\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t Delcy Rodr\u00edguez, who until now was vice president of Venezuela under Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u2019s government, is set to be formally sworn in as \u201cacting president\u201d on Monday, and has called the United States to collaborate with the interim authorities towards \u201cpeace and dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Venezuela\u2019s supreme court ordered Rodr\u00edguez to temporarily take charge of the country after the U.S. government captured Maduro in the early hours of Saturday, following a large-scale military strike. According to an anonymous senior Venezuelan official quoted by The New York Times, the attack left a death toll of at least 80 people.<\/p>\n
Cuban President Miguel D\u00edaz-Canel has stated 32 Cuban soldiers who were part of Maduro\u2019s security team were killed during the operation, and declared two days of national mourning.<\/p>\n
In an Instagram post following a staff meeting on Sunday night, Rodr\u00edguez said that Venezuela \u201creaffirms its commitment to peace and peaceful coexistence\u201d and that the country \u201caspires to live without external threats.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added her priority is reaching \u201cbalanced and respectful international relations\u201d between the United States and Venezuela, as well as with other countries, and that her main premise is \u201csovereign equality and non-interference.\u201d<\/p>\n
In her first message as interim president, Rodr\u00edguez invited the U.S. to collaborate with Venezuela \u201con an agenda of cooperation oriented towards shared development within the framework of international law.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Donald Trump, our peoples and our region deserve peace and dialogue, not war,\u201d she stated, emphasizing that \u201cthis has always been President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u2019s message.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s call for cooperation is a shift from her prior message following Maduro\u2019s arrest. In a televised statement on Saturday, she had said that the capture of Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores was \u201can illegal and illegitimate kidnapping\u201d and described the attack as \u201cbarbaric\u201d and a crime against humanity. \u201cThere is only one president in Venezuela, and his name is Nicol\u00e1s Maduro Moros,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will never again be anyone\u2019s colony,\u201d she also stated.<\/p>\n
A Venezuela government statement had also called the attack a \u201ccolonialist war,\u201d saying that the goal of the U.S. government was to get hold of Venezuela\u2019s oil and mineral resources.<\/p>\n
United States-Venezuela cooperation? The U.S. government has also shifted its tone regarding Rodr\u00edguez and the rest of the current administration, which until Saturday was under Maduro\u2019s orders.<\/p>\n
A few hours after capturing the Venezuelan leader, U.S. President Donald Trump said that his country would be \u201crunning\u201d Venezuela from now on, although they were working with Rodr\u00edguez. \u201cShe\u2019s essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again,\u201d Trump had told the press, something Rodr\u00edguez seemingly rejected in her Saturday statement.<\/p>\n
In an interview with The Atlantic, published on Sunday, Trump said that if Rodr\u00edguez \u201cdoesn\u2019t do what\u2019s right,\u201d she would \u201cpay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an interview with NBC that their government is willing to work with the existing Maduro-alligned authorities in Venezuela, although they do not recognize Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s government as legitimate.<\/p>\n
He said that, while the U.S. would not be taking over the Venezuelan government, they would be controlling the \u201clevers\u201d of the country via its current \u201coil quarantine.\u201d The U.S. Navy has been blocking Venezuelan oil tankers since December 17. State-owned oil company PDVSA had to start shutting down production after it ran out of storage space due to its inability to export the crude it was producing.<\/p>\n
You may also be interested in: Trump: \u2018We\u2019re going to run Venezuela until such time as a proper transition can take place\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t believe that this regime in place is legitimate via an election,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cUltimately, legitimacy for their system of government will come about through a period of transition and real elections, which they have not had.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Rubio stated it was \u201cpremature\u201d to talk about new elections for Venezuela in the short run.<\/p>\n
In interviews with the U.S. press, the Secretary of State said the Trump administration does not recognize opposition leaders Mar\u00eda Corina Machado and Edmundo Gonz\u00e1lez Urrutia as the new heads of the Venezuelan government because, on the one hand, they are not currently in Venezuela, and on the other, they won in an election the U.S. considers illegitimate.<\/p>\n
What the Venezuelan opposition says Machado, who won the last Nobel Peace Prize for fighting for democracy in Venezuela, had supported the American strike, stating immediately in its aftermath that\u00a0 \u201cthe hour for liberty arrived\u201d.<\/p>\n
She had also called for Trump to confirm Gonz\u00e1lez Urrutia, who had been previously recognized as the winner of the July 28, 2024 elections by the U.S. \u2014 with Machado as his vice president \u2014 as the new Venezuelan leader, stating: \u201cToday we are ready to fulfill our mandate and take power.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Trump discarded that option, saying on Saturday that Machado lacked \u201csupport and respect\u201d within Venezuela, and declaring Delcy Rodr\u00edguez \u201cis now the president.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although Machado issued no response, Gonz\u00e1lez Urrutia released a message on video on Sunday where he called the U.S. intervention \u201can important step, but not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA true normalization for our country will only be possible when all Venezuelans deprived of their liberty for political reasons are released, and when the majority\u2019s will, expressed by the Venezuelan people on July 28, is unambiguously respected,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Delcy Rodr\u00edguez, who until now was vice president of Venezuela under Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u2019s government, is set to be formally sworn in as \u201cacting president\u201d on Monday, and has called the United States to collaborate with the interim authorities towards \u201cpeace and dialogue.\u201d Venezuela\u2019s supreme court ordered Rodr\u00edguez to temporarily take charge of the country after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":23291,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[331,60,54,330,256,332,306],"tags":[6970,88,183,6965,902,3298,904],"class_list":["post-23290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-delcy-rodriguez","category-donald-trump","category-latin-america","category-nicolas-maduro","category-united-states","category-venezuela","category-world","tag-delcy-rodriguez","tag-donald-trump","tag-latin-america","tag-nicolas-maduro","tag-united-states","tag-venezuela","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}