The US is “going to run” Venezuela until a safe transition of power can take place, President Donald Trump said in a televised address on Saturday evening after president Nicolas Maduro was captured and flown out of the country.
Trump said that Maduro had been “indicted for his narcoterrorism campaign”, adding that US oil firms were heading into Venezuela.
Just before he began speaking, Trump shared a photo he said was of Maduro on board the USS Iwo Jima – the image shows him blindfolded and wearing ear defenders
A little earlier, Maduro was indicted in New York on drugs and weapons charges – the US attorney general says he’ll “face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts”.
Venezuela has declared a national emergency, denouncing “extremely serious military aggression”.
The US president warned those currently in government in Venezuela, in the absence of Nicolás Maduro, that “the US retains all military options” for further action in that South American country.
“All political and military figures in Venezuela must understand: what happened to Maduro will happen to them” if they defy US desires in the country for a leadership that serves the people, Trump said.
Trump said Maduro’s leadership was “both horrible and breathtaking”.
“We want peace, liberty and justice for the great people of Venezuela, and that includes many from Venezuela that are now living in the United States and want to go back to their country, it’s their homeland,” the US president said.
“We can’t take a chance that somebody else takes over Venezuela that doesn’t have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind [after] decades of that. We’re not going to let that happen.”
He continued: “We’re there now … We’re going to stay until such time as a proper transition can take place.”
He then added, about Venezuela’s vast oil reserves: “We’re going to have our very large US oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country and we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so. So we were prepared to do a second wave.” Trump said the US military was prepared to make a second wave of attacks in the latest action overnight into Saturday but that was not needed.
The details of how or on what authority or with what kind of agreements, if any, that the US intends to “run” Venezuela in transition are unclear at this time.
However, Donald Trump said his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has talked with the Venezuelan vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, today and mentions that she agreed to work with the US.
The US president said she has already been sworn in as president. A few hours ago there were reports that she was in Russia, so the situation remains unclear at this moment and the press conference question and answer session with Trump is now bouncing around various semi-related topics.
“She’s, I guess, the president. She had a long conversation with Marco and said we’ll do what you need. She had no choice,” Trump just said, of Rodriguez.
Reacting, the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, had said he is deeply alarmed by US military action in Venezuela, his spokesperson has said, and considered the US intervention “a dangerous precedent”.
A number of nations have called for an emergency meeting of the UN security council, in New York, today, as a result of the US’s unilateral action.
The UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said: “The secretary general continues to emphasize the importance of full respect – by all – of international law, including the UN charter. He’s deeply concerned that the rules of international law have not been respected”.
