Venezuelan defence chief slams Trump

CARACAS, Feb 20 (Xinhua): Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez on Tuesday dismissed US President Donald Trump's speech on the South American country as "arrogant and rude."

Trump "completely disregards the eminently Bolivarian (revolutionary), anti-imperialist and professional character of our institution," Padrino said in a statement issued on behalf of the superior chief of staff of the National Bolivarian Armed Forces (FANB).

In a speech on Monday to Venezuela's expatriate community in Miami, Florida, Trump alleged that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro led a "tyrannical socialist government."

Trump also called on pro-Maduro officials to allow the delivery of U.S. humanitarian aid and urged armed forces to accept the opposition's offer of amnesty, or "you will lose everything."

The FANB "will never accept an order from a foreign government or power," Padrino said.

Trump is using "hybrid warfare" against Venezuela, "strangling the economy by imposing an economic and financial blockade, with which he plans to generate ungovernability, chaos and anarchy," Padrino said.

"Coercion, blackmail, manipulation, sanctions and amnesty," however, will not lead the military to violate the Constitution by abandoning Maduro's democratically elected government, he added.