Maduro: “If Venezuela were attacked, it would immediately go to armed struggle”

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro warned this Monday that if his country is attacked, it would “immediately move to the period of armed struggle” to guarantee sovereignty and national peace.

“If Venezuela were attacked, it would immediately enter a period of armed struggle in defense of the national territory and the history and people of Venezuela. And we would constitutionally declare the Republic in arms. Armed struggle and Republic in arms. From north to south, from east to west, to guarantee peace, sovereignty and the development of the country in any circumstance that may befall us,” the president said at a press conference.

Maduro explained that the Bolivarian country has “a strategic plan” of defense “that has been designed for 20 years and has been adapted, has been renewed” and “includes two forms of struggle”, the unarmed and the armed. The first aspect includes organization, production and training, as well as “diplomatic struggle, political struggle and enlistment”.

This same day, the president denounced that Venezuela “is facing the greatest threat” in the last hundred years, since “eight military ships, with 1,200 missiles and a nuclear submarine [from the U.S.] are pointing” towards Venezuelan territory.

Likewise, the country demanded the “immediate withdrawal” of US deployments from the Caribbean Sea deployed to allegedly combat drug trafficking, considering that it is “an unprecedented situation since the missile crisis in the 60s, when regional peace was put at significant risk,” according to Foreign Minister Yván Gil during an emergency meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the countries of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac).