US warns Nicolas Maduro his 'days are numbered' as pressure mounts on Venezuelan regime after deadly aid standoff
The United States has warned Nicolas Maduro that his “days are numbered”, ahead of an international meeting in Bogota on Monday with his rival, Juan Guaido, to decide the next steps in the battle for Venezuela.
Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, who will travel to Bogota alongside Vice-President Mike Pence, condemned the weekend's violence and said he was confident Mr Maduro would soon be gone.
"Predictions are difficult. Picking exact days is difficult," he said, speaking on a US political chat show the day after a deadly standoff over aid shipments erupted at the borders of the South American nation.
"I'm confident that the Venezuelan people will ensure that Maduro's days are numbered."
The violence looked set to increase, however. Venezuela's prisons minister, Iris Varela, on Saturday afternoon announced that she was bringing "trained" inmates from the country's overcrowded and highly dangerous prisons to the border, to "have the privilege of fighting for the fatherland".
"I'm bringing them here, and I will continue to bring them here, in significant numbers," she said, speaking to reporters in the Venezuelan border city of San Antonio.
On Sunday Venezuelan forces also stormed a makeshift medical clinic in Ureña treating the wounded, on the other side of the Francisco de Paula Santander bridge.
The military cut the electricity at the clinic and forced out the doctors and patients, tear gassing them all. A doctor inside the clinic said the staff were “crying like babies” due to the gas.
Mr Maduro, who is clinging to power with the support of Cuba, Russia and China, spent Saturday dancing on national television at a rally in Caracas. State television did not show the bloody scenes at the borders, where on Saturday two people were killed in a town bordering Brazil, and two died on the Colombian border.
Running battles on the bridges from Colombia into Venezuela saw 285 people injured on the Colombian side, while trying to get humanitarian aid into the country.
Some of that aid was burnt on the bridges, with an eyewitness telling The Telegraph that Mr Maduro’s troops poured fuel onto the convoy to make it blaze.
Renewed clashes broke out around the Cucuta crossings and the Brazilian border city of Pacaraima on Sunday, with Venezuelan forces firing teargas and live ammunition.
Colombian migration officials confirmed that 100 officers had downed arms and declared their support for Mr Guaido, who a month ago declared himself the legitimate “interim president” of Venezuela.
Mr Guaido had planned for Saturday to be an “avalanche of aid” flowing into Venezuela, and had coordinated with the US, Europe and Latin American nations the delivery of hundreds of tonnes of supplies. On Friday a fundraising concert organised by Sir Richard Branson energised tens of thousands of Venezuelans to the cause.
But Mr Maduro on Sunday mocked the efforts as a plot originating in Washington.
“They tried to disguise, with a concert and a supposed delivery of ‘humanitarian aid’ at the border, a plan which had been developed and announced by Donald Trump,” he said.
“The people are on the streets, mobilised and alert in every corner of the country.
“I call on all men and women of good faith to not let their guard down and keep on the front foot of the fight to preserve the peace in Venezuela.”
According to a Reuters witness, two aid trucks crossed the Brazilian border but did not pass through the Venezuelan customs checkpoint.
A Puerto Rican ship carrying humanitarian aid was ordered to turn back after a Venezuelan navy ship threatened to open fire on the vessel.
"This is unacceptable and shameful," said Ricardo Rossello, governor of Puerto Rico. "We have also notified our partners in the US government about this serious incident."
Mr Guaido’s side was left licking their wounds, and planning their next steps.
One of his closest confidantes, opposition politician Freddy Superlano, 42, was recovering from being drugged in the early hours of Saturday morning. His adviser and cousin, Carlos Salinas, died in the incident.
Initial reports suggested he had been poisoned in a restaurant, causing immense alarm among his colleagues and wild speculation of a Bond-style assassination plot. Local media now claim he was drugged and robbed by prostitutes who he had taken to a Cucuta motel.
And in Cucuta’s hospitals the walking wounded were vowing to continue the fight.
Evaristo Jose Guerrero, a 27-year-old farmer, broke down in tears as he recounted how he was shot in the eye on the Francisco de Paula Santander bridge – one of four crossings where volunteers tried on Saturday to get the aid in.
“I wanted to help Venezuela,” he sobbed. “I love my country. And I love Colombia, for giving us refuge from what is happening there.”
In the bed next to him Carlos Garillo Cordoba, 26, a chef from Caracas, told how he was unloading the aid cargo from the lorries, having just edged onto the Venezuelan side of the bridge, when the troops opened fire.
“We had the boxes in our hands, and the truck went up in flames," he said.
“I saw the Venezuelan national guard hurt the truck driver and then pour petrol on the fire. They arrived with petrol, and doused the truck. All of us there saw it. It was definitely deliberate.”
He said they tried to salvage what they could, forming a human chain to get the boxes back to the Colombian side.
On the other side of the bridge, in Venezuela, gangs of pro-Maduro thugs were circulating on motorbikes firing at the protesters.
"They started shooting at close range as if we were criminals," shopkeeper Vladimir Gomez, 27, told Reuters, wearing a white shirt stained with blood.
Dr Monica Flores, from the Venezuelan city of San Cristobal, was manning a makeshift triage centre on the Colombian side, a few hundred metres from the frontline.
By 5pm on Saturday her team of 14 doctors had treated 60 patients, she told The Telegraph – mostly young men, with lead pellet wounds to the chest, legs and eyes.
“We never thought it would be this violent,” she said. “It’s just so awful to see. I’m passionate about Venezuela, and passionate about helping people, and want my country to get better.”
She said that the women in white, on the front line of the aid delivery on Saturday, confirmed Mr Garillo’s account of the convoys being deliberately set on fire.
But she and the co-ordinator, Dr Andres Calle, were both maddened and exasperated by the lack of support from Mr Guaido’s team, which meant they were without supplies and electricity in their tent, and had to dig the pellets out of victims by the light of a car’s headlights.
“We’ve improvised everything,” said Dr Calle, almost in tears of frustration. “There were so many injured we kept on running out of medicines.”
A trestle table more suited for a picnic was buckling under the stress, and his team of shattered aides replaced it with a crate from the market.
“The politicians came and shook our hands, and said thanks, then went away. How can this be allowed to happen?”
Nearby, dazed and bloodied, Rafael Santos was smoking a cigarette, with lead shot in his leg and a rubber shot wound to his cheek.
“It’s a war out there,” he said, gesturing to the Venezuelan side of the bridge. “It’s a massacre.”
