Washington is once again slapping Caracas on the knuckles. The United States announced on Monday, September 2, that it had seized a plane belonging to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, due to alleged violations of American sanctions. “This morning, the Department of Justice seized a plane that we believe was illegally purchased for $13 million through a front company and smuggled out of the United States for use by Nicolas Maduro and his clique,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland in a statement.
The aircraft, a Dassault Falcon 900EX, was seized in the Dominican Republic and transferred to Florida (southeast), the press release states. “The Dominican Republic’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Roberto Alvarez, said that the country’s attorney general’s office received an order from a national court last May to ‘immobilize’ the aircraft,” the American media outlet points out. CNN. Venezuela called the seizure an “act of piracy” in a statement from its Foreign Ministry on Monday.
“Venezuela denounces before the international community that once again, the authorities of the United States of America, in a repeated criminal practice that can only be described as an act of piracy, have illegally confiscated an aircraft used by the President of the Republic,” writes the Venezuelan ministry.
Urrutia targeted by an arrest warrant
In August 2019, under the presidency of Republican Donald Trump, the American executive branch issued a decree prohibiting any person in the United States from carrying out transactions with anyone who “directly or indirectly acted for or on behalf of the government of Venezuela,” the ministry recalled.
It should be noted that this seizure is taking place in a tense political context: Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, the opposition candidate who claims victory in the July 28 presidential election against Nicolas Maduro, has been the target of an arrest warrant from the Venezuelan justice system since Monday. The prosecution claims to have obtained “an arrest order for serious” crimes from a court with jurisdiction over terrorism, according to a statement posted on social media. The person concerned did not respond to three summonses from the courts that wanted to hear him about the opposition website that claims he won the presidential election.
Washington, Maduro’s best enemy
At the head of Venezuela since 2013, Nicolas Maduro has displayed an increasingly repressive policy, as evidenced by the recent reshuffle of his government, where power is concentrated in the hands of his loyalists. Among the appointments that most worry civil society is that of the vice-president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Diosdado Cabello, at the head of the Ministry of the Interior and Justice. “This is a sign of an increase in repression to come,” Juanita Goebertus, director of the Americas section of the NGO Human Rights Watch, criticized on X, as reported by International Mail.
And the United States, like much of the international community, recently opposed the decision of the Venezuelan Supreme Court to validate Maduro’s re-election. Moreover, the American media CNNspeaks of “icy relations” between the two heads of state. The White House believes that the Venezuelan president has “falsely claimed victory and has carried out large-scale repression to maintain power by force.” In the New York Times, It reads: “In recent weeks, Nicolas Maduro’s security forces have arrested anyone who appeared to doubt his claim to six more years in power, and many Venezuelans fear that his forces will cross borders to pursue their enemies.”
The seizure is “an important step in ensuring that Maduro continues to suffer the consequences of his misrule,” he added. In March 2020, the US Justice Department announced the indictment of Nicolas Maduro and other senior Venezuelan officials and offered a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to the arrest of the socialist president, who has been in power since 2013. Nicolas Maduro and these officials were accused of having allied themselves with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), “to flood the United States with cocaine.”