President Donald Trump confirmed Wednesday that he has authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela and said he was weighing carrying out land operations on the country.
The acknowledgement of covert action in Venezuela by the US spy agency comes after the US military in recent weeks has carried out a series of deadly strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean. US forces have destroyed at least five boats since early September, killing 27 people, and four of those vessels originated from Venezuela.
Asked during an event in the Oval Office on Wednesday why he had authorized the CIA to take action in Venezuela, Trump affirmed he had made the move.
“I authorized for two reasons, really,” Trump replied. “No. 1, they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America," he said. "And the other thing, the drugs, we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela, and a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea.”
According to The Associated Press, Trump added the administration “is looking at land” as it considers further strikes in the region. He declined to say whether the CIA has authority to take action against President Nicolás Maduro.
Trump made the unusual acknowledgement of a CIA operation shortly after The New York Times published that the CIA had been authorized to carry out covert action in Venezuela.
On Wednesday, Maduro lashed out at the record of the US spy agency in various conflicts around the world without directly addressing Trump’s comments about authorizing the CIA to carry out covert operations in Venezuela.
“No to regime change that reminds us so much of the (overthrows) in the failed eternal wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and so on,” Maduro said at a televised event of the National Council for Sovereignty and Peace, which is made up of representatives from various political, economic, academic and cultural sectors in Venezuela.
“No to the coups carried out by the CIA, which remind us so much of the 30,000 disappeared,” a figure estimated by human rights organizations such as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo during the military dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983). He also referred to the 1973 coup in Chile.
“How long will the CIA continue to carry on with its coups? Latin America doesn’t want them, doesn’t need them and repudiates them,” Maduro added.
The objective is “to say no to war in the Caribbean, no to war in South America, yes to peace,” he said.
Speaking in English, Maduro said: “Not war, yes peace, not war. Is that how you would say it? Who speaks English? Not war, yes peace, the people of the United States, please. Please, please, please.”
In a statement, Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday rejected “the bellicose and extravagant statements by the President of the United States, in which he publicly admits to having authorized operations to act against the peace and stability of Venezuela.”
“This unprecedented statement constitutes a very serious violation of international law and the United Nations’ Charter and obliges the community of countries to denounce these clearly immoderate and inconceivable statements,” said the statement, which Foreign Minister Yván Gil posted on his Telegram channel.
