Venezuela’s political tug-of-war was yesterday to morph into a battle of the bands, with dueling government and opposition pop concerts ahead of a weekend showdown over the entry of badly needed food and medical aid.
The spectacle was to play out on opposite ends of a 300m bridge connecting Venezuela with Colombia. That span, called the Tienditas Bridge, is one of the conduits that opposition leader and self-declared interim Venezuelan president Juan Guaido wants to use to bring in humanitarian assistance to his economically crippled country.
The bridge has been blocked with freight containers left there by the military, with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro refusing to allow aid in and arguing that it would be the first step toward a foreign invasion.
Photo: AFP
The opposition charity concert — called “Venezuela Aid Live” — organized by British billionaire Richard Branson is to be held in the Colombian border town of Cucuta.
Its stated goal is to raise US$100 million in donations. Stars from the Spanish-speaking world are scheduled to perform, and the presidents of Colombia, Chile and Paraguay have said that they would attend.
The government has not said who will perform on the Venezuelan end of the bridge — that concert’s slogan is “Hands Off Venezuela.”
“All the artists that are going to sing in Colombia must know that they are committing a crime. They are endorsing a military intervention,” Maduro said.
On Thursday, he ordered the closure of Venezuela’s border with Brazil — one of the main potential avenues for aid delivery — as part of the power struggle with Guaido over the aid.
Meanwhile, Guaido was traveling in a convoy of vehicles to personally pick up US aid being stockpiled on the Colombian border, defying Maduro’s military to stop him.
Guaido, who is recognized as interim president by more than 50 countries, left the capital, Caracas, in a convoy of vehicles with tinted windows for the 900km trip.
Guaido scored important symbolic boosts on Thursday, as 11 Venezuelan diplomats based in the US declared their support for him.
Maria Teresa Belandria, Guaido’s designated ambassador in Brazil, said that 100 tonnes of food, medicine and emergency kits were waiting to be trucked from Boa Vista to Pacaraima on the Venezuelan border.
Meanwhile, Maduro — mirroring Guaido’s move in an attempt to show his socialist government was able to look after its people — ordered a shipment of thousands of food boxes to be distributed to the needy along the Colombian border.
He also announced the arrival of another 7.5 tonnes of medicine and medical supplies from Russia.
Shipments of food and medicine for the crisis-stricken population have become a key focus of the power struggle between Maduro and Guaido.
Guaido, who has claimed that 300,000 people could die without an influx of aid, has said that he aims to rally 1 million volunteers to start bringing it in by today.
It remained unclear how he proposed to do so if the blockade continues, but experts have pointed to the porous 2,200km border, which is perforated by well-worn drug trafficking and contraband routes.
The opposition has said that teams of volunteers would spread out to transport aid through states bordering Colombia and Brazil, as well as from the city of Falcon in the north, which looks out to Curacao.
Colombian police have said that there are about 30 clandestine border crossings into Venezuela.
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