Cuba responds to US threat of war in Venezuela
News from Cuba | Tuesday, 19 February 2019
Cuba's Foreign Minister has condemned a speech given by President Donald Trump to Cuban and Venezuelan ex-pats at the University of Miami in Florida on 18 February.
Responding the US leader's remarks Bruno Rodriguez used his Twitter account to label Donald Trump's words as "offensive" and confirmed Trump’s "threat of military aggression against Venezuela."
Florida is home to tens of thousands of Cuban and Venezuelan Americans who support regime change in their homelands.
During the speech, Mr Trump described Venezuelan leader President Maduro as a "Cuban puppet" and called on the Venezuelan military to support self-appointed "president" Guaidó and opposition protesters.
Trump has previously threatened US military action in Venezuela. He issued a threat to the Venezuelan military if it continues to stand with President Nicolás Maduro’s government:
“You will find no safe harbour, no easy exit and no way out. You will lose everything…We seek a peaceful transition of power, but all options are open.”
President Maduro responded to Trump’s threats as “almost Nazi style”. Referring to Trump’s orders to Venezuela’s military he replied: “Who is the commander of the armed forces, Donald Trump from Miami?”
“They think they are the owners of the country”, Maduro said.
Rodriguez accused Trump of hypocrisy and trying to "impose a puppet president created in Washington".
It is time to put aside political differences in favour of peace he said, and warned that the US and Guaidó's offer of humanitarian aid was "a pretext for a war of oil plunder". Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves on the planet.
In response to the veiled threat of military intervention, Rodriguez tweeted that "Trump incorporates McCarthyism into the Monroe doctrine."
The history of our continent shows that "the danger of military aggression is real", he said.
