The president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, who is facing a wave of international pressure following his questionable victory in the elections on July 28, He said he has many friends in Colombia who are willing to protect his mandate.
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The statements were made during a virtual summit with heads of state of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (Alba), which was attended by figures such as the President of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, and the Cuban President, Miguel Díaz Canel.
In his speech, Maduro said that those who try to attack Venezuela will receive a response and that his allies in Colombia will help his government protect itself from such attacks.
“We have many friends in Colombia, many people who love us in Colombia. Those who dare, as they have dared in Colombia, to try to attack Venezuela, our friends will protect us. They will continue to protect us,” he said, although without referring to specific allies he might have in Colombian territory.
Then, He added that his friends in Colombia “are willing to do anything, because peace in Venezuela is peace in Colombia.”
“I greet all of our Colombian and Venezuelan friends who protect us from Colombia. Many people. And they are ready for anything,” the president emphasized at the ALBA summit.
During the meeting in Alba, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega also offered to send “Sandinista fighters” to Maduro in case a “counterrevolution” takes place in Venezuela and warned that such a counterrevolution could be organized from Colombia.
“I want to warn Nicolás, and I’m sure you’ve already thought about this, analyzed it and are prepared (…), since this maneuver (to reverse the election results) has already failed for them (the Venezuelan opposition), and there is no turning back, there is no step back since Nicolás is the legitimate president,” they can now take up arms, as happened in the Central American country, he said.
We have many friends in Colombia, many people who love us in Colombia
The National Electoral Council (CNE) declared Maduro the winner of the presidential election, but a month later it has still not published the voting records or the disaggregated results.
The opposition, led by María Corina Machado and candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, claims that it was González who won at the polls and made available to the public a web portal where more than 83 percent of the records are stored, as proof of the former diplomat’s victory.
For the publication of that website, The Venezuelan Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation against Edmundo González, accusing him of crimes of usurpation of CNE functions, forgery of public documents, among others.
Meanwhile, international pressure continues to mount on Maduro to allow a peaceful transition of power. Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva insisted on Saturday on the need to publish the electoral records “broken down by voting table.”
Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo also said on Tuesday that Colombia maintains its position as a country that builds bridges to achieve “fundamental solutions in Venezuela.”
He said this at the end of the meeting of the Foreign Relations Advisory Committee, made up of former presidents and former high-ranking Colombian officials.
“There was a lot of emphasis on the fact that this is a changing, very dynamic process and we must be very attentive to ensure that Colombia remains a country that builds bridges and can generate facilitation and mediation for fundamental solutions in Venezuela and that these are solutions that start from dialogue, from political negotiation by the Venezuelans themselves,” said Murillo.
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