The current head of the Southern Command from the United States, Laura J. Richardson, referred to the drug trafficking plots in Latin America and made special mention of the case of Venezuela. She assured that, “participation in drug trafficking runs through all the echelons of the Maduro regime.”
The senior US official expressed her concern regarding Russia’s close alliances, and the influence of this country in other Latin Americans with regimes such as those of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, she reviewed Infobae.
Democracy vs authoritarian regimes
He compared the political systems of these countries with that of the United States. The official considers that the North American system emphasizes and promotes respect for human rights, democracy and compliance with a fair and equitable rule of law.
Due to these differences, he stressed, that his nation does not authorize the sale of military equipment and the provision of military training to countries such as Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, where there is irrefutable evidence of flagrant violations of human rights by government officials, the military and of law enforcement and no effort by the regimes of those countries to hold those violators of human rights accountable.
He recalled that donations and sales of US military equipment to partner countries include end-user agreements intended to ensure accountability and compliance with international law.
He stressed that in his hemisphere, 28 of 31 countries are democracies, where citizens trust their military to be apolitical, accountable to freely and fairly elected democratic governments, and guardians of the universal rights they hold dear.
“The non-democratic regimes in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua do not uphold the democratic values and principles that citizens of the Western Hemisphere strongly favor and defend. Regimes that favor authoritarianism are a minority in a hemisphere of like-minded democratic nations », he said regarding the relations between these Latin countries and Russia.
Drug trafficking in Venezuela
Richardson considered that drug trafficking in Venezuela “has the support of a sophisticated network of facilitators who direct the logistical, financial, legal, technological, commercial and execution aspects of their international criminal enterprise.” That is why he assured that, “participation runs through all the echelons of the Maduro regime.”
“Corruption is endemic in Venezuela, and the regime is actively involved in drug trafficking and harbors regional terrorist groups such as the ELN and FARC dissidents. Venezuela is a major transit country for cocaine smuggled through air and sea routes, negatively impacting many nations in our hemisphere and beyond. Most of the suspected drug trafficking flights to Mexico and Central America depart from the Venezuelan states bordering Colombia, mainly Zulia. Maritime shipments of cocaine from Venezuela transit the Caribbean and the Atlantic en route to the United States and Europe,” he said.
“The Maduro regime has made no significant effort to combat illegal drug activity or go following corrupt officials or suspected drug traffickers, including those sanctioned by the US government. In 2020, the United States announced criminal charges once morest Maduro and members of his inner circle for participating in a narco-terrorist conspiracy, conspiring to import cocaine into the United States, and firearms-related charges,” he added.
