Spanish
Caracas.- Venezuela launched this Saturday the defense plan called 'Independence 200' with armed civilians, police and military in the states of Anzoátegui, Monagas and Bolívar, in the east of the country, which are added to other five regions activated in the last days, before the "different threats" of the United States, which maintains a naval deployment in the Caribbean Sea near the South American nation.
The Minister of the Interior, Diosdado Cabello, led the event in Monagas, where he explained that the plan aims to continue with the preparation of the people, the police forces and the Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB) to "face the different threats that loom over the homeland", during which the "potentialities and deficiencies will be reviewed rigorously".
"These exercises have nothing to do with getting into a trench to see what happens, no, no, or waiting for the enemy to wear themselves out, no, no. The enemy will wear themselves out, but because of our permanent actions of harassment, of not letting them sleep, of not letting them rest, of driving them to despair, (...) of appearing everywhere in any way", he said.
Likewise, the official called for "active and prolonged resistance", as well as being "in permanent offensive", because, he warned, the "imperialist enemy has decided to aim all its weapons against the homeland of (Simón) Bolívar".
Through Telegram, President Nicolás Maduro also reported the activation of the plan in Anzoátegui, Monagas and Bolívar, a part of the territory he described as "a vital corridor of the country that goes from the Caribbean Sea to the (river) Orinoco and to the south of the border with Brazil".
The president assured that the so-called Integral Defense Operational Zones (ZODI) will be activated "day by day" and "state by state" for the development of 'Independence 200', as has been done since Wednesday in the coastal regions of Carabobo, La Guaira, Aragua, Falcón and Zulia, the latter bordering Colombia.
Anzoátegui and Monagas also have access to the Caribbean, while Bolívar, in the south, borders Brazil.
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On Friday, the Minister of Defense, Vladimir Padrino López, indicated that exercises are being carried out in compliance with 27 tasks "against the air campaign and the systematic attrition" of the U.S. 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". In addition, "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," he added. 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".
