Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum urged the United Nations on Wednesday to “prevent any bloodshed” in Venezuela, as US President Donald Trump piled pressure on the South American country.
“The United Nations has been conspicuously absent. It must assume its role to prevent any bloodshed and to always seek the peaceful resolution of conflicts,” the left-wing president told a press conference the morning after Washington announced a blockade of “sanctioned oil tankers” entering or leaving Venezuela.
The United States has for months been building a major military deployment in the Caribbean with the stated goal of combatting Latin American drug trafficking.
Caracas views the operation as a campaign to push out leftist strongman Nicolas Maduro — whom Washington and many nations view as an illegitimate president — and to “steal” Venezuelan oil.
Sheinbaum said that regardless of “opinions” about the leadership of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Mexico’s position is to reject “foreign interference.”
“We call for dialogue and peace to be used in any international dispute, and not intervention. That is our position by conviction and by our Constitution,” she added.
Chile’s hard-right president-elect Jose Antonio Kast on Tuesday said that he would back efforts to end Maduro’s “dictatorship,” expanding Trump’s support base in the region at a time when he is considering strikes on Venezuelan territory.
The US Embassy in Quito announced Wednesday that US Air Force personnel were in Ecuador’s Pacific port city of Manta for “a temporary operation with the Ecuadorian Air Force.” It did not specify how many people or equipment had been deployed.
Strikes on three alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the eastern Pacific Ocean killed eight people on Monday, according to the US military, the latest in a controversial campaign that has killed dozens of people.
Since early September, the US military has targeted alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, destroying at least 26 small vessels and killing at least 95 people.
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