On Monday, September 2, the United States announced the seizure of a plane of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who was in the Dominican Republic and was transferred to Florida, claiming that he violated U.S. sanctions.
The head of U.S. diplomacy, Antony Blinken, promised sanctions on Friday to Venezuela during a visit to the Dominican Republic, where on Monday Washington seized a plane from Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in the midst of the political crisis generated after his controversial re-election.
“We have been very clear and we are going to implement the sanctions, if we find that there have been violations we will act, that’s what we did and that’s what we’re going to continue to do,” Blinken said at a press conference with Dominican President Luis Abinader, after being consulted on a second Maduro plane in the Dominican Republic.
Maduro’s plane seized four days ago in the Dominican Republic was transferred to Florida, Washington announced after alleging a violation of U.S. sanctions. Venezuela responded by de lining the action “piracy.”
Media have reported that there is a second Maduro plane in Dominican territory.
The United States, which already imposed a sanctioning package in 2019 in response to Maduro’s first controversial re-election a year earlier, does not recognize the new proclamation of the Venezuelan president as president re-elected on July 28.
“We are very concerned about the trajectory in Venezuela after the elections in which the will of the Venezuelan people could not have been clearer, unfortunately this will and the votes were not reflected in what has happened since then,” Blinken reiterated.
Maduro was proclaimed winner with 52% of the votes without the details of the scrutiny as required by law. The opposition denounced fraud and said it had evidence of the victory of its candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia.
Protests erupted across the country, leaving 27 deaths, 192 injured and 2,400 detained.
The results of 28 July have also been questioned by several Latin American countries.
“We will continue to defend democratic rights and be empathetic with the situation in Venezuela,” added Abinader, noting that his government has “no legal notification” about the second aircraft.
In 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice offered a reward of up to $15 million for any information leading to Maduro’s arrest in power since 2013.
This article has been translated after first appearing in Diario El Mundo