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Regional leaders reject US threats to Venezuela

Latin American leaders have condemned US President Donald Trump’s threat of a “military option” against Venezuela.

 Venezuela’s allies and enemies alike reacted over the weekend to Mr Trump’s comments at an press conference on Friday.

 Flanked by bellicose Vice-President Mike Pence and UN ambassador Nikki Haley along with his cooler-headed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Mr Trump called his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro a “dictator.”

 “The people are suffering and they are dying,” he said. “We have many options for Venezuela including a possible military option if necessary.”

 At least 124 people have died in four months of opposition regime-change riots since the start of April, fuelled by chronic shortages of food, medicine and other goods the government blames on a US-directed economic war.

 Six died on July 30 during elections to the new assembly to amend the constitution — over which Washington threatened Caracas with sanctions — but only one death has been reported since then.

 On Saturday the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said Mr Trump’s “warmongering declarations” were part of the “systematic US aggressions against Venezuela.”

 Venezuela’s allies, including Bolivia and Ecuador, issued solidarity messages.

 Bolivian President Evo Morales slammed the “deafening silence” from Venezuela’s Democratic Unity Roundtable (Mud) opposition.

 Ecuador reminded the world that Latin America and the Caribbean nations had declared the region a “zone of peace.”

 Mr Trump’s comments were the first explicit threat of military action against Venezuela by a US president since Mr Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez was elected in 1998.

 But former president George W Bush supported opposition parties behind the failed 2002 coup against Mr Chavez, while his successor Barack Obama decreed Venezuela an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US national security and foreign policy in 2015.

 On Saturday Mr Obama’s national security adviser on Latin America Mark Feierstein accused Mr Trump of playing into Mr Maduro’s hands.

 "For years he’s been saying the US is preparing an invasion, and everyone laughed. But now the claim has been validated. It's hard to imagine a more damaging thing for Trump to say.”

 On Friday Miami-based ex-army captain Juan Caguaripano, who led a 20-man raid on an army base in Carabobo state last weekend, was arrested in the capital Caracas with one co-conspirator. Eight more remain at large.

 Mr Pence flew to Venezuela’s neighbour Colombia yesterday for talks with President Juan Manuel Santos, expected to focus on Venezuela.

 But the Colombian Foreign Ministry condemned any "military measures and the use of force," urging respect for the UN Charter and Venezuelan sovereignty.

 Even Peru, which expelled Venezuelan ambassador Diego Molero on Friday in its latest bid to pressure Mr Maduro to go, balked at the threat of military intervention

 A Foreign Ministry statement rejected “any threat or use of force not authorized by the United Nations Security Council."

 Regional leaders line up to reject armed force

 Donald Trump’s explicit threat of military intervention drew criticism from Venezuela’s regional allies and enemies alike.

 “The only acceptable instruments for the promotion of democracy are dialogue and diplomacy" — regional bloc Mercosur, which suspended Venezuela in December 2016 and again on August 5.

 "The time for the big stick has passed. Our path is that of diplomacy, politics and negotiation." — Brazilian Foreign Minister Aloysio Nunes, who voted for Venezuela’s Mercosur suspension.

 “The government of Chile rejects the threat of military intervention in Venezuela.” — Chilean Foreign Minister Heraldo Muñoz, who offered Venezuelan opposition figures political asylum in April and August.

 “Let us not allow an invasion in the style of Granada or Panama to be repeated with impunity. There are evil presidents, and also people of solidarity.” — Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) spokesperson Rodrigo Granda.

 “We condemn the threat of war aggression of Donald Trump to Venezuela. It is an attack on the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people.” — the Communist Party of Spain.

 “The aggression of the US president against Nicolas Maduro exposes the violent character of the US government against the people of Venezuela.” — former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, removed by a US-backed coup in 2009.

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