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Now, Donald Trump has been threatening Venezuela with military action for weeks now, and the US has been conducting strikes on boats they claim are carrying drugs in the Caribbean. Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro spoke after President Trump was given FIFA's inaugural peace prize.
"It is an illegal threat of imperialist aggression considering the UN charter and international law. It is disproportionate. Absolutely disproportionate and extravagant and it's unnecessary. Venezuela hasn't been and will never be a threat to the United States of America. Venezuela is a guarantee of security throughout the American continent."
Our global affairs reporter at the BBC World Service, Mimi Sue, gave us this update. Trump administration has been increasing its military and also psychological pressure on the leader Nicholas Maduro, the disputed leader who the US deem as illegitimate. They say he stole the election. This is also seen by many other communities, international communities, basically saying that he needs to step down. And this is all part or supposedly part of their campaign targeting drug boats allegedly carrying narcotics from Venezuela through the South Caribbean Sea towards the US. So, we're seeing now an increasing psychological warfare in one part, but also a huge military buildup. This is the largest US military buildup that we've seen in the region since it invaded Panama in 1989. So, you've got about 15,000 troops just off Venezuelan waters alongside very large military arsenal, including the world's largest warship. And so, we're seeing now Nicholas Madura increasingly address President Trump and saying Venezuela isn't a threat. He even goes on to say that Venezuela is a guarantee of national security throughout the region. So he's really trying to portray an image that they're not going to bow down, but Venezuela is not a threat or seemingly a threat to the US in its anti-drugs operation or its calls for Nicholas Maduro to step down.
"And Mimi, later on, we're expecting large scale protests against President Maduro. Just explain to us what's likely to happen."
So the opposition leader Maria Kina Mashado has called for international protests. She's calling them peace and freedom protests across the country and these are expected to be an incredibly large scale. So they are across around 20 countries in more than 80 cities. And she's basically saying that the Nobel Peace Prize which she won earlier this year for fighting for democracy in Venezuela, the Nobel Peace Prize belongs to everybody. and so let's mobilize around the world and collect it or receive it together.
Now, it's unclear whether demonstrations will happen in Venezuela due to security concerns as the kind of um opposition activism has really been muted since that disputed election last year. There's more than 2,000 political prisoners still being held in Venezuela. So now many are relying on the international community. And it's important to note that around 8 million Venezuelans have fled Venezuela since Nicholas Maduro took power firstly in 2013. So there is a very large diaspora and many of them today will be rallying together across various cities particularly in Buenosares that's one of the main ones as well in multiple locations in Spain, Germany, the US and UK.