US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he has authorised the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela, a rare confirmation from any sitting US leader about the secret spy agency’s operations.
The acknowledgement comes after the US military, in recent weeks, has carried out a series of deadly strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean, destroying at least five boats since early September, that have killed 27 people
Four of those boats have come from Venezuela.
“I authorised for two reasons, really. No. 1, they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America,” Trump said at the Oval Office late Wednesday.
“And the other thing, the drugs, we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela, and a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea.”
Trump said the administration “is looking at land” as it considers further strikes in the region, but declined to say whether the CIA has the authority to take action against President Nicolás Maduro.
The unusual acknowledgement follows The New York Times’ publication that the CIA had been authorised to carry out covert action in Venezuela.
Nicolas Maduro pushes back
On Wednesday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro lashed out at the record of the US spy agency in various conflicts around the world and called for peace.
Maduro addressed a televised event of the National Council for Sovereignty and Peace, which comprises representatives from various political, economic, academic, and cultural sectors in Venezuela, and said in English, “Not war, yes peace, not war. Is that how you would say it? Who speaks English? Not war, but yes, peace, for the people of the United States, please. Please, please, please.”
He criticised the CIA, recalling some of its alleged ugly past: “No to regime change that reminds us so much of the (overthrows) in the failed eternal wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and so on.”
“No to the coups carried out by the CIA, which remind us so much of the 30,000 disappeared,” a figure estimated by human rights organisations such as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo during the military dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983). He also referred to the 1973 coup in Chile.
“How long will the CIA continue to carry on with its coups? Latin America doesn’t want them, doesn’t need them, and repudiates them,” Maduro said.
Also, Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry, in a statement, rejected what it called “the bellicose and extravagant statements by the President of the United States, in which he publicly admits to having authorised operations to act against the peace and stability of Venezuela.”
“This unprecedented statement constitutes a very serious violation of international law and the United Nations’ Charter and obliges the community of countries to denounce these clearly immoderate and inconceivable statements,” said the statement, which Foreign Minister Yván Gil posted on his Telegram channel.
Military strikes facing resistance from Congress
Meanwhile, the actions against so-called Venezuelan drug cartels are generating uproar in Congress among members of both major political parties.
Early this month, the Trump administration declared drug cartels to be unlawful combatants and pronounced the United States is now in an “armed conflict” with them, justifying the military action as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States.
The move has spurred anger, with lawmakers alleging that Trump was effectively committing an act of war without seeking congressional authorisation.
The Trump administration has yet to provide underlying evidence to lawmakers proving that the boats targeted by the US military were, in fact, carrying narcotics, according to two US officials familiar with the matter.