In September, the US firebombed three unidentified fishing boats in international waters; 14 people were killed in these attacks, which were carried out in shameless violation of international law. US President Donald Trump boasted that what he alleged were ‘confirmed narco-terrorists from Venezuela’ had been ‘in International Waters transporting illegal narcotics… headed to the US.’ The strikes have been condemned as ‘extra-judicial executions’ by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who stated that ‘international law does not allow governments to simply murder alleged drug traffickers’. Colombia’s left-wing President Gustavo Petro condemned the US action as quite simply ‘an act of tyranny’. US Vice-President JD Vance shrugged off the criticism, retorting: ‘I don’t give a shit, killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military’. No evidence whatsoever has emerged that these tiny boats were carrying drugs, and the New York Times reported that one boat was heading back to shore before it was engulfed in flames. In response to evidence that those murdered were simply fishermen, Vance quipped: ‘Hell, I wouldn’t go fishing right now in that area of the world.’ The day after the second US attack, Trump departed for a state visit to Britain. Former human rights lawyer, Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said nothing about it.
The strikes are the latest step in US attempts to overthrow Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and crush the 25-year Bolivarian revolution. In July, Trump designated several drug trafficking gangs as ‘foreign terrorist organisations’, signing an executive order authorising the use of force in Latin America. In August 2025, repeating claims that Maduro is the kingpin of the fictional ‘Cartel of the Suns’ and directing the criminal gang ‘Tren de Aragua’, the US administration increased the bounty on Maduro’s head to $50m. Seven warships, a submarine, and an amphibious assault ship have been mobilised to the Caribbean, alongside 4,500 soldiers, sailors and marines. The US has re-opened the Roosevelt Roads military base in Puerto Rico, stationing a squadron of F-35 fighter jets within striking distance of Caracas. In September, in a clear statement of intent, Trump renamed the US Department of Defence the Department of War, declaring: ‘We’re going to go on offence, not just on defence. Maximum lethality, not tepid legality. Violent effect, not politically correct.’
The so-called ‘War on Drugs’ has always been a convenient – and hypocritical – cover for US interventions in Latin America. In the 1980s the Reagan administration funded, trained and armed Contra death squads in Nicaragua, waging a civil war against the revolutionary Sandinista government. Whilst the CIA played dumb, top-ranking Contras funded their activities trafficking by cocaine. In the early 2000s ‘Plan Colombia’ crushed armed revolutionary forces in Colombia’s 50-year civil war. US ally President Uribe cheered on the Colombian army and right-wing paramilitaries as they indiscriminately killed peasant farmers, dressing their corpses as left-wing guerillas to dupe the media. The narco-trade boomed as 200,000 were killed. Uribe has since been implicated for his connections with the Medellín cartel. Today Colombia produces 60% of the world’s cocaine, followed by Peru and Bolivia.
In comparison, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime reports that only 5% of narcotics produced in Colombia go through Venezuela, declaring Venezuela free of both drug crop cultivation and drug labs. The US Drug Enforcement Agency 2025 National drug threat assessment report makes no mention of the ‘Cartel of the Suns’ and barely mentions Venezuela. Furthermore, the relatively small Tren de Aragua gang was raided and largely dismantled by the Venezuelan government in 2023. Exposing the imperialist lies, Maduro pointed out that ‘85% of the billions from international drug trafficking each year are in banks in the United States… If they want to investigate a cartel, let them investigate the one up north.’
US aggression has galvanised Venezuela’s revolutionary forces. The voluntary people’s, peasant and workers’ militia, founded in 2009, has seen its numbers double to eight million, with new volunteers enlisting daily. This is alongside around 350,000 in the national army, which has remained loyal to the Bolivarian revolution withstanding decades of imperialist-sponsored coup attempts. Today the army and volunteer militias actively engage in poverty-busting social missions and study the anti-colonial, liberation ideas of Simon Bolivar and Francisco de Miranda. The fusion of these forces with the most politically conscious and organised sections of the Bolivarian revolution, the communes and communal councils, has been crucial. On 20 September, Venezuela launched ‘the barracks to the people’ exercise as the army coordinated with over 5,300 communal circuits across the country to run defence drills. In the words of Venezuela’s Minister of Communes Angel Prado, himself a leading grassroots activist:
‘They underestimate our popular organisation, because we are embracing it every day and putting into practice the approach that Commander Chavez put forward: the Tactical Method of Revolutionary Resistance, which utilises the preparation of the entire people for the comprehensive defence of the homeland’.
Imperialist hands off Venezuela! No war! No sanctions! No coup!
Sam McGill
FRFI 308 October/November 2025
