Opposition supporters voice their anger toward members of the National Guard in Capacho Viejo, Venezuela. on Feb. 22. The protesters and government forces are on opposite sides of an effort to bring aid into the country from Colombia. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)
By Anthony Faiola ,
Rachelle Krygier and
Mariana Zuñiga
SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela — Venezuelan soldiers opened fire Friday on a group of civilians attempting to keep open a segment of the southern border with Brazil for deliveries of humanitarian aid, causing two fatalities and multiple injuries, according to eyewitnesses and community leaders.
The violence unfolded as the United States and the government of embattled President Nicolás Maduro defused at least one immediate source of tension — a looming deadline on Monday for all U.S. and Venezuelan diplomats to depart Caracas and Washington, respectively. The agreement bought both sides more time to negotiate a longer-term diplomatic presence after the rupture of official relations last month.
Later Friday, Juan Guaidó, the head of the Venezuelan opposition who has claimed the nation’s mantle of legitimate leadership and called Maduro a “usurper,” made a surprise appearance in the border city of Cucuta, Colombia, after a secretive trip by land from Venezuela’s capital, Caracas. His arrival to assist in the effort to cart humanitarian aid across the border smacked of an embarrassment for Maduro.
In a joint news conference with the presidents of Colombia, Chile and Paraguay, Guaidó suggested the Venezuelan armed forces had facilitated his arrival across the border.
“And I say thank you, and I thank the people of Venezuela, too, for their support,” he said. “Tomorrow, February 23, a month after assuming the presidency, all of Venezuela will be in the street to urge humanitarian aid to get in.”
But Guaidó’s decision to go to Colombia came in defiance of a travel ban issued by Venezuela’s Supreme Court and risks his being arrested upon return or barred from reentering — something that could significantly dampen the opposition’s momentum.
Guaidó had left Caracas on Thursday in a caravan of 10 vans, and was repeatedly stopped at checkpoints, according to his spokesman, Edward Rodriguez. Asked if Guaidó would be returning to Venezuela, he said, “Of course he is.”
“He is risking a lot,” said political analyst Dimitris Pantoulas. “Unless he’s sure the international reaction will have a big enough magnitude to leave Maduro with no option other than letting him back in. But the risk is too high and there’s no guarantee of what will happen. To me, it seems unnecessary.”
At a news conference in New York, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza sounded an almost ominous note when he said, “Many Venezuelans don’t agree with Mr. Guaidó being in freedom. I hope justice will be done.”
The assault at the Venezuela-Brazil border raised concerns of further violence as the opposition seeks on Saturday to defy Maduro’s blockade of humanitarian aid donated by nations including the United States and stored in neighboring countries. Though meant to relieve mounting hunger and disease in this collapsing socialist state, the move is also meant to test the military’s loyalty to Maduro by encouraging the armed forces to disobey the government’s direct order to keep the aid out.
Ahead of the planned aid crossing, the Venezuelan government announced late Friday that it was “temporarily” closing three of the border crossings with Colombia.
Friday’s fatalities did not come on the western border, where global attention was focused amid a star-studded benefit concert for Venezuela in Colombia’s Cucuta, where British billionaire Richard Branson hosted a crowd of more than 200,000 revelers. Instead, it happened in the desperately poor Amazonian savanna near Brazil. The victims: indigenous Venezuelans who have long fought for land rights and had backed the opposition. When the military fired, those present said, the opposition supporters were trying to block the military from carrying out Maduro’s orders to close the border with Brazil to bar aid.
“The majority of the people support the entrance of humanitarian aid, and we want to keep our border open,” said Carmen Elena Silva, 48, who was in the crowd of civilians when soldiers began firing assault rifles. “This is help, not war. . . . Every day more children die.”
At 6:30 a.m. Friday, a military convoy approached a checkpoint set up by an indigenous community in the southern village of Kumarakapay, on the main artery linking Venezuela to Brazil.
When the opposition supporters sought to block the military vehicles by standing in front of them, soldiers began firing assault rifles. At least two people were killed and a dozen wounded, at least three of them seriously. The dead were identified as Zoraida Rodríguez, 42, and Rolando García, 51.
At least 30 neighbors took to the streets after the shootings, kidnapping three soldiers.
The Trump administration, which has demanded that Mauro step down, promptly denounced the shooting. “The United States condemns the killings, attacks, and the hundreds of arbitrary detentions that have taken place in Venezuela,” a State Department spokesman said. “We stand with the victims’ families in demanding justice and accountability.” (Vice President Pence, who is a vocal Maduro critic, is scheduled to be in Colombia on Monday for a long-planned meeting of the Lima Group — a consortium of Latin American countries, plus Canada, that have called for Maduro’s ouster.)
In tweets, Guaidó referred to the shooting as a “crime” that “will not go unpunished.”
He added, “To soldiers: between today and tomorrow you will define how to be remembered. We know you are with the people, you have made it clear to us. Tomorrow you can demonstrate it.”
People react at the border between Venezuela and Brazil in Pacaraima, Roraima state, Brazil, on Feb. 22. (Ricardo Moraes/Reuters)
Jorge Pérez, a local councilman in Gran Sabana, the district in which the village is located, said he was present when the soldiers opened fire. “I ask the armed forces, is it constitutional for them to fire against unarmed indigenous people?” he said. “Is it constitutional to kill indigenous people?”
Arreaza, the Venezuelan foreign minister, insisted that the bullets recovered in the wounded did not match the rounds used by the armed forces.
“How easy it is to say that it was the soldiers,” he said. “Many of [the indigenous victims] were wounded by arrows.”
[Venezuela braces for possible conflict ahead of opposition’s push to deliver humanitarian aid]
A small group of supporters of the opposition and Juan Guaidó shout their support from the back of a truck in San Cristobal, Venezuela, on Feb. 21. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)
The activists belonged to the Pemones indigenous tribe and had joined the opposition effort to haul in aid donated by the United States and neighboring countries on Saturday. The aid is coming from nations — including the United States — that have demanded that Maduro step down. His government has ordered a blockade of the aid and dispatched the military to reinforce Venezuela’s borders.
The incident appeared to be the most violent confrontation yet in a still-unfolding operation in which thousands of volunteers are seeking to reach bordering nations to haul in the aid. Opposition leaders feared more clashes on Saturday.
Tensions between the military and the indigenous Pemones involved in the fatal exchange have been rising for years over the fast spread of illegal gold mining on their traditional lands. Opposition leaders convening in San Cristobal, the largest Venezuelan metropolis near the Colombian border, denounced the use of excessive force.
“We have to condemn what happened today,” said María Gabriela Hernández, a coordinator for ­environmental issues in the National Assembly, the opposition-
controlled legislature that Maduro stripped of its powers in 2017. “In the new Venezuela that is coming, we will assume this pain and experience as a lesson.”
Opposition supporters voice their anger toward the Maduro regime in Capacho Viejo, Venezuela on Feb. 22. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)
By Friday afternoon, another group of opposition officials arrived in San Cristobal after a 30-hour road trip from Caracas. They said security forces had aggressively sought to stop them en route.
“They blocked us at a tunnel, threw tear gas bombs at us,” said Delsa Solórzano, an opposition official. “They wanted to seize our vehicles later. We had a difficult road but we are profoundly proud because we arrived here thanks to the people who were awaiting us in each town, in each city, and the people tried to help us pass the guard’s checkpoints. Multitudes received us everywhere — it was incredible.”
Also on Friday, the United States and Venezuela averted — at least for the moment — a confrontation over how long their diplomats could remain in their respective posts. After severing diplomatic ties last month, the United States and Venezuela pulled out the majority of their personnel from each other’s capitals. Under a temporary agreement, a handful were set to remain for 30 days — a period set to run out on Monday. A person familiar with the talks who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the deadline has now been extended through mutual agreement, though the person would not say for how long. The two sides were still negotiating a longer-term deal to maintain special interest sections.
In perhaps the most surreal development, the day brought dueling concerts on the Venezuela-
Colombia border. One — the Branson benefit that lured the likes of mega-celebrities Maluma and Luis Fonsi — drew massive crowds that organizers placed at over 200,000. Attendees wore shirts bearing Venezuelan protest slogans and broke out frequently in chants of “libertad” — liberty.
“Tomorrow we will liberate our country,” shouted one young man holding a Venezuelan flag as hundreds around roared with excitement.
Elliott Abrams, Trump’s special envoy to Venezuela, said during a Friday news conference in Cucuta, with concert music blaring in the background, that opposition supporters were in this for the long haul. “What do we do if the government of Maduro doesn’t fall tomorrow?” he said. “We continue.”
On the other side of the border, Maduro’s government held a far more sparsely attended concert, “HandsOffVenezuela,” which was set to stretch into Saturday and which critics decried as a ruse meant to physically block access to aid.
At the start of the concert, Diosdado Cabello, one of Maduro’s inner circle, said that “some people were alarmed about the concert, saying we’re imitating what the right wing is doing [on the other side of the border]. But no. They’re wrong. We are dedicated to bringing joy to Venezuela.”
In San Cristobal, opposition lawmakers outlined plans for an operation Saturday meant to receive aid shipments that have piled up across the Colombian border in Cucuta.
A group of opposition politicians meet in what they called a “National Assembly meeting,” at a hotel conference room in San Cristobal, Venezuela, on Feb. 22. The lawmakers met to discuss the plan to get aid across the border from Colombia on Feb. 23. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)
Franklyn Duarte, an opposition official, announced four points of departure starting at 3 a.m. He said volunteers would be bused to the four international bridges that connect bordering cities to Cucuta, to help the aid come in. Volunteers who are planning to stay in San Cristobal, he said, would march toward the city’s military barracks holding flags.
“Unlike protests in the past, this time the people will stay in the street until containers of humanitarian aid come in,” he said.
The governor of the state of Tachira, Laidy Gómez, called on both sides to avoid violence.
“To violence, we have to respond with peace,” she said, “and to tell the violent that we, the good ones, are better than that, that we do not want a war.”
The Maduro government, however, was reinforcing its efforts to stop the aid from coming in. Colombian authorities said shipping containers — overturned by Maduro’s government this month to block the Tienditas bridge connecting Venezuela and Colombia — were welded in place overnight.
“Last night, while Cucuta and the world were preparing to raise their voices in unison for the Freedom of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship welded the containers to the structure of the Unity Bridge, as if it were a metaphor for the dictator clinging to power,” Colombian migration authorities said in a statement.
Carol Morello in Washington and Dylan Baddour in Cucuta contributed to this report.