WASHINGTON, Jan 3 (Reuters) – The U.S. struck Venezuela and captured its long-serving President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday, President Donald Trump said, after months of pressuring him over accusations of drug-running and illegitimacy in power.
Washington has not made such a direct intervention in Latin America since the invasion of Panama in 1989 to depose military leader Manuel Noriega, over similar allegations.
“The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the country,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
Ahead of the overnight strike, the U.S. had accused Maduro of running a “narco-state” and rigging last year’s election, which the opposition said it won overwhelmingly. The Venezuelan leader, who succeeded Hugo Chavez to take power in 2013, has said Washington wants control of the South American nation’s oil reserves, the largest in the world.
Venezuela’s government said civilians and military personnel died in the strikes but did not give figures.Trump said the operation was carried out “in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement,” promising more details at an 11 a.m. (1600 GMT) press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Maduro was captured by elite special forces troops, a U.S. official told Reuters. Republican U.S. Senator Mike Lee said Secretary of State Marco Rubio had told him Maduro would stand trial on criminal charges in the United States.
Rubio “anticipates no further action in Venezuela now that Maduro is in U.S. custody,” Lee wrote on X.In the Panama case, Noriega ended up in prison for 20 years.
Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, who could take charge of government, said she did not know the whereabouts of either Maduro or his wife.
“We demand that President Donald Trump’s government provide immediate proof of life for President Maduro and the First Lady,” Rodriguez said in an audio played on state TV.
Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino condemned the intervention.
“Free, independent and sovereign Venezuela rejects with all the strength of its libertarian history the presence of these foreign troops, which have only left behind death, pain and destruction,” Padrino said in a video broadcast on state media about the same time that Trump posted his message.
“Today we clench our fist in defense of what is ours. Let us unite, for in the unity of the people we will find the strength to resist and to triumph.”Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello appeared on state TV standing on the street and wearing a helmet and flak jacket, urging Venezuelans not to cooperate with the “terrorist enemy.”
ACTION IN VENEZUELA RECALLS PAST U.S. INTERVENTIONS
While various Latin American governments oppose Maduro and say he stole the 2024 election, direct U.S. action revives painful memories of past interventions and is generally strongly opposed by governments and populations in the region.
Trump’s action recalls the Monroe Doctrine, laid out in 1823 by President James Monroe, laying U.S. claim to influence in the region, as well as the “gunboat diplomacy” seen under Theodore Roosevelt in the early 1900s.(Reuters)
