{"id":128389,"date":"2019-02-25T12:01:18","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T12:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=128389"},"modified":"2019-02-20T10:35:08","modified_gmt":"2019-02-20T10:35:08","slug":"pink-floyds-waters-slams-venezuela-border-aid-concert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/02\/pink-floyds-waters-slams-venezuela-border-aid-concert\/","title":{"rendered":"Pink Floyd’s Waters Slams Venezuela Border Aid Concert"},"content":{"rendered":"

19 Feb 2019 – Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters slammed an upcoming \u201cLive Aid\u201d-style concert to raise funds for humanitarian aid for Venezuela, calling the event a U.S.-backed effort to tarnish the socialist government in a video circulating today. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

FILE PHOTO: Musician Roger Waters performs at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California, U.S., June 20, 2017. REUTERS\/Mario Anzuoni<\/p><\/div>\n

Billionaire Richard Branson is backing the Friday show in the Colombian border city of Cucuta with a fundraising target of $100 million to provide food and medicine for Venezuelans suffering widespread shortages.<\/p>\n

Latin singers Alejandro Sanz, Nacho, Luis Fonsi and Maluma have so far confirmed they will perform in the concert, which has evoked comparisons to Irish rock star Bob Geldof\u2019s 1985 global \u201cLive Aid\u201d concert to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has nothing to do with humanitarian aid at all,\u201d the 75-year old Waters said. \u201cIt has to do with Richard Branson … having bought the US saying, \u2018We have decided to take over Venezuela, for whatever our reasons may be.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVenezuela Aid Live\u201d is part of a broader western relief effort organized by Venezuela\u2019s opposition, that blames the ruling Socialists for the economy\u2019s hyperinflationary downwards spiral that has sparked the exodus of millions.<\/p>\n

President Nicolas Maduro, who is facing growing international pressure to step down after his disputed re-election last year, denies there is a humanitarian crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cRichard is helping them to raise awareness of the crisis in Venezuela and raise much needed funds through this event,\u201d a spokesperson for Virgin, which handles media inquiries for Branson, said in a statement. \u201cThis is not a political statement and the U.S. is not involved in any aspect of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The United States is openly backing Maduro\u2019s rival and congress chief Juan Guaido, who last month invoked constitutional provisions to declare himself interim president.<\/p>\n

The opposition plans to bring aid into Venezuela on Saturday from collection points in neighboring countries including Cucuta via sea and land, despite Maduro\u2019s refusal to let it in, setting up a possible clash with authorities.<\/p>\n

Waters, the British rock group\u2019s principal songwriter who penned many of the hit songs on the hugely popular albums \u201cThe Dark Side of the Moon\u201d and \u201cThe Wall,\u201d said the relief effort was part of the United States\u2019 attempts to paint a false picture of Venezuela to justify regime change.<\/p>\n

Trump ramps up pressure on Venezuela\u2019s military<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To date there was \u201cno mayhem, no murder, no apparent dictatorship\u201d in Venezuela, he said, despite even government data putting the homicide rate among the world\u2019s highest.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo we really want Venezuela to turn in to another Iraq or Syria or Libya? I don\u2019t and neither do the Venezuelan people,\u201d Waters wrote.<\/p>\n

This is not the first time the bass player has weighed into South American politics. During a concert in Brazil ahead of presidential elections there last year, Waters spoke out against then right-wing candidate Jair Bolsonaro, who is now president.<\/p>\n

Maduro\u2019s government this week announced two concerts on Friday and Saturday just across the border from Cucuta to rival Branson\u2019s \u201cAid Live\u201d show.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

Reporting by Brian Ellsworth and Sarah Marsh; editing by Bill Berkrot<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 reuters.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

19 Feb 2019 – Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters slammed an upcoming \u201cLive Aid\u201d-style concert to raise funds for humanitarian aid for Venezuela, calling the event a U.S.-backed effort to tarnish the socialist government in a video circulating today. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":128391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}