end of list<\/span><\/section>\nUS President Donald Trump threatened that Rodriguez will pay a \u201cvery big price\u201d if she doesn\u2019t cooperate with Washington. \u201cIf she doesn\u2019t do what\u2019s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,\u201d Trump told The Atlantic in a telephone interview.<\/p>\n
US forces attacked Caracas in the early hours of Saturday, bombing military targets and spiriting away Maduro and his wife to face federal narco-trafficking charges in New York. The Venezuelan president was escorted off a plane at Stewart Air National Guard Base in New York state and taken to a Brooklyn jail.<\/p>\n
He is due to make his first appearance on Monday in Manhattan\u2019s federal court.<\/p>\n
US to use oil blockade to leverage change in Venezuela<\/h2>\n
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday suggested that Washington would not take a day-to-day role in governing Venezuela other than enforcing an existing \u201coil quarantine\u201d, using that leverage to press policy changes in the country.<\/p>\n
Rubio\u2019s statements seemed designed to temper concerns, a day after Trump announced the US would \u201crun\u201d the oil-rich nation. The Trump administration\u2019s actions drew unease from parts of his own Republican Party coalition, including an \u201cAmerica First\u201d base that is opposed to foreign interventions, as well as from observers who recalled past nation-building efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rubio dismissed such criticism, saying that Trump\u2019s intent had been misunderstood by a \u201cforeign policy establishment\u201d that was fixated on the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Al Jazeera\u2019s Phil Lavelle, reporting from Doral, Florida in the US, said Trump had been elected on an \u201cAmerica First\u201d policy centred around no engagement in foreign wars or sending US service personnel into danger.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow we\u2019ve got this situation where he said, less than 24 hours ago, \u2018We\u2019re not afraid of putting boots on the ground,\u2019\u201d Lavelle said.<\/p>\n
Protests took place in cities across the US against Trump\u2019s military action in Venezuela. Hundreds gathered in the rain in downtown Los Angeles, carrying signs saying \u201cStop bombing Venezuela now!\u201d and \u201cNo blood for oil\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI stand against US imperialism altogether. They want oil \u2026 They want to help the corporate billionaires. Bombing is just their means to building power like that, of taking control. So again, I\u2019m against it,\u201d said one protester named Niven.<\/p>\n
Trump on Saturday delivered a speech in which he made little mention of\u00a0the so-called \u201cwar on drugs\u201d \u2013 which for months had been his main justification for bombing Venezuelan ship and assets \u2013 but argued that Venezuela had \u201cstolen\u201d oil from the US and that it would now be taken back.<\/p>\n
The United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, Ben Saul, said the US actions in Venezuela were illegal, calling on Trump to be investigated and impeached. \u201cEvery Venezuelan life lost is a violation of the right to life. President Trump should be impeached and investigated for the alleged killings,\u201d he said in a social media post.<\/p>\n
The UN Security Council (UNSC) was set to meet on Monday to discuss the situation in Venezuela. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was \u201cdeeply alarmed\u201d by the US strikes, which a spokesperson said could \u201cconstitute a dangerous precedent\u201d.<\/p>\n
Uncertainty in Venezuela after Maduro\u2019s abduction<\/h2>\n
Some Venezuelans in Caracas have welcomed the US\u2019s seizure of Maduro, but others said the action could worsen conflict in the country, with protests denouncing the US taking place.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere should be a positive change for all Venezuelans, because it has been 28 years of government, and now is the time for transition in this country,\u201d said Ronald Gaulee, a motorcycle rider in Caracas.<\/p>\n
Merchant Juan Carlos Rincon was more cautious. \u201cThe truth is that there is a lot of manipulation behind all this,\u201d he told the Reuters news agency. \u201cWe want to be at peace, move forward, and for Venezuela to have, like any other country, the right to choose its own destiny and its own leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n
Baker Franklin Jimenez said he would heed the government\u2019s call to defend the country. \u201cIf they took him away, I think they shouldn\u2019t have done so, because this will create an even worse conflict than the one we have now,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd as for the bombings and all that, we have to go out, we all have to go out into the streets to defend our homeland, to defend ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some Venezuelans decided to flee the country amid the uncertainty, crossing the Venezuela-Colombia border to reach the Colombian town of Cucuta. Karina Rey described a \u201ctense situation\u201d in the Venezuelan city of San Cristobal, just across the border.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are long lines, and people are very paranoid, or on edge, over food. Supermarkets are closing,\u201d Rey told Al Jazeera. \u201cThe lines are very long just to stock up on food, because we don\u2019t know what will happen in the coming weeks. We\u2019re waiting to see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Al Jazeera\u2019s Alessandro Rampietti, reporting from Cucuta, said many Venezuelans there initially felt jubilant after Maduro was ousted. \u201cBut that quickly shifted to uncertainty,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeveral people said they expected the United States to immediately bring opposition leader Maria Corina Machado back into the country, along with Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who many Venezuelans believe won the last presidential election,\u201d Rampietti continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead, with much of the existing leadership still in place and with Vice President Delcy Rodriguez appointed as interim leader, there is growing fear about what could happen next.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tiziano Breda, a senior analyst at the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, said what happens next hinges on the response of Venezuela\u2019s government and armed forces.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo far, they\u2019ve avoided direct confrontation with US forces, but deployments on the streets point to efforts to contain unrest,\u201d he said. \u201cA smooth transition remains unlikely, and the risk of resistance from pro-regime armed groups \u2013 including elements within the military and Colombian rebel networks active in the country \u2013 remains high.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Venezuela\u2019s Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez has denounced the United States\u2019 move to abduct leader Nicolas Maduro as a \u201ccowardly kidnapping\u201d, adding that some of the president\u2019s bodyguards were killed \u201cin cold blood\u201d, as well as military personnel and civilians on the Venezuelan side. In his televised statement on Sunday, Padrino Lopez also endorsed a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}