The United States wants to “steal” Venezuela’s oil reserves with the deployment of warships in the Caribbean, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said Thursday.
U.S. President Donald Trump deployed eight ships and a submarine in the Caribbean nearly a month ago, arguing they were fighting drug trafficking after accusing his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolás Maduro, of having ties to the alleged “Cartel of the Suns.”
Maduro, who views the military deployment as a “threat,” on Thursday called for a drill to prepare for natural disasters (after recent earthquakes) and armed conflicts.
“We condemn the movement of military forces by the United States government here in the Latin American region under the pretext that Venezuela is the great exporter of cocaine,” Ortega said in his speech during the ceremony for the 46th anniversary of the police in Managua.
He added that Venezuela is “the country with the largest oil reserves in the world,” and “that is what the U.S. rulers and U.S. capital are after: taking control of Venezuelan oil.”
“Stealing the oil from the Venezuelan people, inventing that cocaine arrives from, leaves from, those countries in the south and is then consumed in the United States,” the Sandinista leader added, speaking in a measured tone during the event broadcast by pro-government media.
Earlier this month, Ortega said the anti-drug military operation was a “farce” and that its aim was to “overthrow” Latin American governments.
Ortega, a former guerrilla fighter, 79, in power since 2007 and who also ruled Nicaragua in the 1980s, is a staunch ally of Maduro and is accused by critics and human rights groups of establishing a “family dictatorship” together with his wife Rosario Murillo, 74, named co-president in February by a constitutional reform.
In recent months he has been seen at public events with difficulty walking and a pale appearance—he suffers from lupus and kidney failure—leading opposition analysts to say Murillo is paving the way for succession.
