Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro urged his United States counterpart Donald Trump to “stop the madness” after denouncing an alleged plot to stage a coup and unleash a US intervention in Venezuela.
Maduro assured that if his government were to be overthrown, he would take up arms and make Iraq and Libya look like newborn babies.
Listen, President Donald Trump, it’s up to you (…). If these forces of violence, hatred and death were to destroy Venezuela, the Mediterranean Sea would be a newborn baby compared to the Caribbean Sea, with thousands and millions of Caribbean people heading for the United States. Nothing and nobody could stop them (…) You would have to build 20 walls in the sea!”
stated Maduro.
You have the responsibility, stop the madness of the Venezuelan right wing,”
added Maduro, during the swearing-in of gubernatorial candidates to the Constituent Assembly.
Amidst a wave of protests marred by riots that have resulted in almost 80 fatal victims in almost three months, according to prosecutors, Maduro accused the opposition this week of plotting “a plan to create acts of violence and to open the door to a coup that would end with the arrival of American fleets and troops” to the oil producing country. There are, he said, five detainees for this.
If Venezuela were plunged into chaos and violence and the Bolivarian revolution was destroyed, we would go to combat … and what it’s not possible with the votes, we would take it with arms,”
continued the Socialist president.
Despite the warnings, Maduro said he was willing to hold “respect relationships” with Trump and be ready to talk.
The President’s call for a Constituent Assembly has deepened the political crisis.
The initiative is described by the opposition as a “fraud” to establish a “dictatorship” and, at the same time, it widens the gaps in chavismo, opened by people like the attorney general Luisa Ortega Díaz.