In yet another escalation in Washington’s aggression against Venezuela’s sovereignty, U.S. officials seized a private jet used by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro for state business and flew it from the Dominican Republic to Florida Sept. 2. The seizure takes place as Washington continues to interfere in the country’s internal affairs over the disputed July 28 presidential elections.
The U.S. government says the plane had been illegally purchased and “smuggled” out of the U.S., in violation of its imperialist economic sanctions that seek to bring down the government in the oil-rich country. The plane, however, has been openly used for Venezuela government official business, including in a recent prisoner swap between Washington and Caracas.
The Maduro government denounced the U.S. rulers’ “piracy,” part of “coercive measures that they unilaterally and illegally impose around the world.” Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil said this showed how Washington uses “its economic and military power to intimidate and pressure states.”
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said that once again Venezuela is the center of U.S. “aggressions and blackmail.”
This isn’t the first plane the U.S. rulers have seized from the Venezuelan government. In June 2022 the government of Argentina collaborated with the White House to confiscate a Boeing 747-300M belonging to a Venezuelan state air-cargo company. This February the Joseph Biden administration had the aircraft transferred to Florida, where it was torn apart.
Within hours of the seizure of Maduro’s plane, a Venezuelan court issued an arrest warrant for Edmundo González, the opposition coalition presidential candidate. Opposition politicians claim González won the election with twice as many votes as Maduro, while the election commission, dominated by supporters of Maduro, declared he had been reelected. The opposition demands that the tally sheets produced at polling stations be made public, which the Maduro government refuses to do.
Three Latin American presidents known for opposition to Washington’s bully tactics — from Mexico, Brazil and Colombia — have urged Maduro to release the vote totals. The governments of Colombia and Brazil also proposed a “power-sharing” agreement with the opposition and holding new presidential elections. These were rejected outright by Caracas as an affront to the country’s sovereignty.