On 19 February, the Latin American country’s regional military chief announced the closure of the Venezuelan maritime border with the Dutch Caribbean.

Venezuela will close the border with neighboring island nations, suspend air traffic and revise their diplomatic ties, its Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said Wednesday after the Caribbean island of Curacao agreed to act as a hub for relief aid shipments.

“Venezuela has decided not only to shut the border but also to revise relations with these countries. These measures will be in place until their governments start following and respecting international laws,” she said at a press conference broadcast by the state television.

Earlier in the day, the Reuters news agency reports, citing a regional military commander that Venezuela’s government had reopened its national maritime border with the Dutch Antilles islands following its closure on Tuesday.

This comes after Venezuela’s regional military chief said on Tuesday that he had ordered the closure of the Venezuelan maritime border with the Dutch Antilles islands. The move was made amid Dutch plans to open a logistical hub for humanitarian aid on the island of Curacao, however, the exact reasons behind Caracas’ decision to close the border remain unclear.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro refused to accept US aid that is currently waiting in Colombia, blasting it as a ploy to topple his government.

Venezuela is in the midst of a political crisis, which escalated in late January when Venezuelan opposition parliamentary speaker Juan Guaido declared himself interim president, disputing last year’s re-election of Maduro.

Guaido was recognized by the United States and a number of other countries. At the same time, Russia, China, Mexico, Turkey and Uruguay were among those that voiced their support for Maduro as the country’s legitimately elected president. </s> Caracas — Venezuela’s military said on Tuesday it was on alert at its frontiers following threats by US President Donald Trump and suspended air and sea links with the island of Curaçao ahead of a planned aid shipment.

Opposition leader and self-declared interim president Juan Guaidó has vowed to bring aid in from various points on Saturday “one way or another”, despite military efforts to block it.

But commanders doubled down on their allegiance to President Nicolás Maduro after Trump urged them to abandon him.

“The armed forces will remain deployed and on alert along the borders ... to avoid any violations of territorial integrity,” said defence minister Vladimir Padrino.

Regional commander Vladimir Quintero later confirmed media reports that Venezuela has ordered the suspension of air and sea links with Curaçao and the nearby Netherlands Antilles islands of Aruba and Bonaire.

Shipments of food and medicine for Venezuelans suffering in the country’s economic crisis have become a focus of the power struggle between Maduro and Guaidó. Aid is being stored in Colombia near the Venezuelan border and Guaidó aims also to bring in consignments via Brazil and Curaçao, which is off the coast of Venezuela.

A Brazilian presidential spokesperson said the country is co-operating with the US to supply aid to Venezuela but would leave it to Venezuelans to take the goods over the border. Maduro says the aid plan is a smokescreen for a US invasion. He blames US sanctions and “economic war” for Venezuela’s crisis.

Guaidó has appealed to military leaders to switch allegiance to him and let the aid through. He has offered military commanders an amnesty if they abandon Maduro. But the military high command has so far maintained its public backing for Maduro — seen as key to keeping him in power.

“We reiterate unrestrictedly our obedience, subordination and loyalty” to Maduro, Padrino said. </s> Caracas: Venezuela’s military said on Tuesday it was on alert at its frontiers following threats by US President Donald Trump and suspended air and sea links with the island of Curacao ahead of a planned aid shipment.

 Opposition leader and self-declared interim president Juan Guaido has vowed to bring aid in from various points on Saturday “one way or another” despite military efforts to block it. But commanders doubled down on their allegiance to President Nicolas Maduro after Trump urged them to abandon him.

 “The armed forces will remain deployed and on alert along the borders… to avoid any violations of territorial integrity,” said Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino.

 Regional commander Vladimir Quintero later confirmed media reports that Venezuela had ordered the suspension of air and sea links

 with Curacao and the nearby Netherlands Antilles islands of Aruba and Bonaire.

 Shipments of food and medicine for Venezuelans suffering in the country’s economic crisis have become a focus of the power struggle between Maduro and Guaido.

 Aid is being stored in Colombia near the Venezuelan border and Guaido aims also to bring in consignments via Brazil and Curacao, which is off the coast of Venezuela.

 A Brazilian presidential spokesman said the country was cooperating with the United States to supply aid to Venezuela but would leave it to Venezuelans to take the goods over the border.

 Maduro says the aid plan is a smokescreen for a US invasion. He blames US sanctions and “economic war” for Venezuela’s crisis.

 Guaido, the 35-year-old leader of the Venezuelan legislature, has appealed to military leaders to switch allegiance to him and let the aid through. He has offered military commanders an amnesty if they abandon Maduro. — AFP </s> CARACAS, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido plans to head to the Colombian border in a convoy of vehicles on Thursday to receive humanitarian aid for his crisis-stricken nation, despite the objection of increasingly isolated President Nicolas Maduro.

Guaido, recognized by dozens of countries as Venezuela's legitimate head of state, said the opposition plans to bring in aid by land and sea on Saturday to alleviate severe and widespread shortages of food and medicine after years of hyperinflation.

He will undertake the 800-kilometer (497-mile) road trip from Caracas in the company of some 80 lawmakers from the opposition-controlled congress, which he leads, opposition legislators said.

Guaido invoked the constitution to assume an interim presidency on Jan. 23.

"Through this call for humanitarian aid, the population will benefit from the arrival of these goods to the Venezuelan border," said opposition legislator Edgar Zambrano, as he waited in a plaza of eastern Caracas with other lawmakers to board buses.

Maduro's socialist government denies there is an economic crisis and has said soldiers would remain stationed along the country's borders to prevent potential incursions.

He accuses the Trump administration, which recognizes Guaido and is supporting the relief effort but has levied crippling sanctions against his government, of seeking to force his ouster.

It is unclear how Guaido plans to bring in the aid. Opposition figures have suggested forming human chains across the Colombian border to pass aid packages from person to person and fleets of boats arriving from the Dutch Caribbean islands.

The United States has sent tons of aid to Colombia's border with Venezuela, which Maduro has mocked as a "cheap show." Maduro's vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, has alleged the aid is poisonous and could lead to cancer.

On Wednesday, Maduro's socialist administration said it had closed the country's maritime border with the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire, after Curacao's government said it would help store aid destined for Venezuela.

Colombia expelled five Venezuelans from Cucuta for "carrying forward activities which attack citizen security and social order," its migration agency said in a statement late on Wednesday.

"We know there is interest by the Maduro dictatorship in affecting national security because of coming events," agency directors Christian Kruger added in the statement. (Reporting by Angus Berwick' additional reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb in Bogota; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Bill Trott) </s> Opposition lawmakers from the southeastern Venezuelan state of Bolivar on Friday said a woman was killed during a clash between soldiers and members of an indigenous community that backs a plan to deliver international humanitarian aid to the crisis-racked country.

The clash in Bolivar left at least 15 people with gunshot wounds, three of whom were seriously injured, legislators Americo de Grazia and Angel Medina said on Twitter.

In statements to online channel VIVOplay, De Grazia said three people wounded in the clash were taken to a hospital in the town of Santa Elena de Uairen, near the border with Brazil and Guyana.

He said the clashes began on Thursday after leftist President Nicolas Maduro ordered the closure of Venezuela's border with Brazil as part of a bid to block aid shipments.

The dead woman was identified as Zoraida Rodriguez, a seller of empanadas who was in the area where the clash occurred - the community of Kumaracupay. All of those injured were men.

Maduro refuses to accept humanitarian aid that the opposition says will enter the country starting Saturday, saying that the deliveries of basic supplies are a ruse and a prelude to a planned military invasion.

He also blames Venezuela's problems on US-led economic warfare targeting his leftist government.

On Thursday, Maduro ordered the closure of Venezuela's border with Brazil and with the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao as part of a bid to block the aid deliveries.

He also said he was considering closing Venezuela's border with Colombia to prevent aid stockpiled in Cucuta, Colombia, from crossing the frontier.

But Juan Guaido, the speaker of Venezuela's opposition-led National Assembly and self-proclaimed interim president, later ordered the border with Brazil to remain open.

Guaido - who says Maduro's May 2018 re-election victory in balloting boycotted by the opposition was illegitimate - also said Venezuela would maintain diplomatic relations with the islands off the country's coast.

Separately, a group of around 15 Venezuelan lawmakers traveling in a convoy of buses to that nation's border with Colombia were attacked early Friday morning by large rocks, one of which struck a driver in the head, the National Assembly said.

The legislators were heading to the border to coordinate the delivery of international humanitarian aid from Cucuta, Colombia, to Venezuela, an oil-rich nation that is beset by severe food and medicine shortages and hyperinflation.

"The caravan of lawmakers traveling to the city of San Cristobal Tachira was attacked by two blunt objects near Guanare, (the capital of) Portuguesa state. One of (the objects) seriously injured (a) driver," the legislature, which uploaded a photo of a shattered bus window, said on Twitter.

An opposition lawmaker riding on one of the buses, Mariela Magallanes, told EFE that a driver was struck by a rock and had to be taken to a hospital for treatment.

"We took him to a health center, Araure (a town in Portuguesa), but there were no supplies to treat him, not even for first aid; we had to take him to a private health center," where he received five stitches, she said.

The lawmakers, who left Caracas early Thursday on a trip to the border that typically takes 12 hours, decided to stop overnight for safety reasons and then resumed their trip early Friday.

The caravan, which was initially thought to be transporting Guaido, had earlier been stopped on two occasions by soldiers in the states of Carabobo and Cojedes.

Opposition leaders told EFE Thursday that Guaido was already at the Venezuela-Colombia border and waiting for his legislative colleagues to arrive. </s> The White House warned the Venezuelan military that any violence committed against civilians at its borders with Brazil and Colombia where aid waits to be brought into the country "will not be forgotten."

On Tuesday, the Brazilian government offered humanitarian aid to the country at the request of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, the Guardian reported.

The aid, which is to be delivered by Feb. 23, is to be brought over the border from the northern Brazilian city of Boa Vista in Venezuelan trucks driven by Venezuelan nationals.

The announcement comes as U.S. aid is being readied to be shipped over into Venezuela from the northwestern Colombian border town of Cucuta, though it is not yet known how this aid will cross into the country.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has protested the need for aid and he has claimed that this entire situation stems from U.S. efforts at organizing a coup.

To prevent the U.S. aid from entering, Madura has blockaded a major bridge between Colombia and Venezuela with containers and an oil tanker truck.

Guaido had called for volunteers to help deliver the aid and he said some 600,000 have responded to transport the aid on Saturday.

The announcement of aid comes as the Venezuelan military has vowed to support Maduro, who since having his position stripped in late March has seen international recognition dissipate.

Since Guaido gained control of the control in mid-January, dozens of countries have backed his presidency, further denying Maduro's claim to the helm of the South American nation.

National security advisor John Bolton said in a tweet Tuesday that the Venezuelan military must uphold its duty to protect citizens at its borders and allow aid to be brought into the country.

"Any actions by the Venezuelan military to condone or instigate violence against peaceful civilians at the Colombian and Brazilian borders will not be forgotten. Leaders still have time to make the right choice."

On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump warned Maduro and his supporters during a speech in Miami, Florida, that the entire world was watching them.

"We seek a peaceful transition of power, but all options are open," he said. "You will lose everything. Let your people go, set your country free."

This article has been adapted from its original source. </s> BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia on Tuesday rejected a Russian warning against foreign military intervention in Venezuela and said it supported a peaceful transition to democracy in the neighboring South American country.

"Colombia reiterates that the transition to democracy must be conducted by the Venezuelans themselves peacefully and within the framework of the Constitution and international law, supported by political and diplomatic means, without the use of force," Colombian Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo said in a statement.

He was responding to a March 28 letter from the upper house of Russia's parliament, forwarded to Colombia's Congress by Russian Ambassador Sergei Koshkin, that said the "illegitimate use of military force against Venezuela by other states that support the opposition will be interpreted ... as an act of aggression against a sovereign state."

Venezuelan soldiers stand guard at the Tienditas International Bridge that links Colombia and Venezuela, near Urena, Venezuela, February 8, 2019. Associated Press

Russia has emerged as a staunch backer of Venezuela's leftist President Nicolas Maduro as his nation descended into political turmoil this year. The United States and dozens of other nations have backed opposition leader Juan Guaido, who invoked the constitution to assume Venezuela's interim presidency in January, arguing that Maduro's 2018 re-election was illegitimate.

Colombia, which supports Guaido, has repeatedly denied it has any intention of launching a military offensive across its border with Venezuela.

But in his statement on Tuesday, Trujillo said military support for Maduro's socialist government risked harming the transition to democracy while threatening regional peace and security.

The March touchdown near Caracas of two Russian air force planes carrying some 100 Russian special forces and cyber-security personnel has raised international concerns about Moscow's backing for Maduro.

Russia, which has supplied fighter jets, tanks, and air defense systems to Venezuela, has dismissed US criticism of its military cooperation with Caracas saying it is not interfering in the Latin American country's internal affairs and poses no threat to regional stability.

An airplane with the Russian flag at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Caracas, Venezuela, March 24, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

Russian state-owned defense firm Rostec said Monday that it had owned a training center in Venezuela to teach the country's pilots to fly Russian-made Mi-35M helicopters gunships and Russian-made military transport helicopters.

Igor Chechikov, deputy chief executive at Russian Helicopters, told Russian news agencies on Tuesday that all the necessary equipment has been delivered to Venezuela and that construction of the training center should be done by the end of this year.

Colombia acted as a staging ground in February as the United States and other countries supported Guaido's effort to transport hundreds of tons of humanitarian aid into Venezuela. Maduro, who dismisses Guaido as a U.S. puppet, blocked the aid and Venezuelan troops pushed back protesters with tear gas.

Millions of Venezuelans have fled to Colombia to escape widespread food and medicine shortages in their chaotic homeland, seeking jobs locally and passage into other Latin American countries. </s> Members of Venezuela’s opposition are gathering in Cúcuta, Colombia, where they are frantically planning to shift stockpiled US aid to their homeland this weekend, in defiance of their country’s embattled president Nicolás Maduro.



“Saturday will be a day that goes down in our history,” said Omar Lares, the former mayor of Campo Elías in western Venezuela, who has been living in exile in the border city for two years and is now helping coordinate Saturday’s planned delivery of aid.

“We’re working overtime to get the food and medicine that people so desperately need,” Lares said, speaking in the lobby of the Casino Internacional hotel, which has become one of the opposition’s impromptu bases of operations over the last month.

Juan Guaidó, the opposition leader who has been recognised by the US and dozens more countries as Venezuela’s legitimate interim president, set a deadline of Saturday for the aid to move across the border, though representatives in Cúcuta, Caracas and Washington are yet to decide how the aid will cross.

Guaidó called for caravans of volunteers to carry the aid across at a speech before thousands of supporters in Caracas last week, though it would pit those civilians against the military – loyal to Maduro – which is under orders to block the aid.

For now, the shipments of aid sit in a warehouse next to the Tienditas bridge, connecting the two countries, which was finished in 2016 but never inaugurated. Although thousands cross the nearby Simón Bolívar bridge on foot every day, the border has been closed to most vehicles since 2015 following a string of disputes between the two countries.

In advance of the first shipment of aid to the border, Maduro had the Tienditas bridge blockaded with containers and an oil tank. The bridge had long been lightly barricaded with a wire fence, aimed at keeping out contraband smugglers.

While in part a bid to get much-needed food and medicine to Venezuela’s suffering population, Saturday’s aid mission is also, Guaidó and the Trump administration have said, intended to weaken Maduro by forcing the military to disobey their boss and allow the aid on to Venezuelan soil, which could play into Maduro’s narrative that the US is seeking to invade.

“You will find no safe harbour, no easy exit and no way out. You will lose everything,” Donald Trump said in a speech in at Florida International University in Miami on Monday before large American and Venezuelan flags. “We seek a peaceful transition of power, but all options are open.”

Many humanitarian groups have distanced themselves from the aid operation, given its overtly political nature. “Humanitarian action needs to be independent of political, military or any other objectives,” UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric told reporters in New York last week.

The move comes against the backdrop of a propaganda war between Guaidó and Maduro, with rival concerts set up in support of each president’s stance over the aid.

Richard Branson, the billionaire founder of the Virgin Group, threw his clout and cash behind Guaidó’s efforts earlier this month when he announced a concert in Cúcuta to raise funds to relieve Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis, and to pressure Maduro to open up his country’s borders. That concert, which will take place on Friday, is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of attendees.

“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 told the Associated Press in a telephone interview from Necker, his private island in the British Virgin Islands, on Monday. “I think it will draw attention to the problem on a global basis.”

Maduro’s rival concert will take place on Saturday and Sunday, over the border from the one in Colombia organised by Branson, Venezuela’s information minister Jorge Rodríguez announced on Monday. In an apparent retort to the US aid project, Rodríguez announced that 20,000 boxes of food aid would be sent to Cúcuta.

Guaidó lambasted the move by Maduro’s government to put on a rival concert, calling it “desperate”.

“They’re debating whether the aid should come in or not ... They don’t know what to do,” Guaidó said on Monday. “They’re now making up a concert. How many concerts are they going to stage?”

Since 2015, some three million Venezuelans have fled spiralling hyperinflation and widespread shortages of food and medicine, with almost 1.5 million staying in Colombia, according to UNHCR. Many refugees and migrants cross at the Simón Bolívar bridge, the busiest of Colombia’s border crossings, just outside Cúcuta.

“Maduro says that Venezuela shouldn’t be begging for food,” said Rosa Álvarez, a Venezuelan migrant from Maracay who was queueing for a meal at a soup kitchen near the bridge. “But look at what we are having to do right now.”

A friend of hers quickly joined in.

“People are dying in our country,” said Misleidy Castaño, from Valencia in northern Venezuela. “I’m not interested in going to any concert, but it if it helps get aid into Venezuela, it can only be a good thing.” </s> CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro threatened to close the border with Colombia on Thursday as opposition leader Juan Guaido and some 80 lawmakers ran a gauntlet of roadblocks trying to get to the frontier to receive humanitarian aid.

Guaido, who is recognized by dozens of countries as Venezuela's legitimate head of state, was poised for a showdown with Maduro's government on Saturday, when the opposition will attempt to bring in food and medicine being stockpiled in neighboring countries.

Maduro denies there is a humanitarian crisis and said on Thursday he was considering closing Venezuela's key border with Colombia and would close the country's other main border with Brazil, effectively shutting off any legal land access.

The government has said soldiers will be stationed at official crossing points to repel any "territorial violations", although the opposition could attempt to cross anywhere along Venezuela's porous borders.

"I charge (Colombian President) Ivan Duque with any violence that might occur on the border," Maduro said in televised comments, surrounded by the military high command.

Venezuela has already closed its maritime border with the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire, after Curacao's government said it would help store aid.

Opposition lawmakers set off from Caracas in a convoy of buses just after 10 a.m. on a 800-km (500-mile) road trip to the border with Colombia. Crowds formed alongside a main highway out of the capital, waving Venezuelan flags and whooping in support.

A roadblock at a tunnel some 100 km (60 miles) along the main road forced several buses to stop, Reuters witnesses and lawmakers said. Lawmakers trying to get through scuffled with soldiers in riot gear at the tunnel's exit, TV footage showed.

"We have a commitment and that is to reach the border. We will try to get as far as we can," lawmaker Mariela Magallanes told Reuters by telephone from the scene. "Humanitarian aid is not the whim of a few lawmakers, it is a necessity."

Magallanes said her vehicle managed to pass through the tunnel after being stuck for several hours but other buses remained behind.

Lawmakers said Guaido's vehicle continued but his exact location was being kept a secret due to security concerns.

One opposition lawmaker in southeastern Bolivar state said he and some 20 other politicians would also travel to the border with Brazil.

The Information Ministry did not respond to a request to comment.

Guaido still has not provided details on how the aid could come in. Opposition figures have suggested forming human chains across the land borders to pass packages from person to person and fleets of boats arriving from the Dutch Caribbean islands.

The opposition says it is rallying relief efforts in Venezuela to alleviate widespread food and medicine shortages in the wake of its hyperinflationary economic collapse. The oil-rich economy has halved in size in five years.

Tons of aid sent by the U.S. and Colombian governments is sitting in warehouses on the Colombian side of the border. Guaido tweeted late on Thursday that Chile was also airlifting supplies there, while Brazil's government said it was sending aid to its own border.

Meanwhile a boat carrying 250 tons of aid left Puerto Rico's capital of San Juan headed for Venezuela on Wednesday, the local government said in a statement.

Maduro accuses the Trump administration, which has levied crippling sanctions against his government, of seeking to force his ouster.

The U.S. special envoy for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, will lead a government delegation accompanying the delivery of aid from Florida to Cucuta via military aircraft between Thursday and Friday, the Department of State said.

Meanwhile, the office of U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said he would fly to the Colombian capital, Bogota, on Monday to discuss the crisis with leaders of the regional Lima Group of nations.

Guaido invoked the constitution to assume an interim presidency on Jan. 23 and denounces Maduro as an usurper. Maduro still retains the support of powerful nations like Russia and China, as well as the key backing of the military.

Some political analysts say Saturday's border showdown is less about resolving Venezuela's needs and more about testing the military's loyalty by daring it to turn aid away.

"It's part of this calculus that sees the military as leading a transition in Venezuela," said Geoff Ramsey at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a thinktank.

Guaido has offered amnesty to military officers who disavow Maduro, though few have so far done so.

Former military intelligence chief Hugo Carvajal, who Washington accused of involvement in the drug trade a decade ago, released a social media video on Thursday offering his support for Guaido. Carvajal distanced himself from Maduro in 2017 by opposing the creation of an all-powerful legislature.

"I'm sure that Venezuela will soon return to democracy ... How this happens depends on you, brothers in arms," he said, addressing the military.

Gustavo Marcano, senior aide to the opposition's envoy to Washington, told reporters in the U.S. capital on Thursday that 11 diplomats in the United States have defected from Maduro's government since Guaido declared himself interim president.

Bank accounts for Venezuelan embassies and consulates in the United States had been frozen, he said.
The Venezuelan Navy closes its maritime borders with the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire ahead of the planned entry of international humanitarian aid into Venezuela on February 23, which Nicolás Maduro considers a precursor to invasion.