Venezuela began military exercises on Wednesday in its territorial waters of the Caribbean Sea, in the north of the country, in response to the deployment of U.S. warships in the region. “Today we are starting the ‘Sovereign Caribbean 200’ campaign maneuver; an important military exercise on the island of La Orchila and in our jurisdictional waters for the fine-tuning of our defensive capacity by air, sea and land,” announced the Minister of Defense of the Latin American country, Vladimir Padrino López. He also emphasized that the maneuvers constitute a response to the “threatening, vulgar voice” of Washington against the Venezuelan people and authorities.
For his part, the general commander of the National Navy, Ashraf Suleimán, detailed that the drills unite “the five components” of the Bolivarian National Armed Force. “During three days of maneuvers we will carry out air, airborne, amphibious, naval, land, special forces and aerospace defense operations,” he indicated.
Tensions in the Caribbean
Tensions between Washington and Caracas escalated after international media announced last August a US military deployment in the southern Caribbean to, supposedly, confront drug cartels. The U.S. President, Donald Trump, also announced the attack against a small boat with “11 narco-terrorists from the Tren de Aragua”, a narrative whose veracity has been rejected by the Venezuelan authorities. This Monday, the president showed a video of a new attack against alleged “narco-terrorists from Venezuela”. The next day he stated that there was a third boat bombed, although only the images of two have been released. In addition, he threatened to shoot down Venezuelan military aircraft if they put the U.S. “in a dangerous position”.
