The Minister of Defense of Venezuela, Vladimir Padrino López, reported that this Tuesday, 200,000 military personnel have been mobilized across the country as part of new preparation exercises in response to the «threats» from the United States, which maintains a naval and air deployment in the waters of the Caribbean Sea near the South American nation.
«Almost 200,000 personnel have been deployed throughout the national territory for this exercise, and I must say that this does not detract from the daily deployment carried out by the Operational Strategic Command (...) fighting all other threats with all our might,» stated Padrino López in an interview with the state channel Venezolana de Televisión (VTV).
This Tuesday, the executive of Nicolás Maduro announced a new military deployment to counter what it considers «imperialist threats,» referring to the United States. The Defense Minister had stated earlier in a communication published on Instagram that the deployment began this Tuesday at 04:00 local time (08:00 GMT) and will end tomorrow, Wednesday.
This mobilization includes «land, air, naval, river, and missile (sic) means,» as well as weapon systems, military units, the Bolivarian Militia, citizen security organs, and commands for integral defense, according to Padrino López. Likewise, he continued, the «Organs of Direction for Integral Defense (ODDI) will be fully activated in all states, federal and municipal entities».
In parallel, the National Assembly (AN, Parliament) of Venezuela, controlled by chavism, approved this Tuesday a law to defend the country against the military deployment of the United States in the Caribbean Sea.
«We are approving a fundamental law that establishes a new way of addressing the deployment, compliance with orders, troop movements, and, above all, the conjunction between the people and the Armed Forces,» said the president of the AN, Jorge Rodríguez, during the ordinary session, broadcast on the state channel Venezolana de Televisión (VTV).
The 'Law of the Command for the Integral Defense of the Nation' —which must be published in the Official Gazette to come into force— provides, among other actions, for the collection of information by the working committees of the Organs of Direction for Integral Defense (ODDI), with the objective of «identifying patterns, trends, and potential risks that allow determining the severity and impact of threats against the nation's security».
The ODDI, as Maduro explained last January, are «instances of planning, coordination, integration, and execution of all the powers of the State,» to guarantee «the right to peace».
According to the United States, 75 people have already died and twenty vessels have been destroyed in the operation it is carrying out in the Caribbean and later expanded to the Pacific, defended by the Administration of President Donald Trump as a campaign against drug trafficking.
However, the Maduro government has denounced that this military presence is a plan to foment a «regime change» and impose a «puppet» authority in Venezuela with which the U.S. can «seize» its natural resources, mainly oil.
