{"id":184179,"date":"2019-02-24T08:45:14","date_gmt":"2019-02-24T08:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=184179"},"modified":"2019-02-27T08:45:12","modified_gmt":"2019-02-27T08:45:12","slug":"venezuelas-guaido-says-all-options-open-after-maduro-blocks-aid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=184179","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela’s Guaido says ‘all options open’ after Maduro blocks aid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anggy Polanco<\/a>, Mayela Armas<\/a>, Nelson Bocanegra<\/a> \u2013 Reuters Feb 24, 2019<\/h1>\n
\"\"

Youthful and photogenic, like a younger Obama, Juan Guaido, is an obvious pick for the Western powers to do their bidding. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Troops loyal to President Nicolas Maduro violently drove back foreign aid convoys from Venezuela\u2019s border on Saturday, killing two protesters and prompting opposition leader Juan Guaido to propose that Washington consider \u201call options\u201d to oust him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trucks laden with U.S. food and medicine returned to warehouses in Colombia after opposition supporters failed to break through lines of troops, who dispersed them with tear gas and rubber rounds, injuring dozens. Witnesses said masked men in civilian clothes also shot at protesters with live bullets.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s events force me to make a decision: to formally propose to the international community that we must have all options open to secure the freedom of our country,\u201d Guaido said on Twitter.<\/span><\/p>\n

The United States has been the top foreign backer of Guaido, who invoked Venezuela\u2019s constitution to assume an interim presidency last month and is now recognised by most Western nations as the OPEC nation\u2019s legitimate leader.<\/span><\/p>\n

President Donald Trump has in the past said military intervention in Venezuela was \u201can option\u201d, though Guaido made no reference to it on Saturday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Guaido had given a personal send-off to one convoy carrying aid from the Colombian city of Cucuta on Saturday.<\/span><\/p>\n

The opposition had hoped Venezuelan soldiers would baulk at turning back supplies desperately needed in the country, where a growing number of its 30 million people suffer from malnutrition and treatable diseases.<\/span><\/p>\n

But while some 60 members of the security forces defected on Saturday, according to Colombian authorities, the lines of National Guard soldiers at the frontier crossings held firm, firing tear gas at the convoys.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the Urena border point, two aid trucks caught fire, sending plumes of dark smoke into the air as crowds raced to try to save the boxes of supplies, a Reuters witness said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Guaido said he would keep demanding Maduro let the aid in and would seek other routes. He said he would attend a meeting of the regional Lima Group of nations in Bogota on Monday with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence during which they would decide more actions to ramp up pressure on Maduro.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cToday the world saw in minutes, in hours, the worst face of the Venezuelan dictatorship,\u201d Guaido said at an earlier news conference in Colombia, alongside Colombian President Ivan Duque.<\/span><\/p>\n

Angered by Duque\u2019s support for Guaido, Maduro said he was breaking diplomatic relations with Bogota and gave its diplomatic staff 24 hours to leave the country.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maduro denies his oil-rich nation has any need of aid and accuses Guaido of being a coup-mongering puppet for U.S. President Donald Trump. Washington has warned it could seek to impose tough new sanctions on Venezuela at Monday\u2019s summit if Maduro blocked the aid shipments.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do the Venezuelan people think of Donald Trump\u2019s threats? Get your hands off Venezuela. Yankee go home,\u201d Maduro told a rally of red-shirted, flag-waving supporters in the capital, Caracas. \u201cHe is sending us rotten food, thank you!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s national security adviser John Bolton said on Twitter that countries still supporting Maduro \u201cshould take note of what they are endorsing\u201d, in a thinly veiled rebuke to China and Russia.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018FREEDOM\u2019<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

Continues \u2026 <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Western-backed opposition leader asks Washington to consider using \u201call options\u201d in dealing with the situation in oil-rich Venezuela <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Current_Affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=184179"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184181,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184179\/revisions\/184181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=184179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=184179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=184179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}