Venezuela says foiled 'false flag' plot targeting US embassy

FRANCE 24 English

President Nicolas Maduro said Monday that Venezuela foiled a false flag operation by what he called local terrorists to plant explosives at the US embassy in Caracas and exacerbate a dispute between the two countries over drug trafficking. FRANCE 24's Sharon Gaffney speaks with Phil Gunson, Senior Consultant for the Andes region at the International Crisis Group.  Visit our website: http://www.france24.com  Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/France24_en

Transcript

00:00This is Apropos.

00:04Well, the warning comes as protesters take to the streets of the Venezuelan capital this week

00:09to denounce U.S. military threats in the Caribbean.

00:13President Nicolas Maduro says his government has foiled a false flag operation by local terrorists

00:19to plant explosives at the American embassy in Caracas

00:23and exacerbate a worsening dispute with Washington over drug trafficking.

00:28It comes as Donald Trump calls off efforts to reach a diplomatic agreement

00:33paving the way for a possible military escalation.

00:37Eliza Herbert has more.

00:39A false flag.

00:41A plot intended to lay blame on another party has been foiled at the U.S. embassy in Venezuela.

00:48President Nicolas Maduro said Monday his security forces had halted the attempt after being tipped off.

00:55There were two sources.

00:58One was national and the other international.

01:02They were followed up on and both agreed on the possibility that a local extremist terrorist group

01:07had placed an explosive device at the U.S. embassy in Caracas.

01:11In the televised interview, Maduro also said he had written to Pope Leo to help maintain peace in the South American country

01:21as tensions flare with the United States.

01:25A topic at heart for these Venezuelans who marched through the capital on Tuesday,

01:31protesting recent U.S. military threats.

01:33I'm here today because we want to tell the President of the United States that this is a country of peace,

01:40not war, and we've always been peaceful.

01:44And to tell Mr. Trump to take his ships and his few batteries that he has here

01:48because this is not a drug trafficking country.

01:53U.S. President Donald Trump has been bragging about his deadly anti-drug operations off the Venezuelan coast.

02:00We're so good at it that there are no boats, in fact even fishing boats, nobody wants to go into the water anymore.

02:06On Friday, his military targeted another suspected drug trafficking boat.

02:11It was the fourth strike in the region in recent weeks, the legality of which is in doubt,

02:17with the death toll believed to be over 20.

02:20The U.S. has also been building up its vessels in the Caribbean Sea,

02:24and President Trump is reportedly weighing up whether to advance to a second military phase,

02:31one that could include attacks on sites in Venezuela.

02:37For more, we're joined now by Phil Gunson,

02:40Senior Consultant for the Andes region at the International Crisis Group.

02:44Phil, thanks so much for being with us on the program.

02:46If you can, tell us what exactly is at the heart of this worsening dispute.

02:54Well, it depends who you talk to, really.

02:57Some people believe that this supposed anti-drugs operation

03:01is really aimed at toppling the government of Nicolás Maduro,

03:05and certainly there have been plenty of indications out of Washington

03:08that they want to capture Maduro, who they say is a fugitive from justice,

03:14and take him to face trial in the United States.

03:18There are other objectives as well.

03:20I mean, certainly part of it is to do with drugs,

03:22but there is a big question mark, as your introduction indicated,

03:25over the extent to which, you know, Nicolás Maduro and his government,

03:30the extent to which Venezuela is really a major player

03:34in the drugs that are entering the United States.

03:37And the US and Venezuela, they severed ties as far back, actually, as 2019,

03:43but they had difficult relations long before then.

03:46How far have those ties deteriorated since then?

03:52It's been up and down.

03:53I mean, certainly during the first Trump administration,

03:56from 2019 onwards, Trump applied a maximum pressure policy,

04:01but he stopped well short of what he's doing right now.

04:04And then, of course, in the middle, you had the Biden administration,

04:07which sought to negotiate an end to the crisis with Nicolás Maduro,

04:11gave him some relief from the sanctions that the US has imposed in the last few years.

04:17That led to an election last year, which the opposition won,

04:21but unfortunately, Mr. Maduro refused to recognize the results.

04:25So since then, things have really gone from bad to worse.

04:28And you point out, though, that there are internal divisions,

04:30it seems, on the US side, suggesting that Marco Rubio

04:34is perhaps leading the charge when it comes to regime change in Venezuela.

04:41Well, this has been a longstanding ambition of Marco Rubio,

04:46of course, as a senator from South Florida,

04:48the son of Cuban immigrants,

04:50somebody who's very much focused on Latin America.

04:53And Venezuela is a key ally of Cuba, which is probably Marco Rubio's main target.

04:58But I think at the present, what Rubio has successfully done

05:02has been to draw together these different strands of US policy towards Venezuela,

05:07which have been very disparate.

05:08The Trump administration this time around, Trump too, if you like,

05:12began with a much more transactional approach,

05:14trying to seek a deal with Maduro on release of hostages,

05:19on accepting deported Venezuelan migrants from the US.

05:25And so there's been some to-ing and fro-ing.

05:26But right now, it seems that they're all focused on this major military operation in the South Caribbean.

05:32And if the Trump administration is hoping for regime change and perhaps hoping to spark an internal rebellion,

05:40isn't there a risk that that might backfire?

05:42We can see there those crowds of protesters taking to the streets

05:46to show their anger at this mounting US aggression as they see it in the Caribbean.

05:52There are definitely some dangers.

05:56Maduro is an unpopular president, but there are millions of Venezuelans who continue to support him

06:01and are very fearful of what might happen if the US did intervene militarily.

06:07The other point to bear in mind is that Venezuela is really packed full of different kinds of armed groups,

06:13from Colombian guerrillas and ex-guerrillas to criminal gangs and so on.

06:17And lots of people with lots of guns who are very much committed to the status quo

06:23would look very unkindly on any change of government.

06:27And I think the problem really is that the stage is set if things go wrong

06:32for some kind of protracted, low-intensity conflict in Venezuela that lasts a really long time.

06:38Is there any real possibility, though, that the US might actually attempt a full-scale incursion?

06:43We have heard Donald Trump ramp up that rhetoric,

06:45saying the US now considers itself to be in a non-international armed conflict.

06:51What exactly does he mean by that?

06:55Yes, well, part of this is to do with domestic US politics.

06:59Of course, Trump is very much focused on deporting as many immigrants from the US as he possibly can.

07:06And one of the ways in which he wants to do that, accelerate the process,

07:09is to use something called the Alien Enemies Act, which is only really applied in wartime,

07:15to avoid the necessity for people going to court.

07:19In other words, you could deport people instantly without any due process.

07:24And of course, it's much easier to convince the courts that he can apply that act

07:28if he claims that there's an actual war going on.

07:31So it's not all to do with regime change in Venezuela.

07:34And is Maduro himself, you know, preparing for more extreme measures?

07:39He also seems to be ramping up the rhetoric as well.

07:44Yeah, that's absolutely right.

07:45I mean, of course, the government here is saying that whatever happens, you know,

07:51they will continue to resist.

07:54Nobody believes that the Venezuelan armed forces could very long resist the kind of force

07:59that the US currently has arrayed against them.

08:02But the government has said that, you know, if they were overthrown,

08:06if there was a US intervention, then they would take to the hills, basically,

08:10and carry out guerrilla warfare for as long as it takes.

08:13And they're openly speaking about another Vietnam, how realistic that is as another matter.

08:19But you do say that the Maduro government wants to negotiate

08:22and is prepared, perhaps, to make concessions.

08:24What might they look like?

08:28Well, they're prepared to make concessions, I think, even in terms of drugs.

08:33I mean, they've been making a great effort to present a picture in recent weeks

08:38of, you know, cracking down on drug trafficking in Venezuela.

08:42They're prepared to make a deal on that.

08:44I'm sure they're prepared to make a deal on oil.

08:46Venezuela, of course, is a major oil producer, or at least it was.

08:51It has great, huge reserves of petroleum on immigration as well.

08:56I think that the bottom line, though, is that there's been no offer from Maduro,

09:00and there's unlikely to be an offer, I think, in the near future of actually leaving power.

09:06And Maduro is determined to stick it out.

09:08And the people around him seem equally determined.

09:10I think, for the moment, they believe that they can hold out

09:14and that there's no need to, you know, basically to unconditionally surrender.

09:19You mentioned oil, Phil.

09:21How much influence does the oil lobby have here?

09:23It, of course, wants to see sanctions lifted.

09:26Yes, you know, the oil companies are frustrated at the fact that they can't, you know,

09:34get their hands on this very large, these very large reserves, or not only oil, but gas as well in Venezuela.

09:42So they would like to see an end to sanctions.

09:45They would obviously like to see some sort of political settlement would allow the return to normality.

09:50And then, of course, you've got a lot of people who hold Venezuelan debt.

09:54Venezuela defaulted on its debt some years ago.

09:57A lot of people have been left holding essentially worthless paper for the time being.

10:01But if there's a settlement, then, of course, all of a sudden that debt could become worth much more

10:06because there could be some form of debt restructuring.

10:08And let's imagine for a moment that Maduro is possibly potentially toppled.

10:13What happens then?

10:14Would that lead to chaos on the streets or would that lead to a more democratic form of government?

10:20What do you think?

10:23Well, there's a big question mark over that.

10:25If you talk to people close to the opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, who is in hiding,

10:31they will tell you that everything will be fine, that nobody will resist,

10:37that the only problem is Maduro and his immediate circle and everybody else will fall into line.

10:41Other people, and in crisis group, we include ourselves in this group,

10:46we're very worried that if the government is removed without any form of prior negotiation

10:53and the armed forces are left out of the equation, there'll be nobody to keep order.

10:59And the problem here, as I say, is that there are plenty of groups who would react, I think,

11:05quite violently to a change of government.

11:08And if there's nobody, you know, the U.S. isn't going to come, you know, with free divisions

11:12and try to keep order in Venezuela.

11:14Trump doesn't want to get sucked into another endless war.

11:19So who's going to keep order?

11:20I think that's a question that really needs answering.

11:24And what do you think is actually going to happen then, Phil?

11:26You say as well that there is another big question.

11:29What would it take for the U.S. to actually withdraw from where it is right now?

11:32Yeah, it's a difficult one because they kind of have to reach a point where they can say

11:39mission accomplished and the fleet steams away.

11:42They can't keep it there forever.

11:43It's a very expensive operation.

11:45And the longer they go on without really achieving anything,

11:49the more the pressure is on them to show that something tangible has come out of this.

11:55And I think that's probably one of the dangers in the sense that to the extent that so far

12:01they haven't really achieved very much, there's a, you know, more likelihood that we'll see

12:07attempts to blow things up on land.

12:10Probably, I mean, nobody I don't think is really thinking in terms of an actual U.S. invasion.

12:17Putting ground troops in doesn't seem to be on the cards, at least at the moment.

12:22But I think we might well see some explosions.

12:26Whether that would convince Maduro, you know, I tend to think it wouldn't.

12:30Unless, of course, the U.S. is determined to go all out and attack Caracas,

12:36attack the military and civilian headquarters here and perhaps even go for targeted assassinations.

12:42But it remains to be seen.

12:44You know, really, Trump has the last word and he's rather unpredictable.

12:48A lot of questions remain, as you say, Phil.

12:50We'll have to leave it there for now.

12:51Thanks so much, though, for being with us on the programme.

12:53That's Phil Gunson, senior consultant for the Andes region at the International Crisis Group.

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