By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Photo Credit: Federico Parra.
South Africa calls on the UN Security Council (UNSC), the body mandated to maintain international peace and security, to urgently convene to address US attack on Venezuela.
At least seven explosions were reported from Caracas, a city of more than three million people, at about 2am local time, as residents said they heard low-flying aircraft.
Within minutes of the explosions, Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro declared a state of emergency, as his government named the US as responsible for the attacks, saying that it had struck Caracas as well as the neighbouring states of Miranda, Aragua and La Guaira.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, US president Donald Trump said, a little after 09:00 GMT that the US had “successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country”.
The South African government said it viewed US actions as a manifest violation of the Charter of the UN.
The Charter mandates that all member states refrain from the threat or use of force. This applies to actions against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.
“Furthermore, the Charter does not authorise external military intervention in matters that are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of a sovereign nation, “Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) said in a statement on Saturday.
“South Africa said history has shown that military invasions of sovereign governments only result in instability and worsening crises.
“Unlawful, unilateral force of this nature undermines the stability of the international order and the principle of equality among nations,” the department said.
Trump has, in recent months, accused Maduro of driving narcotics smuggling into the US, and has claimed that the Venezuelan president is behind the Tren de Aragua gang that Washington has proscribed as a foreign terrorist organisation.
But his own intelligence agencies have said that there is no evidence that Maduro is linked to Tren de Aragua, and US data shows that Venezuela is not a major source of contraband narcotics entering the country.