Spanish
Caracas.- The Minister of Defense of Venezuela, Vladimir Padrino López, said this Friday that the country is doing "everything that corresponds" to avoid war, in a context in which military exercises are carried out to guarantee the integral defense capacity of the territory against the "threat" that the naval deployment of the US in the Caribbean Sea represents for Caracas.
"We are guaranteeing and doing everything that corresponds to us, everything that is in our hands to avoid war, to preserve peace", the minister stated in a video on his Telegram account.
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Padrino López indicated that in the country exercises are carried out in compliance with 27 tasks that President Nicolás Maduro indicated "against the air campaign and the systematic wear" of the United States and, in addition, to "avoid strategic paralysis" in Venezuela. Among the tasks to be fulfilled, he underlined, is to "check food reserves, hospital availability, the use of community radios and all available means of communication". Furthermore, he continued, "the defense of cities and the defense and protection of approach routes leading to those main cities throughout the national territory", as well as the "execution of maritime patrols in ports". "This time with a new modality. We are doing it by state, concentrating efforts. Verifying task by task," affirmed the Venezuelan official. Venezuela activated this Friday the plan called 'Independence 200' in the coastal states of Aragua, Falcón and Zulia, which are added to La Guaira and Carabobo, in the face of the military deployment that the United States maintains in the Caribbean Sea near the coasts of Venezuela. Maduro announced the activation, starting at 5:00 local time (9:00 GMT), of the Bolivarian Militia and "all social forces" of the so-called Integral Defense Operational Zones (ZODI) in Aragua, Falcón, and Zulia (border region with Colombia) so that, he said, they "fulfill the development, deployment, and evaluation" of 27 "fundamental actions to guarantee the defense capability." Last Wednesday, the authorities activated the 'Independencia 200' plan in Carabobo and La Guaira, announced last September. That day, Padrino López indicated that the country is conducting exercises on the hypothesis of a "military aggression" by the U.S. In this regard, the minister clarified that he does not want to produce "alarmism", but rather "imprint realism on the situation", after mentioning the "irrationality with which North American imperialism acts". Maduro's government requested this Thursday that a meeting of the United Nations Security Council be convened with "urgent character" in the face of the "armed attack" that could occur, he emphasized, by the United States against Venezuela "in a very short term". The U.S. defends its deployment as an operation against the alleged drug trafficking coming from the South American nation, while Maduro's Executive insists that it is a "threat" to bring about a "regime change".
