Venezuela's president Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores have entered not guilty pleas after their capture in a U.S. military operation over the weekend.
Ches Thurber is Associate Professor of Political Science at Northern Illinois University and has been watching the events unfold. He studies international conflict, security, peace-building and global governance.
Legal considerations
Thurber explained that Maduro has been formally indicted on drug trafficking as well as weapons charges. Some of those are new charges that were just filed over the
weekend. Some were included in an earlier filing this year in the Southern District of New York.
Maduro is being represented by Barry J. Pollack, a leading trial attorney.
Flores is being defended by Mark Donnelly, who specializes in white collar criminal defense.
Thurber says the military use of force by the
United States in order to seize Maduro and extract him from Venezuela is a separate legal question. That, Thurber explains, has implications under both international law as well as under U.S. National Security Law.
On if the U.S. administration will target other countries
"I think we have seen Trump in the aftermath of this bring up Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, Greenland — and none of these cases for the first time," Thurber said. "I think that it defied many American's expectations that Trump would go forward with a military operation as bold as he did in this case, and if Americans thought that Trump was not really serious when he talked about Greenland or talked about Colombia, that was just a joke to get under his adversary's skin, I think they should rethink that calculation."
Sourcing
Thurber says he thinks national media sources are doing a good job covering the events based on contacts within the U.S. national security establishment and reporters on the ground in Venezuela.
"[And] therefore," he said, "are able to get information, such as the fact that it does appear that U.S. servicemen, while not killed, were injured in this operation."
Questions remain
Thurber says what happens next in Venezuela is far from clear. Venezuelan leaders followed through with a scheduled swearing-in ceremony of the National Assembly on Monday.
"All U.S. military forces have pulled out," Thurber explained, "but what President Trump is trying to do is to use the threat of future force to coerce the Vice President of Venezuela to do the things that President Trump wants. The one thing that [President Trump] keeps talking about over and over again is to grant oil concessions to American oil companies."
Thurber also wonders if there are other political actors who Trump might wish to try to put in power in Venezuela. So, Thurber says, he will be watching to see if there are others in Venezuela who could be looking at this as an opportunity to try to seize power from the Vice President and take the country in a different direction.
