MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Maduro blames foreign fascist saboteurs for blackout

“There is a permanent conspiracy and an attack on Venezuela by a fascist sector allied with the international rightwing led and financed by the US empire,” Maduro stressed

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Friday blamed fascist imperialism for the large-scale blackout that hit a large part of Caracas and its surrounding areas. “The investigations are advanced, they will be deepened,” insisted the head of state in a public message in which he stood behind the theory that the malfunction stemmed from foreign far-right sabotage. “Justice cannot be delayed,” he insisted.

“We are defeating fascism and hatred, but justice cannot be delayed. As the head of state that I am, on behalf of an entire people, I ask for justice against the material and intellectual authors of this attack. I ask for justice to consolidate peace,” Maduro underlined. “Venezuela is working in peace,” he also noted while linking the outage to the July 28 elections. According to him, the saboteurs sought to empty the Guri reservoir, which is the “heart” of Venezuela's electric system.

“There is a permanent conspiracy and an attack on Venezuela by a fascist sector allied with the international rightwing led and financed by the US empire,” Maduro elaborated.

“It is a treacherous attack, full of vengeance, hatred that comes from the fascist currents that have taken over the political sectors that pretended to be political opposition and that the people already clearly identify, that the people identify and know what their origin is,” he went on. “We have preserved Guri,” he added while noting that “we have learned the lessons” from the 2019 attack against that reservoir. “The technological protection systems built four years ago have worked, they protected the Guri,” he also said.

“We know where the attacks come from. These people have a gigantic wisdom to know what to do at every moment, in every juncture and circumstance,” he also explained. He also mentioned that the attacks were conceived in Colombia by a sector linked to former Presidents Álvaro Uribe and Iván Duque.

The electricity service was being restored “step by step and safe[ly],” Maduro also told the Venezuelan people while thanking the medical staff that performed a bone marrow transplant in these critical circumstances. Science Minister Gabriela Jiménez also mentioned in a radio interview that 79 hospitals nationwide were prioritized during the reconnection of the country's electricity grid, with a focus on intensive care and dialysis units, surgical areas, blood banks and the storage of medicines that require refrigeration. She also pointed out that mobile phones had not been affected by the outage.

Meanwhile, Táchira State Governor Freddy Bernal announced that a criminal gang planning to carry out terrorist acts against the Regional and National Electric System had been dismantled and its members arrested in the electrical substation of Ureña, where they intended to blow up transformers affecting supply to Táchira, Mérida, Trujillo, Barinas, Apure, Zulia, and Yaracuy.