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I have spent the last three weeks reporting on the Venezuelan aid lift in Caracas, Tachira & Cucuta. This is what I can say about the campaign.
First, the lion's share of the blame for the current impasse lays with Maduro. By refusing to even recognize humanitarian crisis & blocking the aid he condemns thousands to premature death. That said, I believe we need to look critically at the opposition's strategy & performance
The aid lift was poorly planned & executed. Many opposition leaders focused on PR instead of nitty-gritty logistics of getting the aid in. No one had the overall picture. Some openly relished a confrontation with Maduro's forces. Others expected the US to sort it out for them.
The opposition's message of imminent salvation was misleading. Pretty much every opposition leader & activist talked about "food & medicine" that would flood into Venezuela on the 23rd. The fact is there was no medicine to bring in on that date.
Supplies that have reached Cucuta by Saturday were mostly food. There were some hygiene kits, nutritional supplements & medical supplies like gloves & syringes. All of the above have big impact on health. But it is not medicine.pic.twitter.com/BcIv4Tkssm
Some opposition leaders talked about a small room with basic medicines in the back of the Cucuta warehouse. This was not confirmed by USAID or one of the people in the aid trucks. The opposition's message raised unfair expectations among some of the most vulnerable Venezuelans.
Dozens of chronic patients we interviewed in the past week said local TV stations and social media was filled with stories claiming all sorts of drugs for chronic diseases were stocked in the Cucuta warehouse. No one in the opposition sought to dismiss these reports.
What was originally planned as a multi-pronged push on the borders from land, sea & air, ended up being reduced to the three bridges to Cucuta & the main road to Brazil. The Puerto Rico ship, the Curacao deport were expensive PR stunts doomed to failure.
No attempt was made to bring the aid through the porous borders of Zulia, Amazonas or Apure or even Tachira's lesser-known Union Bridge, some of which had friendly indigenous populations & greater chances of defections at remote checkpoints.
The presence of guerrillas in the areas mentioned above does make them more risky, but it the aim was actually to bring the aid in, they offered higher chances of success, especially if done in cooperation with local indigenous leaders. Yet the cameras were elsewhere.
The centerpiece of the opposition's plan for Saturday was a massive march on the Tienditas bridge from both sides which was meant to put the security cordons in untenable clutch and open the path to the aid convoy.
On the Venezuelan side, the march never even convened. The walk from San Cristobal fizzled out without clear leadership from opposition lawmakers. Groups of stranded walkers could be seen along the road to Tienditas throughout Sat.
A few dozen of protesters, mostly residents of the Tienditas hamlet, gave a brave fight to the hundreds of Guards, FAES & DGCIM guarding the bridge. I didn't see a single opposition lawmaker in the area supporting them. Most were with the TV cameras elsewhere.
Most of the protesters got stuck in guarimbas in San Antonio & Ureña. They broke out when Guards pushed back locals trying to cross to Cucuta for work, but the opposition leaders' failure to prepare for such an event was obvious and admitted.
By the time a peaceful march of few thousand had gathered in Urena, it was too late. It was dispersed with tear gas as soon as it was in Guards's sight. It was a 2017 dejavu, with the same lack of results. Guarimba was always a big risk, but little was done to prevent it.
Most controversially, the burned trucks on the Ureña bridge. Guaido on Saturday talked about repressors who "burn medicines in front of the sick." Again, we know there were no medicines in any meaningful quantities. Maybe some medical supplies. Not medicines.
I don't have proof of what happened to the trucks. One of the people in the trucks said he thought the fire was caused by a tear gas canister fired by Venezuelan police. @cnw lays out credible theory that it was caused by accident by a molotov from a guarimbero on Colombian side.
I think more effort should be made to find out what exactly happened to the trucks, given the significance the images of burning aid will acquire in the coming days.
If you’re interesting in this topic, this story we did with @MeridithKohut @IsayenHG tells it from the patients’s perspectivehttps://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/world/americas/venezuela-patients-hospital.amp.html …
Given the polemic sparked by this thread, here are some clarifications based on new information I have since learned and omissions in previous tweets.
First, it was not my intention to minimize the horrific violence unleashed by Maduro's armed thugs on Saturday. It has been well documented, including by me, and is not in dispute. My intent was to add a new angle to the public discussion.
Nor did I want to disparage the work of hundreds volunteers, activists, opposition lawmakers & strategists who worked behind the scenes to their best ability to bring & distribute the aid. The failure was in combining and organizing these efforts.
The focus on Cucuta at the expense of other border regions appears to be caused at least in part by the Colombian government's reluctance to allow the opposition to use other parts of its territory for the aid lift.
There was indeed a small stock of medicines in the Cucuta depot last week, though USAID and opposition don't say how much & what kind. The point is that the very limited supplies of meds diverged greatly from the opposition's message that #23F would make a difference for the sick
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