The Latin American Report # 664

In politics, the timing in which things occur is a key variable for any analysis. For me, that the U.S. military forces deployed in the Caribbean had finished off two survivors from the first missile fired at a narco-boat with 11 crew members last September 2 was a well-known event within the U.S. power apparatus. If it only leaked to the press recently, it is because certain actors needed something big, right at this moment, to torpedo the concerning U.S. escalation against Venezuela, or perhaps to strike at Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. Yesterday, behind closed doors, congressional hearings were held where Admiral Frank Bradley had to answer for that already infamous second attack.

For the Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee, Adam Smith, the individuals finished off were "basically two shirtless people clinging to the bow of a capsized and inoperable boat, drifting in the water." The White House narrative is that both alleged drug runners had returned to the boat to save the cargo and were also establishing communication perhaps with the operation's managers, so they became legal targets again, an explanation defended by the influential Republican Senator Tom Cotton, appealing to the warlike language that equates those who transport drugs to "combatants." For him, they were "trying to flip a boat loaded with drugs bound for United States back over so they could stay in the fight."

In a demonstration of strength and firmness of interests, the U.S. Southern Command reported on Thursday night the 22nd attack against these alleged narco-boats, this last one in the Eastern Pacific and resulting in four new victims. In general, the Trump administration's argument that it is entitled to conduct lethal kinetic attacks against narco-boats and their crew, by declaring drug trafficking groups as terrorists, is heavily disputed. "The people in the boat, as a matter of the law of armed conflict, are not fighters," said to the AP a former Air Force lawyer now a professor emeritus at the U.S. Naval War College.

Democrats are pushing for the declassification of the 40-page opinion from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel explaining the official rationale under which the administration carries out the attacks, which has resulted so far in the death of 87 alleged drug runners. The end goal here would be, as we know, to contribute to or directly provoke the overthrow of Maduro, if not the current Venezuelan political regime in its entirety. It is a textbook psywar. After the U.S. aviation authority issued a statement days ago indicating it was not safe to fly over Venezuelan airspace, Donald Trump himself declared it "closed," which has translated into the temporary withdrawal of several airlines from the Venezuelan market. Caracas has reacted by suspending the licenses of those airlines as they follow the guidance and orders from the United States.

Yesterday, at the main Venezuelan airport, located in Maiquetía, the board only had six departures and five arrivals scheduled, with all flights operated by Venezuelan airlines. The Panamanian airline Copa Airlines extended until December 12 the temporary suspension of its flights to and from Caracas, validating the narrative of the U.S. aviation authority about the detection of intermittencies in navigation signals, as did the Colombian state airline Satena, although in truth Colombia, under direct orders from President Petro, has worked to maintain a level of direct flights by working with Venezuelan airlines. The Colombian subsidiary of Copa, Wigo, also halted its operations to and from Venezuela.

Trump has suggested he is very close to initiating ground attacks in Venezuela and even in Colombia. Above all this drama, Washington continues negotiating with the Maduro government regarding deportation flights, following the arrival in Maiquetía this Friday of 172 deported Venezuelans.

Regional news brief

• Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum referred in a very positive tone to her first face-to-face meeting with Donald Trump, in the context of the World Cup draw. "Good, very good," Sheinbaum said in statements to EFE after the meeting.
  

• Flavio Bolsonaro, said to be the most moderate son of the convicted former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, will storm the Palácio do Planalto next year representing his father's political formation. "It is with great responsibility that I confirm the decision of the greatest political and moral leader of Brazil, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, to confer upon me the mission of continuing our nation's project," declared the firstborn of the controversial conservative leader, provoking ipso facto a tectonic movement in the national market.
  

• Madrid celebrated this Friday the progress in peace talks between the Gulf Clan, Colombia's largest criminal organization, and the House of Nariño, held in Doha, Qatar; the mediating effort also involves Norway and Switzerland. For now, the agrecoment conceives the creation of three temporary location zones for members of the Gulf Clan, while the scope of a pilot plan envisaging the substitution of illicit crops has also been expanded.
  

• According to data displayed on the portal of the local media El Heraldo, around 4 PM Honduras time, the Trump-backed, National Party candidate Nasry "Tito" Asfura was leading the slow vote count for the general elections at the presidential level, although his advantage over Salvador Nasralla, the candidate from the Liberal Party, slightly decreased to a floor below of the 20,000 votes that he had enjoyed for approximately the last 48 hours. Nasralla continues fueling the fraud narrative by alleging a supposed selectivity in the vote record transmission process, which is handled by a disputed Colombian company contracted for that purpose by the electoral authority.
  

This is all for today’s report.