Helicopter
dropped two grenades on Venezuela’s Supreme Court building in a “terror attack”
against the government, President Nicolas Maduro said in a speech Tuesday.
“I have
activated the entire armed forces to defend the peace,” he said in remarks
delivered from the Miraflores presidential palace.
Maduro said
he has put the military on alert to respond to the alleged assault.
“Sooner or
later, we are going to capture that helicopter and those that carried out this
terror attack,” he declared.
He did not
say when the alleged attack is supposed to have occurred, and said no one was
injured and that one of the grenades failed to detonate.
In his
speech, Maduro, 54, said that in addition to firing on Venezuela’s high court,
the helicopter flew over the Justice and Interior Ministeries.
The beleaguered
president, who for weeks has been thundering about alleged coup plots against
him, said the aircraft was flown by a pilot who worked for his former Interior
and Justice minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres, from whom he is now estranged.
Earlier
Tuesday, Maduro repeated claims of a US-backed coup attempt and angrily warned
President Donald Trump that Venezuela would fight back against such a move.
His comments
came a day after he announced the arrests of five opponents he accused of
plotting against him to clear the way for a US invasion.
– Anti-US
tirade –
It was one
of the more dramatic in a regular series of anti-US tirades by the socialist
leader, who is resisting opposition calls for elections to remove him.
“If
Venezuela were dragged into chaos and violence… we would fight,” Maduro
bellowed in a speech to supporters.
If a coup
prevented his side fulfilling his contested reform plans, he said, “we would
achieve it by arms.”
He said that
an armed intervention in his country would spark a crisis that would dwarf
those caused by conflicts in the Middle East.
Addressing
Trump, he said: “You are responsible for restraining the madness of the
Venezuelan right-wing.”
Maduro has a
number of times claimed that the United States is to blame for the grave
political and economic crisis in the oil-producing country, which has fueled
the often violent demonstrations of recent months.
Clashes in
anti-Maduro protests over the past three months have left 76 people dead,
prosecutors say.
The
opposition blames Maduro for an economic crisis that has caused shortages of
food and medicine in the oil-rich country.
They
regularly accuse him of repressing and jailing opponents. Judicial NGO Foro
Penal says there are 383 political prisoners in Venezuela.
– War of
words –
Addressing a
crowd over the weekend, Maduro had said detainees would face military trial
over an alleged coup plot, backed by Venezuelan opposition leaders and aimed at
precipitating a US intervention in the country.
“I am not
exaggerating when I say it would have involved the arrival of American ships
and troops in Venezuelan waters, on Venezuelan soil,” Maduro said.
And on
Saturday the head of the Organization of American States dug his heels in a war
of words with Caracas, flatly rejecting its demand that he resign.
Maduro had
suggested that Luis Almagro — who has criticized the Venezuelan government of
violating human rights, interfering in elections and detaining political
prisoners — step down in exchange for the country’s continued membership in the
regional body.
Though
Almagro dismissed that notion, the OAS General Assembly was unable to reach
agreement on a plan to deal with the instability in Venezuela at a meeting in
Cancun last week.
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