Venezuela Denounces U.S. Military Deployment in the Caribbean at CELAC Meeting

During an emergency session convened by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil delivered a forceful address denouncing the growing U.S. military presence in Caribbean waters. He described the deployment as a serious threat to regional peace and a blatant violation of the Zone of Peace status declared by CELAC in 2014.

The meeting, chaired virtually by Colombian Foreign Minister Rosa Yolanda Villavicencio Mapy in her role as CELAC’s rotating president, brought together the foreign ministers of all 33 member states on Monday. The sole agenda item was “a deep reflection on the sovereignty of member states in the face of the deployment of foreign military forces.”

In his remarks, Gil said Venezuela faces “an unprecedented decision” in terms of regional security following the concentration of U.S. military assets in the Caribbean Sea. “We are talking about eight warships with more than 1,200 missiles on board, and nearly 4,200 troops trained and ready to intervene,” he stated, citing official declarations and press reports.

He also warned of the possible presence of a nuclear-powered submarine capable of launching nuclear weapons in the area. According to the minister, this scenario “not only violates the 2014 Zone of Peace declaration but also the Treaty of Tlatelolco.”

The Treaty of Tlatelolco, signed in 1967 and ratified by Venezuela along with other regional countries, establishes Latin America and the Caribbean as a nuclear-weapons-free zone. While the United States is not a direct signatory, it did sign additional protocols pledging to respect the treaty’s integrity. “That today we are threatened with the deployment of nuclear weapons in our waters is a mockery of multilateral agreements and of the peace we have collectively built,” Gil stressed.

The Venezuelan representative firmly rejected Washington’s justification for its military presence, namely counternarcotics operations. “A false and crude narrative has been used, the so-called ‘Cartel of the Suns,’” he said, referring to unsubstantiated accusations against Venezuelan officials. Gil presented data from international organizations to counter this claim.

Quoting reports from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the U.S. State Department, he highlighted that Venezuela has no illicit crops thanks to eradication and control operations carried out by the Bolivarian National Armed Force and state security agencies. “Eighty-seven percent of cocaine trafficking from Colombia to the United States uses the Pacific route,” he noted, adding that only about five percent of trafficking attempts pass through Venezuelan territory. Of that fraction, “70 percent is seized by our forces.”

“These data are not mine, they are from the UN and from the U.S. State Department itself. How then do they justify a disproportionate military escalation based on lies?” Gil asked the CELAC representatives.

The Venezuelan foreign minister called on the regional community to act with unity and resolve. “The Zone of Peace is not a mere symbolic document, it is a collective mandate that obliges us to defend it. We demand the immediate withdrawal of foreign military forces from our coasts and the reaffirmation of the Treaty of Tlatelolco,” he declared. He also endorsed the statement presented by Colombia in its role as CELAC chair and reaffirmed Venezuela’s support for the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA-TCP), which has also demanded an end to military pressure.