United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has expressed deep alarm over US military action in Venezuela, warning that the escalation could have serious implications for the region and international order.
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“The Secretary-General is deeply alarmed by the recent escalation in Venezuela, culminating with today’s United States military action in the country, which has potential worrying implications for the region,” his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement on Saturday.
“Independently of the situation in Venezuela, these developments constitute a dangerous precedent,” he added.
Guterres stressed the importance of full respect for international law, including the UN Charter, expressing concern that fundamental legal norms may not have been upheld.
He called on all actors in Venezuela to engage in “inclusive dialogue” and urged respect for human rights and the rule of law as a means to resolve the crisis peacefully.
US President Donald Trump confirmed the “large scale” strike on his social media platform Truth Social, claiming Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife had been captured and flown out of the country.
Venezuela said the US attacked civilian and military installations in multiple states and declared a national emergency. Foreign Minister Yvan Gil announced Venezuela requested an urgent UN Security Council meeting following the attacks.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been indicted in New York.
The charges include narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.
Federal prosecutors alleged that Maduro “is at the forefront of that corruption and has partnered with his co-conspirators to use his illegally obtained authority and the institutions he corroded to transport thousands of tons of cocaine to the United States.”
Since Maduro’s “early days in Venezuelan government,” he has “tarnished every public office he has held,” they wrote.
Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado hailed the US strikes and the capture of President Maduro, saying “the hour of freedom has arrived.”
“From today, Nicolas Maduro faces international justice for the atrocious crimes committed by Venezuelans and against the citizens of many other nations,” she said in a written statement. “The American government has lived up to its promise to uphold the law.”
Some eight million Venezuelans have left the country in recent years amid a worsening economy, international isolation and political repression.
However, the use of military force to remove Venezuela’s president has been criticised as effectively a “kidnapping” that violates core principles of the United Nations Charter.
Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor at Notre Dame Law School and expert in international law, told NBC News: “If you detain someone unlawfully, if you take someone into your custody, and you do not have the legal right to do that, then what else would you call it?”
“The United Nations Charter makes it very clear that there are very few times when a country has the right to carry out military force on the territory of another country,” she added. “And it never has the right to do that in order to bring an individual out to stand trial before their courts.”
O’Connell explained that countries “could use military force if they’d been invaded or attacked,” but noted there was “no UN Security Council authorization for bringing Maduro out of Venezuela and using military force in order to do it.”
Members of the UN Security Council “are not going to in any way accept that the US can use military force to bring a president out of his country to stand trial before US courts,” she added.
“It’s just not going to happen,” she said. “This is not how this happens.”
For some Venezuelans, the capture of President Maduro marks a huge victory.
“I’m extremely happy. It’s a sensation that finally people understood that Venezuela was no longer a democratic country,” said Raquel De Faria, a Venezuelan-Brazilian doctor who grew up in Venezuela and left the country in 2018 due to the ongoing political and economic situation.
Trump “took the reins,” she added. “The reality is that they are a narco-government, and that needed to be controlled.”
It is “a great conquest,” she said. “I feel like something huge was accomplished, a victory, and what a start of the year for Venezuela.”
Kharem Itriago, a resident of Puerto Ordaz, said she happened to be awake when she started seeing posts on social media.
At first, she didn’t think the US had actually carried out a strike; like many Venezuelans, she had gotten her hopes up too many times before that Maduro would be forced out or leave during the 2024 elections.
“The good part is that you see the news that they really took him,” she said of Maduro. “And wanting to cry because you have all these repressed feelings over the years of wanting to see him go. I’m so happy, but with much uncertainty.”
But she said that Venezuelans also suffered from misinformation and that she was unsure if there had been deaths during the strikes.
“We have to wait for someone to make a comment,” she added.
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