Venezuela’s government has accused the US of peddling “ridiculous hogwash” about its supposed role in sponsoring “narco-terrorism” as Washington continued to turn up the heat on Nicolás Maduro’s regime and leftwing European politicians warned South America faced being plunged into “a torrent of bloodshed”.
On Monday, the Trump administration officially designated a Venezuelan group known as the “Cartel de los Soles” (the Cartel of the Suns) a terrorist organization – despite widespread doubts over its actual existence.
The move was the latest chapter in a four-month US pressure campaign, officially designed to combat South American drug traffickers but which many suspect is a pretext to overthrow Maduro who Trump tried, but failed, to topple during his first term.
Since August, the US president has ordered a massive naval deployment off Venezuela’s northern coast and a series of deadly airstrikes on alleged narco-boats travelling the Caribbean Sea.
Observers believe Monday’s decision by the state department – which accuses Maduro of leading the putative Cartel of the Suns – could open the door for some kind of imminent US military intervention on Venezuela soil.
Venezuela’s government hit back, calling the designation “a despicable lie” designed to justify “an illegitimate and illegal intervention against Venezuela in the classic US regime-change format”. It said the supposed cartel was “nonexistent” and called the US accusations “slander”.
After the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, arrived in the Caribbean in mid-November, speculation intensified that US military chiefs were preparing to launch some kind of operation against land targets within Venezuela.
In an open letter, leftwing European politicians including the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Greece’s former finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, and Labour MP Richard Burgon, warned of “the imminent threat of US military intervention in Venezuela”.
“If the US launches a military intervention in Venezuela, it would mark the first interstate war by the United States in South America,” the group wrote, noting how past US military operations in Latin America linked to the “war on drugs” had “delivered not security but a torrent of bloodshed, dispossession, and destabilisation”.
European governments have reportedly become so concerned about the prospect of future potentially illegal strikes in the region that France and the Netherlands had joined the UK in limiting intelligence sharing with Washington, AFP reported on Sunday.
On Saturday, Reuters said four US officials had told its reporters Washington was poised to launch a new phase of Venezuela-related operations in the coming days. Two officials claimed the options under consideration included trying to overthrow Maduro, although the news agency emphasized that Trump had yet to make a decision. Last week, the US president signaled he was willing to talk to Maduro and expected to do so “in a not too distant future”.
Amid growing tensions, at least half a dozen major airlines suspended or cancelled their flights in and out of Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, after the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) last week warned of “heightened military activity in or around Venezuela”.
Those airlines included Portugal’s TAP, Spain’s Iberia, Colombia’s Avianca, Brazil’s Gol, the Latin American carrier Latam and Turkish Airlines. Venezuelan carriers continued to operate, as did Panama’s Copa Airlines.
