By Aura Torrealba on May 13, 2024
Venezuelan Def. Minister Vladimir Padrino addresses the press at Miraflores Palace, Caracas. Photo: Manaure Quintero.
Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino condemned the announcement of the deployment of US F-18 fighter jets in Guyana and said that the Venezuelan Integral Aerospace Defense System has been activated amid this threat and provocation.
On Thursday, May 9, Minister Padrino López posted on his social media a statement of the US Embassy in Guyana which noted, “Today, at 2:00 pm, with collaboration and approval from the Government of Guyana, two US Navy aircraft F/A-18F Super Hornets, embarked on the USS George Washington, will conduct a GDF-coordinated and approved overflight over Georgetown and its surrounding areas.”
“We have already been warning about the threat to regional peace posed by the presence of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington in the Caribbean,” Minister Padrino wrote on social media. “Now they announce the deployment of F-18 aircraft to fly over ‘Georgetown and its surrounding areas.’ The Bolivarian National Armed Force strongly condemns these repeated provocations by the US Southern Command, sponsored by the government of Guyana, which has assumed the role of a new US colony.”
In this regard, Padrino announced that the Integral Aerospace Defense System “remains on alert in the face of any attempt to violate Venezuelan territory, including our Essequibo Territory. Alert!”
Foreign Minister Yván Gil: US has activated war machine
The foreign affairs minister of Venezuela, Yván Gil, said that the US overflight is “one more proof of the provocations that the US Southern Command is carrying out against Venezuela, as the president has already condemned.”
He noted that President Nicolás Maduro, on repeated occasions, has stated that “a war machine has been activated against our country.”
Gil added, “The desires of Exxon Mobil have no limits; after appropriating Guyana, they are trying to destabilize the region and threaten the Zone of Peace agreed upon by the CELAC countries, while the government of Guyana violates its international commitments, including the Argyle Agreement of 2023, by ceding its sovereignty to the US power that threatens an entire continent.”
Source: Ultimas Noticias translation Orinoco Tribune