CUBA sounded the alarm on Thursday night over a huge US military build-up around Venezuela, calling on the international community to mobilise in defence of the elected government in Caracas.

Havana said US special forces were arriving at airports in the Caribbean, noting military transport flights to an airport in Puerto Rico and to the San Isidro air force base in the Dominican Republic.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said the US looked to be preparing a “military adventure camouflaged as humanitarian intervention” in Venezuela.

The US embassy in Brazil confirmed a visit to that country, now ruled by far-right chauvinist Jair Bolsonaro, who supports regime change in Venezuela, by Admiral Craig Faller who heads up US Southern Command.

The embassy said Adm Faller was advising Brazilian military chiefs on measures to “safeguard peace in the region and the stability of the western hemisphere.”

The admiral then arrived on Curacao, a Dutch-ruled island just 45 miles from Venezuela’s coast, on Thursday, according to local activists.

The Morning Star has previously reported the docking of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel the Mounts Bay in Curacao on January 21. The Royal Navy said it was working on counter-narcotics with US Southern Command.  

A crew member has contacted the Morning Star insisting its deployment in the area had nothing to do with Venezuela. On Thursday the ship tweeted that it was now on a “routine visit” to Guantanamo Bay, the US naval base and concentration camp on occupied Cuban soil.

At the same time Venezuelan allies have stepped up, with 933 tonnes of medical supplies arriving in the country on Thursday.

Health Minister Carlos Alvarado said the shipments included spare parts for medical equipment, 192,000 diagnostic test kits and 100,000 cytology kits. Some of the supplies had been purchased but the bulk came in accordance with solidarity agreements with the Cuban and Chinese governments.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said he was open to talks with the US administration on resolving its illegal recognition of unelected national assembly chief Juan Guaido as president of his country, and said Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza had even expressed a willingness to talk with the US special envoy for Venezuela Elliott Abrams, a convicted but pardoned war criminal with a record of association with death squads that killed tens of thousands in Guatemala and El Salvador in the 1980s. 

A White House insider said anonymously that the US would meet “former officials” like President Maduro, but only to “discuss their exit plans.”