Venezuela carried out new military exercises and a drill to attend emergencies, amid the fear of an eventual invasion of the United States, a country that deployed an armed flotilla in the Caribbean.
The mobilization adds to other troops movements, already days of enlistment of civilians in the Military Reserve, which have been trained in barracks and popular neighborhoods.
The Government of Nicolás Maduro denounces as a “threat” the US military presence in southern Caribbean, where the administration of President Donald Trump has eight warships deployed and a nuclear propulsion submarine as part of a plan to combat drug trafficking.
Washington says that in recent weeks it destroyed at least three vessels allegedly loaded with drugs from Venezuela with a balance of 14 deaths, in an action described as an “extrajudicial execution” by United Nations experts.
In addition, according to sources cited Friday by the US NBC channel, “US military managers are preparing options to attack drug traffickers within Venezuela.”
His chancellor, Yván Gil, said he met with the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres. “He told us that he considers unjustified and unacceptable the military threat of the United States in the Caribbean, an action that violates the UN letter and puts at risk stability and sovereignty of the entire region,” he wrote on Telegram.
“We don’t want to” war
Saturday’s drill was designed to face from an earthquake and a tsunami to a war conflict, according to an official document. Some 400 training centers were enabled.
The first morning exercises focused on attending seismic emergencies, after this week there was a series of tremors, including two of magnitude 6.2 and 6.3.
Civil Protection officials went to schools to give talks about protocols in case of an earthquake.
The objective, estimated Richard Carpio, a 57 -year -old public employee, is that “before any event that can be raised in the country (…) everyone knows what it has to do.”
“We are a country of peace, we don’t want any war, any kind of intervention,” he told AFP.
At the Mariano Picón Salas school of the gigantic Complex of Petare neighborhoods, the drill began after a civil protection official said there was a tremor. There were about 300 people, including several elders, in a row: one hand touched the partner’s shoulder and the other protects the head.
On the related avenue, many were not aware of the simulation. The same in other parts of Caracas, where the day went normally.
The drill was repeated in other schools and public spaces in Venezuela, according to images of the VTV channel. Civil Protection officials moved stretchers to ambulances, crawled on the ground to demonstrate how to move in restricted sites and verified vital signs.
“Prepared”
The government’s plan for a war conflict contemplates the preparation of shelters and evacuation protocols.
The Armed Forces (FANB) also disseminated images of military exercises in coastal states with the Caribbean Sea.
Sophisticated anti -aircraft missiles, Russian manufacturing, were displaced to Cabo de San Román, Paraguaná Peninsula (northwest), about 27 km from Aruba. The military fired cannons in the direction of the sea and landed from a frigate amphibian vehicles that moved to land.
The military also completed coastal areas on Isla de Patos, a border point with Trinidad and Tobago, with helicopters and paratrooper.
In the Sucre state (northeast) they also carried out an anti -drug operation that resulted in the arrest of 30 people.
Also, the FANB published in networks images of military exercises that fired artillery and rifles.
The mayor of Caracas, Carmen Meléndez, indicated earlier than “civil bodies” attended the Tiuna military fort to “learn to use all weapons.” “If we have to go to the armed struggle, we are prepared.”
