US Underestimates Venezuela’s Determination, Maduro Says

‘Each imperial aggression attempt will be met with a forceful response from (…) the patriots we love and defend, with courage, our Homeland’, said the President on Twitter.

On Friday, the Venezuelan Government accused US Senator Marco Rubio and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of being accomplices in Thursday’s cyberattack on the automated control system of El Guri hydroelectric plant.

The minister of Communication and Information, Jorge Rodriguez, told a press conference at the Miraflores Palace, that Bolivarian authorities will denounce this aggression before United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet and other international bodies.

Around 80 percent of the country’s territory was affected by power outages. Service was gradually restored on Friday after the forced shutdown of the second-largest hydroelectric plant in Latin America and the fourth largest in the world.

Venezuela has repeatedly denounced Washington’s escalating meddling to topple the legitimate government of Nicolas Maduro, who was democratically elected in May 2018 with 67 percent of the vote and the support of more than six million voters.

The US and a group of its international allies supported the self-proclamation of the opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido as president in charge of Venezuela, in an usurpation act described by Caracas as an ongoing coup d’etat.

Washington also tightened sanctions against the country’s oil industry and the persecution of Venezuelan assets abroad, while encouraging destabilization actions on the border with Colombia and Brazil under the pretext of alleged humanitarian aid.