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U.S. To Pull Diplomats Out Of Embassy In Venezuela

A U.S. flag flies outside the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, in January. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that all remaining embassy personnel would be withdrawn this week.
Fernando Llano
/
AP
A U.S. flag flies outside the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, in January. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that all remaining embassy personnel would be withdrawn this week.

Amid continuing unrest in Venezuela, the United States plans to remove all diplomatic personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Twitter late Monday.

"The U.S. will withdraw all remaining personnel from [the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela] this week," Pompeo tweeted. "This decision reflects the deteriorating situation in #Venezuela as well as the conclusion that the presence of U.S. diplomatic staff at the embassy has become a constraint on U.S. policy."

U.S. citizens and government personnel have been advised to avoid areas of demonstrations and large gatherings, which have taken place throughout Venezuela for weeks as President Nicolás Maduro faces pressure from a U.S.-backed coalition to step down. The U.S. and many other western countries back opposition candidate Juan Guaidó, who has been working to engender support for his claim to the presidency.

The country has been beset by a major power outage in recent days, and drivers had to wait in line for hours at the few gas stations still operating, NPR's Philip Reeves has reported. Some Caracas neighborhoods had no functioning water pumps, and schools and public offices were closed Monday. The country suspended school and business activities Tuesday as well, Reuters reported. The majority of the country's Internet network remained offline.

Pompeo has blamed Cuba and Russia for the blackouts. "When there is no electricity, thank the marvels of modern Cuban-led engineering," Pompeo said at a State Department news conference Monday, according to The New York Times. "When there's no water, thank the excellent hydrologists from Cuba. When there's no food, thank the Cuban communist overlords."

For his part, Maduro said the outage was an "electric coup" carried out by "criminal minds" in the U.S., CNN reported. "The imperialist government of the United States ordered this attack," he said.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Matthew S. Schwartz is a reporter with NPR's news desk. Before coming to NPR, Schwartz worked as a reporter for Washington, DC, member station WAMU, where he won the national Edward R. Murrow award for feature reporting in large market radio. Previously, Schwartz worked as a technology reporter covering the intricacies of Internet regulation. In a past life, Schwartz was a Washington telecom lawyer. He got his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, and his B.A. from the University of Michigan ("Go Blue!").

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SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

The independent journalism and non-commercial programming you rely on every day is in danger.

If you’re reading this, you believe in trusted journalism and in learning without paywalls. You value access to educational content kids love and enriching cultural programming.

Now all of that is at risk.

Federal funding for public media is under threat and if it goes, the impact to our communities will be devastating.

Together, we can defend it. It’s time to protect what matters.

Your voice has protected public media before. Now, it’s needed again. Learn how you can protect the news and programming you depend on.

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