UN Warns of “Dangerous Precedent” as U.S. Military Operation Captures Venezuela’s Maduro

The Unit­ed Na­tions Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al has ex­pressed deep alarm over the lat­est es­ca­la­tion in Venezuela, warn­ing that the Unit­ed States’ mil­i­tary ac­tion in the coun­try could have se­ri­ous im­pli­ca­tions for the wider re­gion.

In a state­ment is­sued by his spokesper­son, Stéphane Du­jar­ric, to­day, the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al said the de­vel­op­ments went be­yond the im­me­di­ate sit­u­a­tion in Venezuela and risked es­tab­lish­ing a “dan­ger­ous prece­dent” in in­ter­na­tion­al af­fairs.

The UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al un­der­scored the im­por­tance of full re­spect for in­ter­na­tion­al law, in­clud­ing the UN Char­ter, stress­ing that all states are bound by its prin­ci­ples. He said he was deeply con­cerned that the rules of in­ter­na­tion­al law may not have been re­spect­ed in the course of the re­cent mil­i­tary ac­tion.

The Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al al­so called on all ac­tors in Venezuela to pur­sue in­clu­sive di­a­logue, urg­ing that any ef­forts to re­solve the cri­sis be ground­ed in re­spect for hu­man rights and the rule of law.

In the ear­ly hours of Sat­ur­day, the Unit­ed States launched a ma­jor mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion in Venezuela that re­sult­ed in the cap­ture of Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro and his wife.

The op­er­a­tion be­gan around 2:00 a.m. lo­cal time and in­volved a co­or­di­nat­ed se­ries of airstrikes, fol­lowed by a ground ex­trac­tion car­ried out by elite US spe­cial forces, ac­cord­ing to ini­tial re­ports.

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump an­nounced on Truth So­cial that Maduro and his wife, Cil­ia Flo­res, had been cap­tured and "flown out of the Coun­try." U.S. of­fi­cials lat­er con­firmed that the U.S. Army’s Delta Force con­duct­ed the ex­trac­tion.

Pres­i­dent Trump lat­er told Fox & Friends that Maduro and Flo­res were be­ing held aboard the USS Iwo Ji­ma and were be­ing trans­port­ed to New York City to face fed­er­al charges.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is­sued a state­ment this morn­ing ac­knowl­edg­ing the mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion but stressed that Trinidad and To­ba­go played no role in the ac­tion.