On Friday night he said the crossing would remain closed until the assailants are caught.
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Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro declared a state of emergency in a zone bordering Colombia after an attack on Venezuelan soldiers conducting an anti-smuggling operation.
“I will not open the border until these attacks on our economy from Colombia stop, I will not open it”, Maduro said in a televised address yesterday.
Venezuela closed the border crossings Wednesday night and subsequently extended the shutdown indefinitely.
Maduro said that there would be 60 days of martial law in five municipalities in the north-western state of Tachira, the Associated Press reported.
Tachira state Governor Jose Vielma Mora said military personnel would be deployed to the smuggling-rife border area soon.
The move to beef up government forces came after three soldiers were injured in a shootout on Wednesday. Rampant smuggling is fueled by Venezuela’s price controls and subsidies on gasoline and food which offer opportunities for selling the goods at a higher price across the border.
The Venezuelan government has accused the Colombian opposition, headed by senator and former president, Alvaro Uribe, of being behind a plan to destabilise the country.
National Guard troops deplane from a Venezuelan Air Force Chinese-made Y-8F-100 transport aircraft (background) in La Fria, Tachira state, Venezuela, close to the Venezuela-Colombia border, on Friday.
He said the only ones who gain from closing the borders are the smugglers, while for everyone else it causes “inconvenience, annoyance, and makes a lot of innocent people pay for the broken crockery”.
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The 1,400-mile border between the two countries has been plagued by violence stemming from Colombia’s long-running conflict, the presence of drug-trafficking gangs and now by the smugglers. President Maduro also has demanded a “face to face” meeting with his Colombian counterpart.
