By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Donald Trump says the US will “run” Venezuela until a political transition can take place, just hours after US forces bombed the South American country and “captured” its president, Nicolas Maduro.
“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition” to new leadership, Trump said during a press conference in Florida.
The U.S. president added that he didn’t want a new leader to take over in the wake of Maduro’s capture that would result in “the same situation that we had for the last long period of years.”
“So, we are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition. And it has to be judicious, because that’s what we’re all about,” Trump added. “We can’t take a chance that somebody else takes over Venezuela that doesn’t have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind.”
Washington had accused Maduro, who has been in power since 2013, of having ties to drug cartels – a claim he rejected, Maduro said the US was working to depose him and take control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.
Trump said “very large United States oil companies” would move into Venezuela to “fix the badly broken … oil infrastructure and start making money for the country”.
He added that his administration’s actions “will make the people of Venezuela rich, independent and safe”.
The Trump administration has defended the “capture” of Maduro by saying the left-wing leader faced drug-related charges in the US.
Trump’s action recalls the Monroe Doctrine, laid out in 1823 by President James Monroe, laying U.S. claim to influence in the region, as well as the “gunboat diplomacy” seen under Theodore Roosevelt in the early 1900s.
Venezuelan allies Russia, Cuba and Iran were quick to condemn the strikes as a violation of sovereignty. Tehran urged the U.N. Security Council to stop the “unlawful aggression.”