Venezuela’s bishops have said they are profoundly uneasy about a decision by the government to increase the power of the military.
This week President Nicolas Maduro ordered the army to take control of five major ports and food processing plants to deal with serious shortages of basic supplies.
“The increase in military power is a threat to tranquillity and peace,” said the bishops in a statement.
They blamed the country’s ongoing social and economic crisis on a “totalitarian project which has made of us an impoverished, undemocratic nation, a situation which the government is intent on maintaining.”
The Venezuelan economy has been brought to its knees by years of mismanagement and a dramatic fall in the price of Venezuela’s main commodity, oil. It has the world’s highest inflation rate and the constant scarcity of food and medical supplies has triggered huge anti-government demonstrations.
The bishops described democracy in Venezuela as being “in pieces” and accused President Maduro of failing to rebuild it. They repeated their offer to help facilitate dialogue between the government and its opposition and called on Maduro not to resist a referendum on his leadership, which they hoped would take place this year, leading to a general election.
“This is a democratic right set out in the constitution. To impede and delay it with multiple obstacles is absurd and threatens the social and political stability of the country,” they said.
In a statement marking their ordinary assembly, the bishops also demanded that the government open the border between Colombia and Venezuela permanently.
The border was closed in August last year in an effort to combat crime and prevent Venezuelan goods, many of which are subsidised by the government, from being sold for inflated prices in Colombia.
On Sunday [9th] the border was opened for 12 hours to allow Venezuelans to travel to Colombia to buy food in a country where it is plentiful. Around 35,000 people were reported to have crossed. Earlier in the week a group of 500 women broke past the Venezuelan National Guard to get through the border, returning with bread, oil, toilet paper and other basics.
The Archbishop of Maracaibo, Ubaldo Santana, said what had been happening on the border was evidence of the crisis Venezuela faced.
He offered the services of the Catholic aid agency, Caritas, saying the organisation’s offices in Venezuela were on stand by to take deliveries of medicines, should the government allow it.
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