US Seeks Puppet Govt in Venezuela

Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio speaks to Nick Wallis for Times Radio. 

Transcript

Nick Wallis: 0:00

We spoke to him yesterday and he joins me now. Hi there, Jon. Hey, good evening. Uh so we've had twenty-four hours uh worth of developments. What would you want to pick out as the most important in your mind?

Jon Bonfiglio: 0:11

Well, I think today has been all about making sense of yesterday's incredible series of events. We've learned uh which has uh received scant coverage that the action to extract Maduro had a local Venezuelan casualty count of in excess of 40 lives among the military and uh civilians. It's also increasingly clear that some sectors of uh Maduro's inner circle, although not who or to what extent uh is clear, collaborated with the United States on the planning as well as on the event itself. Um uh neighboring Colombia and Brazil, both worried about a destabilized regime and yet another potential mass movement of people have moved their militaries to the their shared borders with uh with Venezuela. And then, as you as you've mentioned, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been the public face across media platforms in the in the USA. And I think what he's been emphasizing has been interesting. Um he has been arguing uh for the legal basis that the US understands uh or sees the legal basis of the undertakings on the morning of uh Saturday, 3rd of January, based on a US court order indicting Nicolas Maduro on drugs and and and weapons offences, again, emphasizing that it's um it's sort of a law and order issue rather than a military issue. Um he's also affirmed, as if there was any doubt, that the US intends to use Venezuela's oil, that um it regards Venezuelan oil as belonging to the United States, if not Venezuela, and um when asked if the US was running Venezuela, responded that it was running the direction it would move forward in. Clear as mud.

Nick Wallis: 1:39

Yeah, well let's get to that in just a moment because I want to go back to what you said about the uh 40 deaths which have been reported by the Venezuelan authorities and the potential element of collaboration which allowed the American forces to pick up Nicola Maduro so well, with with very little in the way of casualties or damage to their uh uh uh forces. What do we know about that?

Jon Bonfiglio: 2:04

Um truthfully, we know very little. We know what the Venezuelan um administration has said, which of course historically we would take with a uh with a pinch of salt. Um I think we are putting two and two together from uh, I guess, two sort of sources of information. On on the one hand, the information that has been provided by uh the Trump administration as regards the events that took place make it inconceivable that there was not uh some kind of logistical, at least logistical assistance taking place uh already on the ground in uh in Venezuela. Now that may be CIA related, but more likely given um the rapidity and the efficacy of the operation, it is uh more likely to be some aspect of uh Maduro's inner circle which um uh which which participated in in that. And then, I mean, uh you know, we should always be careful with with rumors, but uh yeah, that what's being spoken about fairly openly on the streets of Caracas today is about uh uh the new president Delcy Rodriguez's uh sort of difficult um uh difficult path that she is treading as regards taking forward the uh the the the remnants of the administration the of the Maduro administration, but also at the same time sort of playing to um to the Trump administration's needs.

Nick Wallis: 3:29

Yeah, I mean she's publicly repudiated uh the American government. Trump has responded by saying if she doesn't do what is right, she's gonna pay a very big price. And then you've got Marco Rubio saying, well, he's had a conversation with her, not revealing exactly what the contents of that discussion was, but the insinuation being she she's in a position whereby she's feeling that she's gonna have to cooperate or bad things might happen. I mean, how do you see this playing out? Is she now going to become an instrument of the United States' will or Donald Trump's will when it comes to moving the government in whatever particular direction the United States wants it to move?

Jon Bonfiglio: 4:06

Yeah, I think it it's highly unusual. There's a number of things which sort of don't quite add up here. But it's highly unusual because everything has changed, of course, but nothing has changed as well. Maduro's gone, but everything still looks and feels the same on the face of it. Uh Delcy Rodriguez, now president, 56-year-old career technocrat. She's taken over the same structures which are in place on Friday night before Maduro's uh um uh removal. As you say, in her first speech, she pledged loyalty to Maduro and sort of attacked the US intervention. Uh but what the Trump administration seems to believe, although of course it's difficult to tell precisely, is that they can run Venezuela by simply threatening another intervention. They keep talking about this potential second wave, should um Rodriguez not submit. It sort of implies that the desired outcome is a sort of Delcy Rodriguez is a kind of a puppet ruler of a vassal state. There's one other thing I'd I'd point to as well, which I think is interesting, is that um Donald Trump has displayed complete disinterest in the Venezuelan opposition. This uh you know, with the figureheads of who was uh who uh won the last election and potentially were going to take forward um any sort of replacement transitional uh administration. They themselves have been incredibly uh quiet. It seems to uh suggest that Trump is happier dealing with the remnants of the Maduro administration uh rather than um feeling that he has to sort of encourage or facilitate any democratic uh transition. Now, a final point is that actually, as part of Rodriguez's accession mandate, if she declares Maduro per absent, the election uh elections must be called within 30 days. So that's something to look out for, is what uh what the Venezuelan government publicly say in Congress about Maduro's uh absence.