The United States has invested over $310 million in humanitarian support for victims of Venezuela’s devastating June 24 earthquakes as of this week and delivered upwards of 60,000 food, hygiene, and other aid kits to victims, America’s top diplomat in the country told reporters on Tuesday.
Chargé d’Affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Caracas John Barrett, alongside Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) Commander Gen. Francis Donovan, told reporters during an online briefing on Tuesday that America’s prominent role in helping the country, formerly an aggressive enemy of Washington’s, recover from the natural disaster is shifting from primarily a search and rescue operation to rebuilding and facilitating life-saving aid distribution to keep survivors fed, clean, and safe.
Venezuela suffered two earthquakes in quick succession, of magnitude 7.5 and 7.2, on June 24, which has resulted in upwards of 3,000 deaths at press time and an estimated 50,000 people missing. The earthquakes struck in the state of La Guaira, known before socialist rule as Vargas, and deeply affected neighboring Caracas. Due to over two decades of repressive and corrupt socialist mismanagement, the country was especially vulnerable to a natural disaster due to its barely functional healthcare system, a dilapidated electrical grid, and poorly constructed socialist housing complexes that reportedly collapsed rapidly.
The Venezuelan socialist regime, led by interim “president” Delcy Rodríguez, was quick to invite American forces into the country to help dig out survivors and tend to victims. This allowed America, according to Chargé d’Affaires Barrett, to lead “the largest international earthquake response in Venezuela’s modern history.”
“What began as an urgent life-saving operation is now transitioning into a sustained humanitarian relief and recovery effort,” Barrett explained. “Our four American urban search and rescue teams have completed their mission and returned home.”
According to Barrett, the U.S. has released over $310 million in support for Venezuelans. Much of this is being distributed with the aid of international organizations such as Samaritan’s Purse, Catholic Relief Services, and the World Food Program (WFP), helping keep money out of the hands of corrupt socialist officials.
The WFP, Barrett explained, “has reached more than 18,000 people affected by the earthquakes with food assistance; well over a million pounds of relief supplies have already been delivered to communities across Venezuela.”
The State Department is reportedly aiding with civilian tasks with the help of the Pentagon, whose logistics aid Barrett described as “spectacularly impressive.” Of particular concern is the rehabilitating of runways at Simón Bolívar International Airport in Marquetía, La Guaira, close to the epicenter of the earthquakes. Without access to safe runways, receiving aid from abroad is essentially impossible.
According to Gen. Donovan, the Department of War is focusing on “airlift, logistics, transportation, assisting in running the airport and seaport, and then heavy lift equipment.” At the airport, American forces are working to rapidly open as many runways as possible.
“Those Americans on the airfield working really with their Venezuelan counterparts have delivered more than 1.5 million pounds of cargo,” he explained. “That cargo is offloaded and then transported directly to where it’s needed and that’s key for the relief operation.”
Gen. Donovan emphasized that the United States is not controlling the airport, meaning Washington is not deciding want flights are allowed to come and go.
“What we’re doing is assisting with air traffic control… ensuring the safe landing and takeoff of aircraft and ensuring the safe management of the space around the airport.”
The two American officials did not suggest that the Venezuelan government is obstructing these efforts, a major concern given that Rodríguez, the interim dictator, has publicly condemned American humanitarian aid in the past as “cancerous.” The nation’s “interior minister,” drug lord Diosdado Cabello, was also caught on camera in the early days after the earthquake appearing to obstruct American aid efforts, a situation the State Department dismissed as a rapidly solved misunderstanding. Cabello later surfaced in videos appearing to engage with American officials, a situation Chargé d’Affaires Barrett did not address directly in the briefing, instead insisting that his government is focused exclusively on disaster relief and executing on the ongoing transition away from the rule of imprisoned former dictator Nicolás Maduro.
Chargé d’Affaires also fell short of offering any meaningful praise of the Venezuelan government, instead describing it as simply “compliant” with what American emergency personnel have required to execute on their mission.
“The interim government, as I have said, has been fully compliant in terms of our requests to advance this massive humanitarian response and, again,” he explained, “we will continue to lead initiatives, mobilize U.S. and international response teams to reach those communities in need ,and the government has been compliant with us in terms of ensuring… more than 62,000 kits, from hygiene to hot meals to food kits, are being distributed with speed and with reliance out to the Venezuelans most in need.”
The two officials affirmed that the United States would continue its prodigious aid efforts in the long-term to help with rebuilding and returning to normalcy.