US forces on Tuesday seized a seventh oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea linked to Venezuela as President Donald Trump’s military campaign to control the source of the world’s largest petroleum reserves continued.
According to US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), troops boarded and seized the MV Sagitta Tuesday morning “without incident.”
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“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.
The Sagitta is 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 have condemned the seizures as acts of “piracy.”
International law experts contend that the blockade, sanctions, and strikes on boats allegedly transporting drugs – which have killed more than 120 people – are all illegal, as are the US bombing and invasion of Venezuela and kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.
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The US Department of Justice indicted Maduro for alleged conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine into the United 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.
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Brett Wilkins
Brett Wilkins is a San Francisco-based journalist and author who contributes regularly to Common Dreams and Counterpunch. He is also a member of Collective 20, a new anti-war collective with Noam Chomsky, Medea Benjamin and others.
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