Caracas, Apr 17 (EFE).- The Venezuelan armed forces on Monday confirmed their unconditional support for President Nicolas Maduro against what the military says is a “crucial situation” due to “acts of violence” that threaten the country’s “peace and stability.”
Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez read a text in the name of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) in the presence of Maduro and hundreds of troops gathered in western Caracas to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the formation of the militia, an armed civilian corps designed to augment the military.
“In a crucial situation for the country, the excessive ambition of those enemies threatens its peace and stability by carrying out a criminal agenda loaded with hate that includes terrorist acts, disturbances, looting, vandalism, different forms of violence against innocent people and public health facilities,” Padrino said.
The defense chief said that the violent acts perpetrated during recent opposition protests, which to date have resulted in six deaths and about 100 arrests, are geared toward creating “anxiety in the public, anarchy and chaos, with the ignoble aim of toppling the democratic government.”
In addition, he said that violent groups financed from abroad “by radical right organizations” are promoting the violent acts to justify foreign intervention, and – in turn – this plan is “backed and orchestrated by certain lawmakers in the National Assembly,” which is controlled by the political opposition.
Those legislators, Padrino said, have “flagrantly turned their backs on the Constitution” and have “once again turned toward undermining the … state and obstructing the government administration oriented toward the resolution of problems.”
Given the foregoing, the minister said, the military expresses “its peaceful vocation but unanimously reiterates its radically anti-imperialist, …. anti-oligarchic, Chavista and … nationalist stance.”
Padrino rejected all types of violent protest and said that the military will continue to “fulfill its assigned constitutional task to cooperate in the maintenance of internal order and the preservation of the public peace” at the same time as it asked that “the action of the state oriented toward the restoration of public order” not be called repression.