(Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan security forces skirmished with protesters at a border bridge in a clash over aid shipments between President Nicolas Maduro’s government and U.S.-backed opponents trying to drive him out of power.
The site is on a stretch of near-dry riverbed on the Venezuelan frontier crossed by four narrow international bridges where opposition leader Juan Guaido’s supporters on Saturday plan to start delivering hundreds of tons of humanitarian aid to their near-starving nation. Others will attempt to bring food and medicine from Brazil.
On Friday, a smaller attempt ended in bloodshed: Venezuelan soldiers killed at least one woman and injured a dozen in an effort to deliver aid at the remote southern border with Brazil. Fears ran high that the operation Saturday will end in more, possibly wider, violence.
Maduro has closed international entries and ordered security forces to bar the supplies, saying they are part of plot devised in Washington. His rival Guaido, the head of the National Assembly, defied a travel ban and arrived on the Colombian side of the border Friday.
Guaido, whose claim to be interim president is recognized by the U.S. and dozens of other countries, has pleaded with soldiers to stand aside and let the aid through. Until now, they’ve remained loyal to Maduro.
Opposition’s Deluge
Volunteers are preparing to don white clothing to walk across the spans that link Cucuta, Colombia, to Venezuela in hopes of bringing relief to their compatriots. Colombian President Ivan Duque said a “human torrent” will help get the aid across, there and elsewhere.
“There are more than a million volunteers, and we continue to invite more to join,” Guaido said Friday in an interview on CNN. Across Venezuela, there will be large demonstrations to demand that the aid be allowed in and that Maduro leave office, he said.
The initiative is a watershed in Guaido’s campaign to replace Maduro, which began only last month, and it is a gamble.
U.S. sanctions on the oil industry, Venezuela’s only real source of hard currency, threaten further suffering in a national wracked by hyperinflation and hunger. The sanctions are part of a two-pronged approach by Guaido and his U.S. backers -- strip Maduro of cash to buy even the scraps of food he’s been handing out to citizens, and then ride to the rescue with critical supplies of their own. Traditional aid groups have shunned the effort, saying it’s politically tainted.
Brave Face
Guaido’s supporters say they are determined, even in the face of overwhelming force.
“We don’t know how yet, but one way or another the aid is getting in,” said Katerine Vega, a 31-year-old nurse from the Andean town of Colon who volunteered to cross from Cucuta to help distribute food and medicine.
Guaido’s supporters on Friday rallied at a music festival in Cucuta, organized by British billionaire Sir Richard Branson in fields next to where is aid is being stored. Guaido made a surprise appearance, alongside Duque and Chilean President Sebastian Pinera. Organizers said more than 300,000 people attended.
Hardened Border
Maduro’s government, meanwhile, mounted a smaller competing event on the Venezuela side. But the regime closed bridge crossing and supporters were sleeping on and around them, backed up by a heavy police and military presence. Patrols on motorcycles and in Toyota trucks crisscrossed towns and cities near the border. Guardsmen set up checkpoints on major roads and hundreds of soldiers were deployed to the Tienditas Bridge. Armored vehicles and personnel carriers rolled throughout the area.
U.S. President Donald Trump has said all options are open if Venezuela continues to block the supplies.
The confrontations cap a monthlong run of protests and sanctions aimed at unseating Maduro, 56, the hand-picked heir of the late President Hugo Chavez. After Guaido invoked Venezuela’s charter on Jan. 23 to declare himself head of state, the U.S. urged other nations to recognize the 35-year-old as president.
Elliott Abrams, the U.S. special representative for Venezuela, told reporters in Cucuta that Maduro’s days in power are numbered.
“Venezuela will be free, maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after, we don’t know,” he said Friday. “But we do know very well that Venezuela is going to end with a democracy.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Oscar Medina in Bogota at omedinacruz@bloomberg.net;Andrew Rosati in Caracas at arosati3@bloomberg.net;Samy Adghirni in Brasilia Newsroom at sadghirni@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Matthew Bristow at mbristow5@bloomberg.net, Stephen Merelman, Ian Fisher
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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