CARACAS : Venezuela on Friday accused the United States of waging an “undeclared war” in the Caribbean and called for a UN investigation of American strikes that killed over a dozen alleged drug traffickers on boats in recent weeks.
Washington has deployed warships to international waters off Venezuela’s coast, backed by F-35 fighters sent to Puerto Rico in what it calls an anti-drug operation.
“It is an undeclared war, and you can already see how people, whether or not they are drug traffickers, have been executed in the Caribbean Sea. Executed without the right to a defence,” Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez said as he attended a military exercise in response to the US “military threat”.
His remarks came just hours before US President Donald Trump announced another military strike on a boat, claiming three more alleged “narcoterrorists” were killed, bringing the total number of deaths in recent weeks to 17.
He did not say when the attack took place and only specified that it occurred in the US Southern Command area of responsibility, which includes Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean.
Trump has detailed two such strikes before and earlier this week, he said that the US had “knocked off” a third drug boat from Venezuela but did not provide additional information on that strike.
The strikes have prompted debate over the legality of the killings, with drug trafficking itself not a capital offence under US law.
Washington has also not provided specific details to back up its claims that the boats targeted have actually been trafficking drugs.
Venezuela’s Attorney General Tarek William Saab later added that “the use of missiles and nuclear weapons to murder defenceless fishermen on a small boat are crimes against humanity that must be investigated by the UN”.
The biggest US naval deployment in the Caribbean in decades and the US strikes on alleged drug boats have stoked fears that the US is planning to attack Venezuelan territory.
On Wednesday, Venezuela launched three days of military exercises on its Caribbean island of La Orchila in response to the perceived threat from a US flotilla of seven ships and a nuclear-powered submarine.
La Orchila is close to the area where the US intercepted and held a Venezuelan fishing vessel for eight hours over the weekend.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom the US accuses of running a drug cartel, has urged citizens to join militia training to “defend the homeland”.
Late on Thursday, he announced that troops would provide residents of low-income neighbourhoods with weapons training.
Maduro, for whom Washington has issued a US$50 million bounty on drug trafficking charges, suspects the Trump administration of planning an invasion in pursuit.
Trump has sought to increase pressure on Maduro, whom the US and much of the international community does not recognise as Venezuela’s rightful president after two questioned re-elections.
Maduro accused the US of hatching “an imperial plan for regime change and to impose a US puppet government … to come and steal our oil”.
He has repeatedly vowed Caracas will exercise its “legitimate right to defend itself” against US aggression.
Opposition figure Henrique Capriles, a two-time presidential candidate and staunch Maduro critic, said on Friday he would not support any US invasion.
“I continue to believe that the solution is not military, but political,” he said.
