The reported seize of Venezuelan president evokes earlier eras when different leaders had been seized by the US.
President Donald Trump’s declare that the USA has captured his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro and his spouse amid “massive scale” assaults on Venezuela, has surprised the world.
Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez says the federal government doesn’t know the whereabouts of Maduro and his spouse, Cilia Flores.
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In an audio message broadcast on state tv on Saturday, Rodriguez mentioned the federal government was demanding proof that Maduro and Flores are nonetheless alive.
The quickly escalating developments comply with repeated lethal strikes by US forces within the Caribbean Sea and jap Pacific Ocean on what Washington claims are drug-smuggling boats, and an assault on a docking space for alleged Venezuelan drug boats.
The reported seize of Maduro evokes earlier eras when different leaders, reminiscent of Panama’s former navy chief Manuel Noriega and former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, had been seized by the US.
Manuel Noriega
In one other direct intervention into Latin America, the US invaded Panama in 1989 to depose navy and de facto chief Manuel Noriega, citing the safety of US residents in Panama, undemocratic practices, corruption and the unlawful drug commerce.
Earlier than attacking Panama, the US indicted Noriega for drug smuggling in Miami in 1988, simply because it has focused Maduro.
Noriega compelled Nicolas Ardito Barletta to resign in 1985, cancelled the elections in 1989 and backed anti-US sentiment within the nation, earlier than the operation came about.
The US foray into Panama was on the time the most important US fight operation for the reason that Vietnam Warfare. The US authorities trotted out numerous justifications for the operation, reminiscent of bettering the lot of the Panamanians by hauling Noriega off to the US to face drug-trafficking fees.
When the overall started to indicate indicators of being much less obliging to US regional designs, nevertheless, he was rendered persona non grata by Washington.
He was tried on the Miami indictment after being flown to the US and was imprisoned there till 2010, when he was extradited to France to face one other trial. France then despatched him again to Panama a yr later.
Noriega died in jail in Panama in 2017, the place he was serving a sentence for his crimes.
Saddam Hussein
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was captured by US forces on December 13, 2003, 9 months after the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq began primarily based on false intelligence of Baghdad possessing weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Like Noriega, Saddam had for years been a key Washington ally, in his case, through the years of the Iraq-Iran conflict within the Eighties that killed a million folks.
The US additionally claimed within the build-up to the 2003 conflict, with out foundation, that Saddam supported armed teams like al-Qaeda.
Nevertheless, no WMDs had been ever discovered within the nation.
Saddam was discovered hiding in a gap close to his hometown of Tikrit.
He stood trial in an Iraqi court docket and obtained the dying penalty, resulting in his execution by hanging for crimes in opposition to humanity on December 30, 2006.
Juan Orlando Hernandez
The case of Honduras’s Hernandez demonstrates what some observers counsel is a hypocritical strategy by the US.
Hernandez was captured in his house in Tegucigalpa in an operation by the US brokers and Honduran forces in February 2022 – solely days after he left his place as president of his nation.
In April 2022, he was extradited to the US over his alleged involvement in corruption and the unlawful drug commerce, and in June of the identical yr, he was sentenced to 45 years in jail.
Nevertheless, Hernandez was pardoned by US President Donald Trump on December 1, 2025.
Days later, Honduras’s high prosecutor issued a global arrest warrant for Hernandez, intensifying authorized and political turmoil simply days after the ex-leader walked free from a United States jail.
