Volunteers and officials organize US aid shipments in Cucuta, Colombia — but the Venezuelan military is blocking it from crossing the border (Raul ARBOLEDA)

Cúcuta (Colombia) (AFP) – The soldiers blocking humanitarian aid from entering Venezuela look unlikely to give any ground, but Maria Acevedo thinks she knows how to make them let the shipments through.

Acevedo, 26, wants to join together with fellow Venezuelan women and escort the food and medicine across the border from Colombia.

Her bet is that a group of hungry and suffering mothers, sisters and daughters can convince the soldiers to break with President Nicolas Maduro and let the US aid shipments pass.

Maduro, who is locked in a power struggle with opposition leader and self-declared interim president Juan Guaido, refuses to let the aid through. He calls it a “show” and says Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis has been manufactured by Washington to justify a “coup.”

What happens to the sea of shiny white plastic bags filled with vital supplies — and to Venezuela itself — now hinges on the military, which has so far stood by Maduro.

But Acevedo, who has three children, thinks she and her fellow Venezuelan women can change that.

She should know — she comes from a family of soldiers.

“I come from a military family, too. And my family is against this, against the army blocking humanitarian aid.

“But my family can’t do anything. Only the top brass,” Acevedo told AFP in Cucuta, on the Colombian side of the border.

She regularly travels there to buy the food she can no longer find in Venezuela, a once booming oil giant that has skidded into a devastating economic crisis under Maduro.

“We women are the ones who have to help get this humanitarian aid through. Not the men,” she added.

“They may be strong, but they can’t do much because the authorities would immediately attack them.”

 – ‘We’re counting on you’ –

There is history behind Acevedo’s hope.

In 2016, Maduro also closed the border at Cucuta, accusing Colombia of plotting to destabilize his socialist government.

In July that year, hundreds of women dressed in white broke through the military cordon and crossed to Colombia, the only place they could buy enough food for their families.

Women protesting in white, a tradition dating to at least the suffrage movement in the United States a century ago, has reemerged as a trend.

It was seen most recently on Tuesday at President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, where several dozen opposition Democrats used their wardrobes to make a visually striking statement against Trump.

Guaido, who is recognized by around 40 countries, may try the same strategy used in Cucuta in 2016. The team he has appointed to distribute the aid says it is not ruling it out.

“The Venezuelan people are going to unite in a humanitarian corridor, civilians hand in hand with soldiers,” said Lester Toledo, the head of that team.

A small group of Venezuelan protesters on the Colombian side of the border bridge — expatriates who are among the 2.3 million people to leave the country since 2015 — is sending the same message.

“Soldier, friend, we’re counting on you,” said a sign one of them was brandishing.

“We didn’t want to leave our country, which we love, but the situation forced us to. Our children are hungry, we have no money,” said demonstrator Eduard Guzman, clutching a sign asking soldiers to let the aid through “now, now, now.”

He walked across the border and was on his way to the Colombian capital, Bogota, when he saw the protest and decided to join it.

“We need it, we are suffering,” said Guzman.

“We can’t go on like this.”

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