Page 12 - ARUBA TODAY

A12 WORLD NEWS
Friday 9 March 2018

Coalition calls protests on Venezuela elections Last president of

dictatorship dies
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) includes members of Ven- Nicolas Maduro. It is pro- ers say they plan to stage
— A newly formed coalition ezuela's churches, work- testing the election set for street demonstrations in at 90: Argentina
led by Venezuela's political ers unions and university May 20, earlier in the year Caracas on Monday and
opposition said Thursday students. The group said it than normal and at a time March 17. Four months of By A. CALATRAVA
that it's taking to the streets seeks to draw international of Venezuela's deepening near-daily protests last year Associated Press
to protest what it consid- attention to the fraudulent political and economic against Maduro's govern- BUENOS AIRES, Argentina
ers a rigged presidential election set by officials crisis under Maduro's ad- ment left more than 120 (AP) — Reynaldo Bignone,
election. The coalition also loyal to socialist President ministration. Coalition lead- people dead.q the last military president
from Argentina's 1976-1983
dictatorship, died this week
Sick Venezuelans flee to Colombia in refugee crisis at age 90, the country's
state news agency said.
Bignone had been serving
By CHRISTINE ARMARIO life sentence under house
CUCUTA, Colombia (AP) arrest for multiple human
— In a cramped hospital rights crimes. He was also
near Colombia's border serving time for the theft
with Venezuela, migrants of babies from political
fill stretchers bearing the prisoners who were later
wounds of the deteriorat- killed and for his role in an
ing nation they left behind. international conspiracy to
An 18-year-old woman kidnap and forcibly disap-
rubbed her swollen belly pear dissidents across inter-
after fleeing with her in- national borders known as
fant daughter when the Operation Condor.
wounds from her C-sec- He died Wednesday at a
tion began to ooze pus. A military hospital in the Ar-
young man whose femur gentine capital of Buenos
had torn through his skin in Aires, Telam news agency
a motorcycle crash need- reported.
ed antibiotics for an infec- Bignone was named de
tion. An elderly retiree with facto president by the
a swollen foot arrived after military junta after Argen-
taking a 20-hour bus ride tina lost the 1982 war with
from Caracas because Britain over the Falkland
doctors there told his fam- Islands. He was the last
ily the only treatment they A volunteer at the "Divina Providencia" migrant shelter distributes lunch to Venezuelan migrants, survivor of Argentina's four
could offer was amputa- in Cucuta, Colombia. The food is cooked in several large vats and the diocese says it offers an military presidents and his
tion — without anesthesia average of 1000 meals a day. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara) death brings an end to
or antibiotics. one of the symbols of the
"If you want to sign, sign. from just 1,500 in 2015. At ta, ground zero for an exo- intervention. But what lit- darkest chapters in Argen-
But we are not responsible hospitals in border cities dus that has spread across tle data officials have re- tina's history.
for the life of your father," like Cucuta, patients are Latin America, migrants say leased indicates Venezu- Human rights groups esti-
Teresa Tobar, 36, quoted packed side by side on their nation's rapidly dete- elans are facing mounting mate up to 30,000 people
the doctors in Venezuela stretchers that spill into hall- riorating health system is health challenges. Cases were kidnapped, tortured
as telling her when they ways, not much unlike the also forcing them to leave of infant and maternal or killed during the dictator-
handed over the papers deplorable conditions they as everything from simple mortality have risen sharply ship. Many were pregnant
to authorize her father's sur- fled back home. Authorities antibiotics to critical che- and long-eradicated mal- women who were "disap-
gery. project that Venezuelan motherapy drugs become adies like diphtheria have peared" shortly after giving
As Venezuela's economic admissions to Colombian hard to find or impossible to re-emerged. birth in torture centers. The
crisis worsens, rising num- hospitals could double in afford. At least one Venezuelan baby thefts set Argentina's
bers are fleeing in a bur- 2018 and say the nation's "I said to myself, 'I have child has died in Colombia brutal dictatorship apart
geoning refugee crisis that already overstretched nowhere else to go,'" re- from malnutrition, seeking from all the other juntas
is drawing alarm across public health system is un- called Grecia Sabala, a treatment too late, and of- that ruled in South America
Latin America. Indepen- prepared to handle the 32-year-old mother who ficials say many others are at the time.
dent groups estimate that sudden swell. journeyed to Colombia arriving dangerously un- In 2011, Bignone received
as many as 3 million to 4 "We are not in a position seeking treatment for cer- derweight. Health officials a 15-year-prison sentence
million Venezuelans have to assume the cost of the vical cancer after doctors are particularly concerned for setting up a secret tor-
abandoned their home- comprehensive care for in Venezuela were unable about the spread of infec- ture center inside a hospi-
land in recent years, with the migrants arriving," said to provide chemotherapy tious diseases. Authorities tal during the 1976 military
several hundred thousand Julio Saenz, an adviser on and her city's only radiation confirmed numerous cases coup.
departing in 2017 alone. migrant affairs to Colom- machine broke. "I'm going of malaria, tuberculosis and He was the military junta's
Many of those migrants are bia's Health Ministry. "That's to the border to look for a HIV among Venezuelan mi- social welfare delegate
arriving by foot in Colombia a very big concern." cure." grants last year. at the time and person-
and landing in the Andean The Venezuelans are flee- Venezuelan President Nico- "It's increasing the numbers ally oversaw the takeover
nation's emergency rooms ing an increasingly au- las Maduro has refused to of some illnesses that we of the Posadas de Haedo
with urgent medical condi- thoritarian government allow humanitarian aid to had under control," Saenz hospital in Buenos Aires
tions that Venezuelan hos- that has been unable to enter the struggling nation, said. By law, Colombia's province, leading soldiers
pitals can no longer treat. halt skyrocketing inflation denying there is a crisis and hospitals are required to in tanks and helicopters in
According to health offi- that renders wages nearly contending that permitting treat any person, local or search of medical person-
cials, Venezuelans made worthless and forces mil- international relief could foreign, who shows up at nel who allegedly treated
nearly 25,000 visits to Co- lions to go hungry. In Cucu- pave the way for foreign an emergency room. q leftist guerrillas. q
lombian ERs last year, up