NYT: US edges closer to military conflict with Venezuela

By labelling the “Cartel of the Suns” (Cartel de los Soles) as a terrorist organisation, the United States increases the risk of direct confrontation with Venezuela.

An article in The New York Times (NYT) reads that the United States has formally designated Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his government allies as members of a foreign terrorist organisation called the Cartel de los Soles, a group that does not actually exist.

Columnist Michelle Goldberg noted that no one knows if we (the Americans) will start bombing Venezuela, but the Trump administration’s rhetoric on the Cartel of the Suns is just one of many warning signs.

“For months now, the United States has been committing extrajudicial killings of suspected drug runners, many from Venezuela, in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. Now the administration seems ready to expand this armed conflict into Venezuela,” she added.

Goldberg emphasised that Phil Gunson, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, told her that there is no such thing as the cartel in Venezuela.

The US State Department claims that the Cartel de los Soles, together with the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua criminal group, is behind extensive drug-trafficking operations in the United States and Europe.

InsightCrime reports that the term Cartel de los Soles originated in the 1990s, referring to Venezuelan generals and senior officers who wore sun insignias on their epaulettes and were investigated for drug-related crimes.

However, despite these claims by the Trump administration, neither the US Drug Enforcement Administration in its annual National Drug Threat Assessment nor the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in its World Drug Report has officially identified the Cartel de los Soles as a drug-trafficking organisation.

By Jeyhun Aghazada