Legality of US Strikes in the Southern Caribbean; Trump Pivots on Talks with Venezuela's Maduro

Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio speaks to Carole Walker for Times Radio. 

Transcript

Carole Walker: 0:00

The US has deployed its biggest naval force to the Caribbean in decades as part of Operation Southern Spear. But President Trump indicated this evening that he's open to talks with President Maduro of Venezuela. Speaking at the White House, President Trump said he would talk to the reader leader, but he's not ruling out boots on the ground. An estimated 15,000 US troops have been deployed as part of the operation that's being seen widely as an attempt to topple the Venezuelan leader. Well, let's talk to Jon Bonfiglio, Latin America correspondent. Good evening to you, Jon. Delighted to have you with us. So we've got this huge US military force in the region, the USS Gerald R. Ford, the biggest aircraft in the world, all converging, and uh as we get these increasing threats against Venezuela.

Jon Bonfiglio: 1:04

Yep, the Gerald R. Ford, the newest, the the largest and the deadliest vessel on earth is sitting off the coast of Venezuela. But as you say, interesting discourse from Donald Trump in the last couple of days, who said that suddenly he's now open to dialogue with Nicholas Maduro. But truth be told, it was always likely Trump space is not engaged with the possibility of foreign wars. So from the beginning, and especially the ridiculous the sort of hyper-extended ramping up of vessels off the coast of Venezuela, it's not just Gerald Ford, it's all the vessels that it comes with. We're seeing 15 US warships, as you say, tens of thousands of military servicemen off the coast, which is way in excess of what you would expect that problem, if you agree that it's a problem, to require to be engaged with it. So I think from the beginning we saw that it was a kind of a strategy to bring the discussion in Venezuela to the brink. Bear in mind, Nicolas Maduro, Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, has been calling for talks for weeks. Trump's motivating factors are the absolute submission of Venezuela, the future use of Venezuelan oil, the largest known oil reserves on the planet, an absence of Chinese influence in the country. Bear in mind Venezuela and China are huge allies. China has a real entry point into Venezuela, and of course access to Venezuela's natural resources and and riches, since the beginning it's been pretty clear, despite the negotiating tactics, the military negotiating negotiating tactics that Trump has employed, that this is an economic proposal that Trump is forcing upon the country.

Carole Walker: 2:53

Now, President Trump has always said that this is about drug trafficking, hasn't he? And indeed, we have seen a whole series of attacks on boats that were supposedly carrying drugs towards the US.

Jon Bonfiglio: 3:12

Yes, this brings us to a really interesting point. I think so. Statistically, we're now in excess of 20 attacks on in excess of 20 vessels with close to now a hundred dead. But there's the central point and is about the premise of the legality. And actually, this has been a particular issue in the UK media over the course of the last couple of weeks, because there are Royal Navy officers embedded with the US flotilla off the coast of Venezuela. So the implication is that any actions that take place which involve UK military service men and women could open them up also to potential future litigation. Now, if we're talking about the premise of legality of these strikes, it rests entirely on the notion that the US and its allies are engaged in a state of armed conflict with cartels in the Southern Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific, and that they are bombing and killing active agents within that context. In the lexicon of the Trump administration, narco-terrorists. Now, if this premise does not hold, then those killed, even if they are criminals, are civilians and cannot be summarily executed. And even if, even if the US was engaged in an armed military conflict, let me be clear about this: There are no wide-ranging transnational criminal organizations operating in Venezuela, and the Cartel de los Soles, which Trump is about to declare a terrorist organization, just doesn't - I mean it just does not exist.

Carole Walker: 4:44

You know, I was just gonna I was just gonna bring in this this question of British intelligence sharing, because we had that report, didn't we, that Britain was going to withhold sharing intelligence on this region because it was very unhappy about what was going on. But then today we've had the Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper saying, Oh yes, we are sharing intelligence with the US when she was asked about this. And you say we've actually got Royal Navy um personnel actively involved in this.

Jon Bonfiglio: 5:18

Yeah, what seems to be - I mean Yvette Cooper on a on an aircraft carrier is an unusual optic - but moving aside from that, what seems to be happening in terms of the mixed signals being sent about ongoing intelligence cooperation, bear in mind this isn't just UK and US, we've seen that across other countries as well, where there is a perspective about shared intelligence and then politicians pull back on it, is that intelligence professionals have one perspective and they are being overridden by politicians. What Yvette Cooper said today, I think, is very interesting. She said that they the UK is still sharing intelligence. She said specifically that there are issues right across the area around the scale of the criminal drug gang networks. Now, I think that was a very deliberate but loose statement, and that's the important point because you know what does she mean by the "area"? How do you define an area? And equally the "scale of the criminal drug gang networks" could mean absolutely anything. So it seems as though it's a political attempt to curry favour with Donald Trump, but actually, in terms of the statement itself, is relatively meaningless.

Carole Walker: 6:25

And just briefly, if you could, Jon, I mean, what about Nicolas Maduro, who is the leader of Venezuela? Some countries have questioned his legitimacy and the US has a $50 million award for information leading to his capture, and now President Trump's talking about potentially meeting him.

Jon Bonfiglio: 6:47

Yeah, I mean we've seen 180-degree turns before, but if we're that these strikes d on't have a legal framework - well, Nicolas Maduro also is an entirely illegitimate leader in Venezuela. We we know we've covered before on your show, Carol, over the last year, year and a half, that undoubtedly the last election of Venezuela, whichever way you look at it, was stolen. There's no getting around that. But again, I think the the new rhetoric we're seeing emerge now really tells us what is at the heart of this situation, and it is not about political values, it is not about regime change, it is not about the Venezuelan people having a brighter future. All of that is off the table and at best is ancillary to the central topic.

Carole Walker: 7:32

Jon Bonfiglio, great to have you with us. Thank you so much for explaining all of that.