VENEZUELA-COLOMBIA/BORDER-UPDATE Venezuela border closing hurts innocent people-Colombian president

Record ID: 143047

  • Title: VENEZUELA-COLOMBIA/BORDER-UPDATE Venezuela border closing hurts innocent people-Colombian president
  • Date: 22nd August 2015
  • Summary: TACHIRA, VENEZUELA (AUGUST 22, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PEOPLE ON THE VENEZUELAN SIDE OF THE CLOSED BORDER BRIDGE SIMON BOLIVAR VARIOUS OF VENEZUELAN NATIONAL GUARD MEMBERS STANDING GUARD ON THE BRIDGE VARIOUS OF PEOPLE WAITING ON THE BRIDGE VARIOUS OF VENEZUELAN MILITARY PERSONNEL INSIDE HELICOPTER VARIOUS OF HELICOPTER INTERIORS AS IT OVERFLIES THE CITY VARIOUS OF VENE
  • Embargoed: 6th September 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Colombia
  • Country: Colombia
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA693BD8FKYC9XVLURTJ55OQD3L
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS NOTE: EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL WHICH WAS 4:3 ORIGINALLY
    Venezuela's closure of two border crossings with Colombia hurts innocent people, Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos said on Saturday (August 22), adding that he hoped to speak to his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro to find a solution.
    "It creates many inconveniences and creates a lot of ill will and we really put many innocent people to pay for the broken plates," he said. " In addition to the huge economic cost that closing the border creates. That is why we hope to find a solution as quickly as possible to this situation."
    "If it is over questions of security the answer should not be to close the border. It should be to collaborate in a more efficient way with Colombian authorities," he continued.
    Maduro closed the crossings on Wednesday after a shootout between smugglers and troops left three soldiers wounded. He declared a 60-day state of emergency in five border municipalities on Friday.
    At the same meeting the President of the Venezuelan National Assembly Diosdado Cabello turned up the rhetoric when he told Venezuelans they should prepare for war.
    "The people of Venezuela must prepare because, this state of emergency for sixty days, well, we should prepare for a prolonged war," he said during a televised These are not going to be just one day attacks. Tomorrow the Colombian bourgeois and oligarchs will come together with the Venezuelan bourgeois and oligarchs to try to take to the extreme these attacks."
    A few people waited on either side of the closed Simon Bolivar bridge which serves as a major border crossing between the countries as members of the Venezuelan National Guard stood behind barriers that close the road.
    "I have been here three days and they still don't open anything. So I have to see how I fix this because life here is expensive and I have nothing," said Felipe Suarez on the Colombian side of the border.
    The 2,219-kilometer (1,379 mile) border shared by the two countries is frequently traversed by smugglers and illegal armed groups.
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