Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro has vowed to “crush” the latest challenge to his rule and told the military he is “ready to do anything” to defend his “revolution” amid growing criticism of the crackdown that followed last week’s election results.
Maduro has said more than 2,000 people have been arrested in the days since the July 28 vote, and rights groups say at least 22 people have been killed.
The EU expressed “serious concern” on Sunday about a rise in arbitrary detentions in Venezuela and harassment of the opposition after it presented evidence that its candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, had won the election.
“The European Union calls on the Venezuelan authorities to end arbitrary detentions, repression and violent rhetoric against members of the opposition and civil society, and to release all political prisoners,” said European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. In a statement.
Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly also statement He said Sunday that civilian witnesses and international observers had presented “credible evidence” that the results delivered by Maduro’s government “do not reflect the will of the Venezuelan people.”
Maduro, who has claimed he won the election but has yet to provide any evidence, rejected those criticisms at a military ceremony in Caracas on Sunday.
“The EU is a disgrace,” Maduro told members of the Bolivarian National Guard, a branch of the military that has been involved in the repression.
Venezuela’s authoritarian president presented medals to troops who Maduro said were injured while responding to post-election unrest last Monday and Tuesday, saying: “We are confronting, defeating, containing and crushing the attempted coup in Venezuela.”
Maduro, who was elected in 2013 after the death of leader Hugo Chavez, has asked military leaders to order a “full deployment” of the military to meet the opposition challenge. Earlier, the Venezuelan president told troops equipped with rifles and riot shields: “I can assure you that we will hunt down all the criminals and all the fascists, because fascism will not come to power in Venezuela. I will do whatever it takes and I count on you to make sure that order, law and the constitution are upheld.”
Sunday’s rally was apparently planned to send a message of military solidarity at a time when Maduro’s political opponents are calling on the military to abandon the unpopular successor to President Chavez. It came 24 hours earlier when tens of thousands of pro-government protesters planned to march to the presidential palace in a similar show of national support.
During a televised ceremony on Sunday, one young soldier took the microphone and proclaimed his complete loyalty to the commander in chief: “Know in your heart that you have a Bolivarian National Guard that is committed, dedicated and absolutely loyal to you and to the Bolivarian Revolution.”
“We know that only with your leadership will our country be preserved, only with your leadership will the flames of the revolution be extinguished,” the soldier told Maduro.
Opponents of the government, shaken by increasingly hardline government rhetoric and a wave of arrests, took to the streets again on Saturday at the urging of Maria Corina Machado, the charismatic opposition leader who galvanized Gonzalez’s campaign.
“After six days of brutal repression, they thought they could silence, terrorize and paralyze us… [But] “We’re going to see it through to the end,” Machado told several thousand supporters.
Contributor to The EconomistGonzalez denied Maduro’s claims that his campaign incited violence or plotted to illegally seize power.
“It is against my beliefs and my record to support any form of violence, let alone a coup. Instead, the regime appears intent on staying in power by any means possible, including the use of violence,” added Gonzalez, a 74-year-old diplomat who agreed to run for president after Machado was barred from running.
The former ambassador insisted that his country won an “indisputable majority” in the election and called for “an urgent and competent verification of the election results.”
While the United States and other countries have recognised Gonzalez’s victory, leftist governments in Venezuela’s neighbours Brazil and Colombia have called on Maduro to release detailed election data to defuse a deepening crisis. British Foreign Secretary David Lammy tweeted on Sunday that “it is essential that the security of the democratic opposition is respected.”
But Maduro, who is widely blamed for a severe economic crisis that has forced some 8 million people to flee the country, has shown no sign of being ready to release such data, let alone relinquish power. On Sunday, he called one political opponent a “filthy rat” and others a “satanic force” and likened them to Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco.. “I will never surrender,” Maduro declared.
