Nicolás Maduro rejects ‘regime change’ and criticizes ‘CIA coups’ in Latin America

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro issued an emphatic call for political understanding with the Donald Trump administration on Wednesday afternoon, while simultaneously attacking “CIA-led coups” in Latin America and comparing the situation in Venezuela to the one that preceded the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973 and to the beginning of the military dictatorship in Argentina in 1976. The Venezuelan leader addressed the United States and asked all sectors of American society to be “alert to avoid a war in the Caribbean and in South America.”

“Peace must prevail,” affirmed Maduro, who also resorted to his deliberately clumsy English to proclaim “Not war, peace.” “No to regime change, which reminds us so much of the failed wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. No to coups d’état carried out by the CIA like those in Chile and Argentina. Until when will CIA coups d’état continue? Latin America doesn’t want them, doesn’t need them, and repudiates them,” continued Hugo Chávez’s successor. These statements came a few hours after Trump confirmed that he has authorized the CIA to carry out covert operations inside Venezuela.

“I authorized it... for two reasons,” Trump stated publicly during an event in the Oval Office. The president claims that “Venezuela emptied their prisons into the United States of America,” alluding to the alleged presence in the U.S. of criminals linked to the Tren de Aragua mega-gang, and maintains that “we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela, and a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea...” On Tuesday, the president announced the fifth sinking of a supposed drug boat originating in Venezuela. Now, his goal is to expand these operations, which have already left 27 dead: “We’re going to stop them by land also.”

Amid the military escalation, Miraflores Palace in Caracas issued a statement rejecting “the bellicose and extravagant statements by the President of the United States, in which he admits to having authorized operations to act against the peace and security of Venezuela.”

While Maduro led a new public event to send conciliatory messages to the United States, within the Chavista leadership, Minister of Interior and Justice Diosdado Cabello and Vladimir Padrino López, Minister of Defense, are steadily advancing with the militarization of all the country’s territories, with particular emphasis on coastal areas.

Maduro meets daily with new political and civil actors, both pro-government and independent, as well as with diplomats and intellectuals close to his cause, to discuss peace and try to make peace a cause. These events are broadcast almost daily on radio and television.

The call for peace to the U.S. government and society was made at the inauguration of the National Council for Sovereignty and Peace at the Teresa Carreño Theater. This event, sponsored by the national executive branch, seeks to bring together all political actors and members of civil society, including the business community, in response to this military threat. The council has issued several statements in defense of national sovereignty and peace.

The coordinator of this body’s governing board is Jorge Rodríguez, a political operative par excellence in the highest government echelons. A day ago, amid complete secrecy surrounding the selection of María Corina Machado as the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the private media outlets had to meet with representatives of the executive branch to reaffirm their public commitment to peace and the promotion of the values that underpin it.

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