A small group of foreign ministers of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) regional bloc met on Monday morning for a “profound reflection” on the United States’ ongoing efforts to combat drug cartels in Caribbean international waters.
CELAC is a 33-country regional bloc founded in Caracas in 2011 and largely promoted by late socialist dictator Hugo Chávez as a U.S.-free affiliation at the time of its creation. Presently, far-left Colombian President Gustavo Petro occupies CELAC’s rotating chairmanship. CELAC, which does not include the United States and Canada, has no executive or resolution capacity and the results of its meetings are simply “declarations.”
On Sunday, Colombian Foreign Ministry Yolanda Villavicencio called for an urgent Monday morning online meeting to “exchange views and reflections on the regional situation” after the United States deployed three Aegis guided-missile destroyers and other resources as part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to combat drug cartels in Caribbean international waters.
“Member States hope that this space will allow for an open and constructive discussion of concerns surrounding recent military movements in the Caribbean and their possible implications for regional peace, security, and stability,” the Colombian Foreign Ministry said on Sunday. “The intention is to strengthen channels of dialogue and cooperation, recognizing that transnational challenges require joint and coordinated responses.”
Over the past days, Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro and members of his authoritarian regime have repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that the United States seeks to “invade” Venezuela and oust dictator Nicolás Maduro from power.
Maduro, who has clung to power by holding several sham elections over the past decade, stands accused by U.S. authorities of multiple narco-terrorism charges. He is long suspected of being a leading figure of the Cartel of the Suns, an international cocaine trafficking operation run by leading figures of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and by some top Venezuelan military officials.
In July, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent announced that the United States included the Cartel of the Suns in its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entities. Days later, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the United States doubled its bounty on information that can lead to Maduro’s arrest from $25 million to $50 million.
Foreign Minister Villavicencio, who hosted the virtual encounter, called upon CELAC to reject the U.S. military deployment, as well as “any possible military intervention in a CELAC member country.”
The Foreign Minister also called upon the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly to follow up on the regional situation “in a timely manner” to ensure “transparency and promote respect for international law.”
“Excellencies, protecting the zone of peace in our region does not mean denying our internal differences or minimizing the seriousness of transnational organized crime. It means confronting it with institutions, judicial and police cooperation, and mutual trust, not with military threats that inevitably end up generating negative implications for human security, trade, tourism, and the economies of all our countries,” Villavicencio said.
“CELAC was created to speak with its own voice. Today, that voice must speak without hesitation. We reject the logic of intervention,” she declared.
During his participation at the event, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil condemned the United States’ military presence in the Caribbean, and claimed that the “unprecedented” situation is comparable to that of the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 1960s. Gil justified his condemnation of the United States’ actions under grounds that CELAC declared Latin America as a “territory of peace” in 2014.
Gil further asserted that the United States’ actions are “rude and unjustified” and claimed that accusations of Nicolás Maduro leading the Cartel of the Suns build a “false narrative” against the socialist dictator.
“We ask the community to step forward in defense of the peace zone. Any military conflict against Venezuela, using a false pretext such as drug trafficking, would mean complete destabilization throughout the region,” Gil reportedly said.
“This is not an attack against Venezuela; what we are seeing is the positioning of a narrative that threatens an entire region. The consequences of this action would be truly incalculable,” he continued.
Nicolás Maduro has begun “preparing” the country for the purported U.S. “invasion,” deploying thousands of security forces at its border with Colombia, and calling for civilians to enlist in the Bolivarian militia in a widely-failed enlistment campaign, among other actions.
Last week, Maduro sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres expressing his concerns over the “escalation of aggressions” allegedly committed by the United States against Venezuela. Similarly, Venezuela’s representative at the U.N. also issued a diplomatic note addressed to all U.N.-member state delegations informing them of the alleged “escalation” of the “hostile actions and threats by the Government of the United States of America” over its ongoing drug-fighting efforts in the Caribbean.
While other countries in the region such as Argentina, Paraguay, and Ecuador have recently designated the Cartel of the Suns a terrorist organization, Colombia’s far-left President Gustavo Petro instead claims that the widely documented organization “does not exist” and is instead a “fictitious excuse used by the far-right to overthrow governments that do not obey them.”
Petro, a former member of the Marxist M19 terrorist group and Colombia’s first leftist president in the country’s history, is an avid supporter of the use of cocaine, which he claims is “less harmful” than sugar, and defended its use at the United Nations.
Earlier this year, Petro once again called for the legalization of cocaine under the premise that it is “not worse than whiskey” and could be “sold like wine” if it were legal. Under his administration, production of cocaine in Colombia skyrocketed to all-time highs in 2023 according to the latest report published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), who documented a 53-percent increase in potential cocaine production during that year.
Between April and May, Petro’s first former Foreign Minister Alvaro Leyva released two letters accusing Petro of allegedly suffering from drug addiction problems based on the “direct knowledge that I have had and still have of situations and facts,” but he did not specify which drug the President allegedly is addicted to. Leyva’s letters prompted the Colombian Congress to launch an ongoing inquiry to investigate the claims.
