AID FROM OPEC?
Venezuela says it has requested assistance from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), of which it is a member, to help “stop this (American) aggression, which is being readied with more and more force”.
The request came in a letter from Maduro to the group, read by Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, who is also Venezuela’s oil minister, during a virtual meeting of OPEC ministers.
Washington “is trying to seize Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, the biggest in the world, by using military force”, Maduro wrote in the letter.
Since September, US air strikes have targeted alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing at least 83 people.
Trump’s administration has offered no concrete evidence to back up the allegations behind its campaign, and numerous experts have questioned the legality of the operations.
US media reported on Friday that in one strike in September, the US military conducted a follow-up strike that killed survivors of an initial attack.
The Washington Post and CNN said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had issued a directive to “kill everybody”, but Trump said on Sunday that Hegseth had denied giving such an order.
“We’ll look into it, but no, I wouldn’t have wanted that – not a second strike,” Trump told reporters. “Pete said he did not order the death of those two men.”
“EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTIONS”
The head of Venezuela’s legislature, Jorge Rodriguez, said he met on Sunday with relatives of Venezuelans killed in the strikes.
He would not comment on a possible Trump-Maduro call.
But when asked about the report about the Hegseth order, he said: “If a war had been declared and led to such killings, we would be talking about war crimes.”
“Given that no war has been declared, what happened … can only be characterised as murder or extrajudicial executions,” he added.
The steady US military buildup has seen the world’s largest aircraft carrier deployed to Caribbean waters, while American fighter jets and bombers have repeatedly flown off the Venezuelan coast in recent days.
Six airlines have canceled services to Venezuela, but on Sunday, the airport in Caracas was functioning as usual.
