{"id":7698,"date":"2019-02-13T11:17:14","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T07:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/?p=7698"},"modified":"2019-02-13T11:17:14","modified_gmt":"2019-02-13T07:17:14","slug":"venezuela-crisis-juan-guaido-vows-to-bring-in-aid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/2019\/02\/13\/venezuela-crisis-juan-guaido-vows-to-bring-in-aid\/","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela crisis: Juan Guaid\u00f3 vows to bring in aid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaid\u00f3 has told tens of thousands of his supporters that humanitarian aid will be brought in, despite opposition from President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.<\/p>\n

He also told a rally in Caracas that “the usurper [Maduro] has to leave”.<\/p>\n

Mr Maduro earlier told the BBC he would not allow aid in\u00a0as it was a way for the US to justify an intervention.<\/p>\n

The US and most Western governments have recognised Mr Guaid\u00f3 as interim president.<\/p>\n

Mr Maduro, who is backed by Russia and China, is under growing pressure to call early presidential elections amid a worsening economic crisis and accusations of widespread corruption and human rights violations.<\/p>\n

What did Mr Guaid\u00f3 say?<\/h2>\n

Mr Guaid\u00f3 told his supporters in the capital that humanitarian aid would be brought into Venezuela on 23 February.<\/p>\n

“We have almost 300,000 Venezuelans who will die if the aid doesn’t enter. There are almost two million whose health is at risk.”<\/p>\n

\"Lorries<\/span>
Several lorries with food and medicine are now at a collection centre in C\u00facuta, Colombia<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last week, the first lorries with US humanitarian aid for Venezuela arrived in the Colombian border city of C\u00facuta.<\/p>\n

The vehicles were parked near the Tienditas bridge, which remains blocked by Venezuelan troops.<\/p>\n

What about Mr Maduro’s interview?<\/h2>\n

Speaking to the BBC’s Orla Guerin, Mr Maduro called US President Donald Trump’s government a “gang of extremists” and blamed America for his country’s crisis.<\/p>\n

He also reiterated that he would not allow US humanitarian aid into Venezuela.<\/p>\n

“They are warmongering in order to take over Venezuela,” he said.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mr Maduro – who still has the support of Turkey, Russia and China and, crucially, of the Venezuelan army – said he did not see the need for early presidential elections.<\/p>\n

“What’s the logic, reasoning, to repeat an election?” he asked.<\/p>\n

Relations between the US and Venezuela were already fraught before President Donald Trump’s administration became one of the first to back Mr Guaid\u00f3 as interim leader.<\/p>\n

Venezuela broke off diplomatic relations in response while Mr Trump said the use of military force remained “an option”.<\/p>\n

The US, which accuses Mr Maduro’s government of human rights violations and corruption, has led the international pressure on the Venezuelan president to step down.<\/p>\n

It has imposed a raft of economic measures on the country, including against the state-owned oil company PDVSA, aiming to hit Venezuela’s main source of revenue.<\/p>\n

In recent years the US has frozen Mr Maduro’s US assets, restricted Venezuela’s access to US markets and blocked dealings with those involved in the country’s gold trade.<\/p>\n

For years Venezuelans have faced severe shortages of basic items such as medicine and food. Last year, the inflation rate saw prices doubling every 19 days on average.<\/p>\n

Three million people, or 10% of the population, have left the country since the economy started to worsen in 2014, according to the UN.<\/p>\n

What’s the background to this?<\/h2>\n

Mr Maduro, who has been in power since 2013, was re-elected to a second term last year.<\/p>\n

But the elections were controversial, with many opposition candidates barred from running or jailed, and claims of vote-rigging.<\/p>\n

<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The head of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, Mr Guaid\u00f3 declared himself president on 23 January.<\/p>\n

He said the constitution allowed him to assume power temporarily when the president was deemed illegitimate.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaid\u00f3 has told tens of thousands of his supporters that humanitarian aid will be brought in, despite opposition from President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro. He also told a rally in Caracas that “the usurper [Maduro] has to leave”. Mr Maduro earlier told the BBC he would not allow aid in\u00a0as it was a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7700,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7698\/revisions\/7700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}