Nicolás Maduro is ready to declare a state of emergency in the event of a US military attack on Venezuela, the country’s vice-president has said, warning of “catastrophic” consequences if such an onslaught materializes.
Donald Trump’s administration has turned the heat up on Caracas in recent weeks, with a major naval deployment in the Caribbean Sea and a series of airstrikes on Venezuelan boats that have killed at least 17 people.
Washington claims its attacks are part of an offensive against Latin American drug cartels who are smuggling cocaine and fentanyl into the US. But many suspect they could be a prelude to a broader military intervention designed to end Maduro’s 12-year rule.
Speaking on Monday, vice-president Delcy Rodríguez, one of Maduro’s closest allies, called US claims that its strikes were about fighting drug trafficking “a big lie”. She alleged the US president’s campaign was actually about seizing the natural resources of the country with the largest proven oil reserves on earth.
“It has only one purpose and objective: the reserves of oil, gas, gold, minerals [and] the biological wealth that Venezuela has – and which they need for this new era in which the US government declares war on the entire planet,” said Rodríguez, attributing US “warmongering” to its secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who she called “the Lord of War”.
Rodríguez said that the state of emergency – if activated - would immediately give Maduro special powers to mobilize the armed forces, to seal the country’s borders and to place the military in charge of key infrastructure. “We will never handover our homeland – never!” she vowed, warning that Venezuelans who voiced public support for such an intervention would face consequences. “Those who openly call for an invasion, cannot consider themselves Venezuelan,” Rodríguez said.
Until recently many experts were convinced Trump’s pressure campaign against Venezuela was political theatre, designed to please voters back home and possibly spark a military rebellion against Maduro.
But Trump’s deadly strikes – which legal experts and Latin American leaders have denounced as unlawful extrajudicial killings – have left some thinking further escalation is on the cards.
On Friday, NBC News reported that US military officials were drawing up options to target drug traffickers inside Venezuela, with those discussions primarily focused on drone strikes, possibly “in the next several weeks”.
Phil Gunson, a Caracas-based analyst for Crisis Group, said: “I would feel fairly comfortable in ruling out an invasion and [US] occupation of Venezuela – boots on the ground, as they tend to say. But apart from that, I think all the options are there.”
Gunson still thought a missile or bomb attack on Venezuela’s presidential palace, Miraflores, or the military compound where its leaders live unlikely. “Perhaps more plausible is [the US] blowing up something somewhere in the interior of Venezuela that they can try to convince us is … [connected to drug trafficking].”
