Venezuela’s Guaidó mulls foreign military intervention for humanitarian aid
Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó, speaking in an exclusive interview with FOX Business’ Trish Regan, is telling those on the far left, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, that the root of Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis is directly tied to socialism.
"It’s about a lack of information,” Guaidó said about Ocasio-Cortez and Omar on Monday. “So if you want to talk about the economy, we’re seeing 53 percent rates, 1,000 percent in inflation, lack of basic products, medication and food. If we look at the day-to-day suffering of the Venezuelan people that’s not about numbers it’s about human beings. It’s about lives, people who are suffering right now who see their lives in danger and who cannot provide for themselves as human beings to sustain a society and the world. So regarding the crisis going on in Venezuela, I invite everyone to see what’s going on in Venezuela.”
Guaidó is back in his home country after a 10-day absence and defying a travel ban imposed by the country’s Supreme Court controlled by Nicholas Maduro.
His opposition party has declared a state of national emergency as the country enters its fifth day with nearly no electricity.
Wide spread looting is causing more havoc in the capital City of Caracas and other parts of the South American country as conditions continue to deteriorate.
Guaidó said he will invoke a constitutional article allowing the Congress to authorize foreign military operations to intervene in the country’s humanitarian crisis.
“There is part of Article 187 of our National Constitution, which is not only for Venezuela, but it allows for an outside country to cooperate or to assist Venezuela in this sense,” Guaidó said on "Trish Regan Primetime." “As we’ve stated in this article of our constitution, which empowers me, as the person in charge, to employ whatever measures are necessary to enact this cooperation and this assistance for Venezuela.”
Many parts of the country remain cut off from electricity as its citizens try to survive with no food, medicine or water. No power means critical, life-saving hospital systems are down as well, leaving many fighting for their lives.
“This adds to the already existing humanitarian crisis in Venezuela and of course health crisis as well which is generating over 25 deaths so far due to a lack of immediate medical assistance and power in the majority of Venezuelan hospitals,” Guaidó stressed, adding that the Maduro regime is to blame for burning humanitarian aid.
“The world has seen how Maduro’s government has burned medicines and foodstuffs. The world saw how they blocked trucks to enter medicine into the country,” he said. “In fact, there’s a plant in Cucuta right now, and a plant producing emergency supplies for hospitals, and we know that as long as Maduro’s government is in place, it will be difficult to enter [for] these supplies. But our responsibility is to attend to our people’s suffering.”
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President Trump has vowed to use the “full weight” of America’s power to help the poverty-stricken country go from a socialist state to a Democratic one. Guaidó, who has become a target, spoke out about his safety.
“There is risk involved in maintaining our political freedom and our lives, but we are taking on this civic endeavor in this international aid which keeps us going.”