CARACAS, May 20: Venezuela on Monday suspended flights from neighbor Colombia after what it called a cross-border infiltration of mercenaries planning to “sabotage” legislative and regional elections this weekend.
“We gave instructions that all flights coming from Colombia to Venezuela be immediately suspended,” Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello told a press conference, adding 38 people had been arrested, including 17 foreigners.
The government of President Nicolas Maduro, whose reelection last year to a third term was rejected by much of the international community as fraudulent, frequently claims to be the target of US- and Colombian-backed coup plots.
Colombia’s civil aviation authority confirmed that commercial flights between the countries had been suspended. Cabello did not say how long the ban would last.
The foreign ministry in Bogota told AFP it had activated “diplomatic channels” to get more information.
“We were not given prior notification, nor do we know details” of the threat alleged, it said.
Cabello linked the alleged mercenaries to opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who has called for a boycott of Sunday’s legislative and gubernatorial elections.
The minister claimed those arrested planned to attack foreign embassies, hospitals and police.
He said they arrived from Colombia, some by plane, others over land, but had set out originally from other, unnamed, countries.
In Bogota, passengers had already started boarding a Caracas-bound Latam Airlines flight when it was cancelled Monday.
“We hope it gets resolved,” 64-year-old trader Gianlore Lorenzo told AFP. “You can’t just leave people adrift like this.”
“I haven’t set foot in Venezuela for six years, and I was going to spend vacations in my country. I feel it’s unfair that I cannot,” added Tahois Leonetti, a 50-year-old engineer and resident of Chile, travelling via Colombia.
In an AFP Zoom interview last week, Machado, who went into hiding after the July 2024 presidential election Maduro claims to have won, vowed a voter boycott on Sunday that would leave “all the (voting) centers empty.”
The opposition says its tally of results from the July vote showed a clear victory for its candidate, former diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia who went into exile in Spain after a crackdown on dissent.
The diplomatic outcry that followed saw Caracas break off ties, and flight routes, with several countries. Some airlines have also canceled operations to and from cash-strapped Venezuela due to unpaid debts.
Caracas and Bogota reopened flight routes in November 2022, after the election of Colombia’s first-ever leftist President Gustavo Petro, who reinstated bilateral ties broken off in 2019 when then-leader Ivan Duque refused to acknowledge Maduro’s re-election to a second term. – TVS
