ZCZC
BFF-10
VENEZUELA-POLITICS-ELECTRICITY-ENERGY
Guaido says will ask Venezuela legislature to respond to blackout
CARACAS, March 11, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Opposition leader Juan Guaido said
Sunday he will ask Venezuela’s legislature to declare a “state of alarm,”
authorizing the delivery of international aid in response to a catastrophic
power outage that has paralyzed the country.
At least 15 patients with advanced kidney disease were reported to have
died since the blackout began on Thursday, as hospitals struggled to provide
emergency services and the threat of spoiling food supplies put many on edge.
“We must attend to this catastrophe immediately. We cannot turn away from
it,” said Guaido, the 35-year-old leader of the National Assembly who in
January declared himself interim president, triggering a power struggle in
the oil-rich country of 30 million.
He told reporters he is convening an emergency session of the National
Assembly for Monday to declare a “state of alarm” and authorize the delivery
of international aid.
Such an action would set up another test of wills with President Nicolas
Maduro, who last month used the military to repel an opposition bid to bring
in humanitarian supplies from Colombia and Brazil.
But Maduro vowed on Sunday he would not back down. “This macabre strategy
to bring us to a confrontation will fail,” he wrote on Twitter.
The Venezuelan health ministry also denied that the blackout had caused any
deaths in public hospitals as reported.
But the government announced that schools and workplaces would remain
closed Monday as the power outages continued.
– Military stance –
Guaido meanwhile called for more street protests Monday to pressure Maduro
to step down.
“You have the right to go into the street, to protest, to demand, because
this regime is letting Venezuelans die,” he said, appealing to the armed
forces “to stop covering for the dictator.”
Guaido is recognized by more than 50 countries as Venezuela’s acting
president, which have backed his calls for new polls, but the military high
command has so far stood by Maduro despite a plummeting economy and deep
discontent.
In Washington, National Security Advisor John Bolton suggested members of
the military were reconsidering their support for Maduro.
“There are countless conversations going on between members of the National
Assembly and members of the military in Venezuela, talking about what might
come, how they might move to support the opposition,” Bolton said in an
interview on ABC’s “This Week.”
One reason the security forces have refrained from arresting Guaido, he
said, “is Maduro fears if he gave that order, it would not be obeyed.”
MORE/MSY/0942 hrs
ZCZC
BFF-11
VENEZUELA-POLITICS-ELECTRICITY-ENERGY-2-LAST
– Electromagnetic attack? –
Maduro blames “imperialism” for the country’s accumulating woes, and claims
the power outage was caused by an electromagnetic attack on the Guri
hydroelectric complex, which supplies 80 percent of Venezuela’s electricity.
Guaido dismissed that explanation as “Hollywoodesque.” Critics blame the
government for failing to maintain the power grid, as did the Lima Group, a
primarily Latin American bloc.
For ordinary Venezuelans, the blackout has piled misery upon an already
agonizing day-to-day struggle to survive in a once prosperous country now
reeling from hyperinflation and economic collapse.
“Every day is worse,” said Edward Cazano, a 20-year-old who lives with his
mother and three brothers in a poor Caracas neighborhood called Pinto
Salinas. “We have the worst services in the world: no light, no water,
sometimes no gas.” Hospitals with back-up generators were using them for
emergency services, leaving patients to cope in the dark.
“This has been horrible. Everything dark. Only some areas are operating
with a generator,” said Sol Dos Santos, a 22-year-old whose daughter is
hospitalized.
Some isolated cases of looting were also reported in Caracas on Sunday.
– Dialysis patients at risk –
No national data was available about the impact of the power outage, but an
NGO said at least 15 patients with advanced kidney disease died after they
stopped receiving dialysis treatments in darkened hospitals.
Francisco Valencia, director of the Codevida health rights group, said some
10,200 people were at risk because dialysis units had switched off.
Businesses remained shut, and public transport barely functioned.
“I am very nervous because this situation isn’t being resolved. The little
food we have in the refrigerator is going to spoil. How long are we going to
endure this?” asked Francisca Rojas, a 62-year-old retiree in Caracas.
The blackout has been one of the worst and longest in recent memory in
Venezuela, which is already suffering from serious shortages of food and
medicine due to the overarching economic crisis.
BSS/AFP/MSY/0942 hrs