Caracas: Embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced an agreement Wednesday with the International Committee of the Red Cross to bring humanitarian aid into a once-rich country now enduring acute shortages of food, medicine and such basics as soap and toilet paper.
As the economy of the oil-rich nation implodes, Maduro is locked in a power struggle with the increasingly popular leader of the opposition, national assembly speaker Juan Guaido.
In an about-face, Maduro said on national TV and radio that his government and the Red Cross had agreed “to work together with UN agencies to bring into Venezuela all the humanitarian aid that can be brought.”
Maduro denies that Venezuela is suffering from a humanitarian crisis and blames US sanctions for its economic woes.
Guaido is now recognized as Venezuela’s legitimate interim president by more than 50 countries, led by the US.
He blames government incompetence and corruption for his country’s crisis.
In January, Guaido tried to spearhead a drive to bring in donated food and medicine from Colombia, Brazil and the island of Curacao but the effort failed as the army, which is loyal to Maduro, blocked shipments at the border. Maduro argued that letting in such assistance, much of it provided by the US, would be the first step towards a US intervention.
Guaido is pressing the military to dump Maduro and side with the people. Maduro is a former bus driver who worked his way up the political ranks and is the handpicked successor of the late socialist firebrand Hugo Chavez. — AFP
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