Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino giving statements to the press from the Mountain Barracks in Caracas, March 2020. Photo: X/@PrensaFANB/File photo.
Venezuelan Minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino López stated that Venezuela will act “proportionally” in response to the US Southern Command-Guyana partnership in the Caribbean. “We will have a firm presence in our sovereign maritime space, with military deployment and acting proportionally to any provocation intended to be made,” he said on Friday, March 15, during an event held on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the Ministry for Defense’s Vice Ministry for Services, Personnel and Logistics at the Military University in Caracas.
Minister Padrino López made this statement in response to statements made by the chief of the Southern Command of the United States, General Laura Richardson during a US Senate hearing. Richardson called the Venezuelan historical claim over the Essequibo territory an “unjustified claim” and reiterated that the US military would continue military drills with Guyana as well as other acts of aggression.
Padrino said that Richardson claimed that “we Venezuelans, or rather, the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro, has taken over the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, which is a fully growing democracy, a US partner. She says that we are animals pouncing on that democracy. Well, it is the imperialist view of the conflict. No one is inviting the United States to this dispute. No one has invited the United States to interfere in the affairs that are entirely between Venezuela and the Cooperative Republic of Guyana.”
“Unjustified claim…”#SOUTHCOM Commander Gen. Laura Richardson discussed the recent Guyana-Venezuela border controversy & #SOUTHCOM efforts to support Guyana during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee #SASC today. pic.twitter.com/8OwHkdaGeM
— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) March 14, 2024
He added that the US plans to carry out continuous military exercises in the undelimited Essequibo waters, seeking involvement irresponsibly “through military means, carrying out exercises, and running the risk of creating a difficult situation that goes against the regional peace, which the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have signed with great insistence to declare our [region] a zone of peace.”
US Southern Command endangers the zone of peace
Minister Padrino stated that the Latin American and Caribbean Zone of Peace is in danger due to the presence of the US Southern Command in lands and waters that are yet to be delimited between Venezuela and Guyana.
He said that the Southern Command chief, an agent of ExxonMobil, has “a voracious thirst for energy that the United States needs…” and emphasized that she is involved in a matter that does not concern her.
Essequibo Controversy Presented at 46th CARICOM Summit (+President Lula)
Padrino said that he asked “that lady not to get involved in this matter, that no one has invited her and that the Bolivarian National Armed Force is deployed there through the Operation Sifontes to protect the waters that incontrovertibly belong to Venezuela, and we are not discussing the Orinoco Delta projection. We ask the gringos to go home. Gringo go home, this is none of your business. This is an issue for the Cooperative Republic of Guyana and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to look for a practical, satisfactory solution under the umbrella of the Geneva Agreement and, in addition to that, the Argyle Declaration signed last year.”
Padrino added that President Nicolás Maduro has been very firm on Venezuela’s security issues. “He has instructed the Strategic Operational Commander and me so that the military deployment remains there and defends every centimeter of our maritime territory, the continental projection of the Essequibo territory.”
“Let us be prepared; let us increase our operational readiness without offending, blackmailing or threatening anyone,” Minister Padrino exhorted the FANB. “It is a constitutional task that we have and must fulfill: military defense, participation in national development, and maintenance of internal order.”
(Últimas Noticias) with Orinoco Tribune content
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SF
