US seizes second Chinese-owned, Venezuela-linked oil tanker
US forces on Tuesday seized a seventhoiltanker in the Caribbean Sea linked toVenezuelaas President Donald Trump’s military campaign to control the source of the world’s largest petroleum reserves continued. According toUS Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), troops boarded and seized the MVSagittaTuesday morning “without incident.” “The apprehension of another tanker operating in defiance of President Trump’s established…
US forces on Tuesday seized a seventhoiltanker in the Caribbean Sea linked toVenezuelaas President Donald Trump’s military campaign to control the source of the world’s largest petroleum reserves continued.
According toUS Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), troops boarded and seized the MVSagittaTuesday morning “without incident.”
“The apprehension of another tanker operating in defiance of President Trump’s established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean demonstrates our resolve to ensure that the only oil leaving Venezuela will be oil that is coordinated properly and lawfully,” SOUTHCOM said.
TheSagittais a Liberian-flagged vessel owned and managed by a company in China. It is at least the second Chinese-owned tanker taken by US forces since Trump’s announcement last month of a “quarantine” on Venezuelan oil exports. Regional and world leaders havecondemnedthe seizures as acts of “piracy.”
International lawexpertscontendthat the blockade,sanctions, andstrikes on boatsallegedly transporting drugs – which have killed more than 120 people – are all illegal, as are the USbombing and invasionof Venezuela andkidnappingof Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.
TheUS Department of Justiceindicted Madurofor alleged conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine into theUnited States, conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices and possession of such weapons. Maduro has pled not guilty to all charges, and has called himself a “prisoner of war.”
This article from Common Dreams is republished under a Creative Commons license.
