CARACAS: Venezuela’s interim president said Thursday that she had replaced all her senior military commanders, the latest in a flurry of reforms since the United States ousted Nicolas Maduro.
Delcy Rodriguez announced the changes in a social media post a day after firing the long-serving defense minister, who had been close to Maduro, and replacing him with a former intelligence chief.
“I announce the designation of the renewed Military High Command,” said Rodriguez, who served as vice president under Maduro, the authoritarian leftist toppled in an American special forces raid on January 3.
Under US pressure and even a threat of violence, Rodriguez is tasked with leading a country with the world’s largest proven oil reserves but an economy in shambles, with widespread shortages of food, medicine and other basics.
She has enacted a historic amnesty law to free political prisoners jailed under Maduro and reformed oil and mining regulations in line with US demands for access to her country’s vast natural wealth.
