Like that ‘not a cartel per se’ matters<\/p>\n
US labels Maduro-tied Cartel de los Soles as a terror organization. It’s not a cartel per se<\/a><\/p>\n CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump’s administration has\u00a0ramped up pressure<\/a>\u00a0on Venezuelan President\u00a0Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a>\u00a0by designating the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization. But the entity that the U.S. government alleges is led by Maduro is not a cartel per se.<\/p>\n The designation, published Monday in the Federal Register, is the latest measure in the Trump administration’s\u00a0escalating campaign to combat drug trafficking<\/a>\u00a0into the U.S. In\u00a0previewing the step<\/a>\u00a0about a week ago, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Cartel de los Soles, or Cartel of the Suns, of being \u201cresponsible for terrorist violence\u201d in the Western Hemisphere.<\/p>\n The move comes as Trump evaluates whether to take military action against Venezuela, which\u00a0he has not ruled out<\/a>\u00a0despite bringing up the possibility of talks with Maduro. Land strikes or other actions would be a major expansion of the monthslong operation that has included a\u00a0massive military buildup<\/a> in the Caribbean Sea and striking boats accused of trafficking drugs, killing more than 80 people.<\/p>\n Venezuelans began using the term Cartel de los Soles in the 1990s to refer to high-ranking military officers who had grown rich from drug-running. As corruption expanded nationwide, first under the late President Hugo Ch\u00e1vez and then under Maduro, its use loosely expanded to police and government officials as well as activities like illegal mining and fuel trafficking. The \u201csuns\u201d in the name refer to the epaulettes affixed to the uniforms of high-ranking military officers.<\/p>\n The umbrella term was elevated to a Maduro-led drug-trafficking organization in 2020, when the U.S. Justice Department in Trump’s first term announced the\u00a0indictment of Venezuela\u2019s leader<\/a>\u00a0and his inner circle on narcoterrorism and other charges.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is not a group,\u201d said Adam Isaacson, director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America organization. \u201cIt\u2019s not like a group that people would ever identify themselves as members. They don\u2019t have regular meetings. They don\u2019t have a hierarchy.\u201d<\/p>\n Maduro\u2019s government in a statement Monday categorically denied the existence of the cartel, describing the Trump administration\u2019s accusation as a \u201cridiculous fabrication\u201d meant to \u201cjustify an illegitimate and illegal intervention against Venezuela.\u201d<\/p>\n Up until this year, the label of foreign terrorist organization had been reserved for groups like the Islamic State or al-Qaida that use violence for political ends. The Trump administration applied it in February to\u00a0eight Latin American criminal organizations<\/a>\u00a0involved in drug trafficking, migrant smuggling and other activities.<\/p>\n The administration blames such designated groups for operating the boats it is striking but rarely identifies the organizations and has not provided any evidence. It says the attacks\u00a0,<\/a>\u00a0which began off the coast of Venezuela and\u00a0later expanded to the eastern Pacific Ocean<\/a>, are meant to stop narcotics from flowing to American cities.<\/p>\n But many \u2014 including Maduro himself \u2014 see the military moves as an effort to end the ruling party’s 26-year hold on power.<\/p>\n Since the arrival of U.S. military vessels and troops to the Caribbean months ago, Venezuela\u2019s\u00a0U.S.-backed political opposition<\/a>\u00a0also has reignited its perennial promise of removing Maduro from office, fueling speculation over the purpose of what the Trump administration has called a counterdrug operation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Like that ‘not a cartel per se’ matters US labels Maduro-tied Cartel de los Soles as a terror organization. It’s not a cartel per se CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump’s administration has\u00a0ramped up pressure\u00a0on Venezuelan President\u00a0Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u00a0by designating the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization. But the entity that the … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,79,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enemies-foreign-domestic","category-government","category-just-desserts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=113510"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113511,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113510\/revisions\/113511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=113510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=113510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=113510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}