He has secured the backing of over 40 countries, including the US and most Latin American and European nations. Mr Maduro still has the support of China and Russia.

What is happening at the border?

The Venezuelan military had used a tanker truck and cargo containers to block access to the Tienditas bridge which links Cúcuta, Colombia to Ureña, Venezuela, opposition politician Franklyn Duarte told AFP news agency.

"Troops from the armed forces are blocking the pass", he said. The bridge, a joint project between Colombia and Venezuela, was finished in 2016 but never opened as relations between the two neighbours had soured.

Image copyright AFP Image caption Opposition leader Juan Guiadó claims up to 300,000 people face death if the aid is not delivered

Venezuelan opposition leaders appealed to the military to allow aid trucks to cross the border.

"You know there's a red line, you know well there's a limit, you know that medicines, food and medical supplies are that limit," said lawmaker Miguel Pizarro.

Pictures shared on social media appeared to show residents confronting soldiers in Ureña.

Mr Maduro said humanitarian aid would be the start of a US-led invasion, insisting that "no-one will enter, not one invading soldier".

How will the aid scheme work?

Mr Guaidó does not control any territory in Venezuela so, instead, he is planning to set up collection centres in neighbouring countries where Venezuelans have fled to.

He said he wanted to set up an international coalition to gather aid at three points, and press Venezuela's army to let it into the country.

In a tweet on Sunday, US National Security Adviser John Bolton said plans were being advanced.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said in an interview the use of military force remained "an option".

In his State of the Union speech, he reiterated his support for Mr Guaidó, saying: "We stand with the Venezuelan people in their noble quest for freedom."

Correction 25 February 2019: This article has been amended to make clear that while construction of Tienditas Bridge was completed in 2016, it was never opened due to worsening relations between Venezuela and Colombia. </s> This story was originally published in Spanish by Rolling Stone Colombia‘s editors. Read the original Spanish version here.

Update 2/23/18: The moment of music had long passed, and now it was nearing 7 a.m. on Saturday and the Colombian authorities were preparing to pass humanitarian aid to Venezuela. The night before, however, Delcy Rodríguez, vice president of Venezuela, announwced the closure of the Simón Bolívar, Unión and Santander bridges for “the serious and illegal threats attempted by the Government of Colombia against La Paz.”

By 8 a.m., members of the Bolivarian National Guard had already deserted, but Venezuelan soldiers, who prevented their passage to their country, guarded the same border. In Ureña, one of the municipalities closest to the Colombian-Venezuelan border, there were protests and clashes between citizens — who demanded the passage of humanitarian aid — and the military that was preventing it.

Colombia’s president, Iván Duque, handed aid over to Juan Guaidó, Venezuela’s opposition leader, at a press conference, and Guaidó said: “We ask the Venezuelan military to stand on the right side and receive their brothers who are taking help to serve the people of Venezuela.” The tractors that loaded all the supplies arrived at the Simón Bolívar bridge, where hundreds of volunteers were preparing to pass humanitarian aid through a human chain.

During a demonstration in Caracas, Nicolás Maduro announced that he was breaking political and diplomatic relations with Colombia, giving all diplomatic personnel 24 hours to leave Venezuela. As the hours wore on, there were reports that at least 23 members of the Venezuelan military and police defected at the borders. Convoys of trucks carrying food aid and medical supplies set off for Venezuela from border towns in Colombia and Brazil. Volunteers, protestors and opposition leaders were met with teargas and rubber bullets, and at least three aid trucks near the Colombian border were burned.

CÚCUTA, COLOMBIA 2/22/18 — Friday’s Venezuela Aid Live, according to its website (where people can still donate), sought to bring humanitarian aid that’s in Colombia across the border to reach the most-affected Venezuelans, raise awareness of the situation in Venezuela and raise funds for a social development plan with which expatriates could return to their country.

Reymar Perdomo opened the concert with “Me Fui,” a song that has become a hymn for Venezuelan expatriates with a video that went viral in Latin America. Perdomo is Venezuelan and has been living in Lima, Peru, playing and singing in buses.

After the performance, Richard Branson, founder of Virgin and organizer of the festival, gave a speech in which he thanked the attendees for being in Cúcuta to celebrate the lives of all Venezuelans. “If we can take people into space, why is it so difficult to get people out of poverty?” he said. People chanted: “Richard, Richard, Richard!” To speed up the change of artists on the stage, there was a revolving platform: As the musicians were playing on one side, the instruments of the next were mounted.

Jose Luis Rodriguez, “El Puma,” came out and started with a very clear message. “Thanks to dear Colombia and the United States,” he said, adding, “Enough of left-wing dictatorships in Latin America!” Already the political game was installed from the beginning. He sang “Agárrense las manos/Hold Your Hands” with an instrumental track and no band.

Reinaldo Armas, Cholo Valderrama and Jorge Glem arrived to dance at the tip of llanera music. Then came Jencarlos Canela with his success “Bajito,” while improvising phrases that invited people to donate, and Danny Ocean, wearing a T-shirt that depicted Mandela eating arepa, started dancing with “Dembow” and “Me rehúso/I refuse.”

Later in the afternoon, the most anticipated names came out. Paulina Rubio brought her pop and Diego Torres sang, as would be expected, “Color Esperanza/Color of Hope.” Silvestre Dangond started the party again and Maluma, accompanied only on guitar, followed in the midst of shouts from fans.

Miguel Bosé, who was at the border 11 years ago for the Concert for Peace that Juanes organized, filled the Tienditas Bridge with emotion and tears. Then, Carlos Baute landed with “Te regalo” and, obviously, “Yo me quedo en Venezuela (I Stay in Venezuela).” Luis Fonsi finished with “Despacito” and then Juan Luis Guerra showed all his experience with “I hope it rains coffee.” Fonseca sang “Te Mando Flores/I Sent You Flowers” and gave way to Carlos Vives.

While there was a party on one side — with attendees singing on the border between Venezuela and Brazil at the Tienditas Bridge — in the state of Bolívar, two indigenous people died at the hands of the Bolivarian National Guard, according to the NGO Kapé Kapé. According Semana magazine, they were trying to keep a road open to allow the entry of humanitarian aid when special forces broke in. In addition to the two deceased, there were also 15 injured.

After 3 o’clock in the afternoon, the Venezuelan concert finally began. Composed mainly of Venezuelan artists related to the government of Maduro — such as Paul Gillman, who sang “Resistiré,” while waving the flag of his country, and Skaracas — it was also known that Grupo Niche refused to play in the “Hands Off Venezuela” concert.

Looking primarily at the music presentations, Venezuela Aid Live left much to be desired due to technical problems, instrument issues, the many instrumental tracks used and the crowd area being far from the stage. Sure, people enjoyed it, and the real goal was beyond the shows. If Branson wanted to put the eyes of the world on the border, he succeeded.

The news agencies were reporting live from Cúcuta, with journalists from all over Latin America in attendance, along with the United States, Canada, Portugal and Spain and other countries. The speeches by several of the artists against Maduro sent a clear message that would surely annoy Roger Waters. Tomorrow it will be seen if humanitarian aid finally crosses the border.
The Venezuelan National Guard blocks off a bridge on the Colombia–Venezuela border with a tanker truck. The Venezuelan opposition had been planning to use the bridge to bring humanitarian aid into the country, while President Nicolás Maduro has rejected foreign aid, saying "we're not a nation of beggars".