The Government of Venezuela announced this Friday that will report to the UN Secretary General, António Guterreswhich has been described as a “illegal incursion of combat aircraft” from the US 75 km from the Venezuelan coast that, in his opinion, put “the operational safety of civil and commercial aviation” in the Caribbean at serious risk.
Hours before, the Minister of Defense of Venezuela, Vladimir Padrino López, denounced the “military harassment” by “fighter planes” from the United States, whose government maintains a naval deployment in Caribbean waters under the argument of combat drug trafficking and that Caracas considers a “threat.”
In a statement, the Executive of Nicolás Maduro reported that it will also present the complaint to the Security Council and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), as well as to the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), so that “the necessary measures are adopted to prevent the repetition of these illegal and dangerous actions.”
“I denounce before the world the military harassment, the military threat of the Government of the United States against the people of Venezuela (…); I denounce before the world this situation that, I repeat, is still a provocation, but also a threat to our national security,” he stated. Godfather Lopez during a balance of operations of the Armed Forces.
In a broadcast on the state channel VTV, the minister indicated that Venezuela’s integrated air system has detected “fighter aircraft” Americans, something he said “was checked and verified,” including by an international airline that reported the presence of the aircraft to the control tower of Maiquetía, the airport that serves Caracas.
“We have never seen this deployment of planes. We know they are parked in Puerto Ricoof the F-35 class, but dare to approach Venezuelan territory (…) We are seeing them, I want you to know. And I want you to know that that does not intimidate us,” said the political leader of the Venezuelan Armed Forces.
According to the minister, the presence of “more than five vectors” with “flight characteristics of 400 knots and flying at an altitude of 35,000 feet” was detected.
That is why Maduro’s Executive has demanded that the US Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, cease what he describes as a “warlike” stance: “We demand an immediate cessation of their reckless, adventurous and warlike stance, which seeks to undermine the peace zone of Latin America and the Caribbean and endangers regional stability,” reads the official statement.
Last September, Godfather Lopez denounced that the US is carrying out “intelligence” flights against the South American country, in a context in which he assured that Washington wants to justify a “military threat and intervention plan” to “displace President Nicolás Maduro“.
In this sense, he then explained that “intelligence operations have always taken place on United States Army aircraft” in the Caribbean but, he added, they have now gone from a daytime pattern to nighttime and early morning, and “tripled, in August, the intelligence and exploration operations against Venezuela.”
An “armed conflict” against drug trafficking
The United States has deployed at least eight warships in the region and a submarine nuclear-powered fast attack aircraft, as well as more than 4,500 soldiers, as part of an operation in the Caribbean Sea. It has also sent state-of-the-art F-35B fighters to Puerto Rico.
Trump reported this Thursday that his country is involved in a formal “armed conflict” with drug cartels and that members of these groups are “illegal combatants,” as his Administration has declared in a confidential notice to Congress seen by local media.
The notice was sent this week to several congressional committees and provides a legal justification for why the three US military attacks that the president ordered against ships in the Caribbean Sea last month should be considered legitimate actions and not assassinations. which caused 17 deaths.
At least two of these operations were carried out on vessels from Venezuela.
According to legal specialists consulted by The New York Times, Trump’s decision to formally consider his campaign against the cartels an active armed conflict means that is cementing its right to extraordinary powers in times of war.
The notification to Congress states that Trump has “determined” that the cartels involved in drug trafficking are “non-state armed groups” whose actions “constitute an armed attack against the United States.”