Over 30 Cubans Were Among At Least 80 Killed In Raid On Venezuela, But What U.S. Gained?

At least 80 people, including more than 30 Cubans, were killed in the January 3 United States raid in Venezuela which ended with the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores.

The daring raid came following months of escalation by the administration of President Donald Trump against the government in Venezuela.

The escalation began in October with the administration doubling the reward for the arrest of Maduro on drug charges to $50 million. In September, the U.S. began amassing a fairly large force close to Venezuela, and launching strikes against alleged drug trafficking boats in both the Caribbean Sea and the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

By the time U.S. troops landed in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, to capture Maduro and his wife, the strikes had killed 115 people, all alleged to be drug traffickers.

The raid, which included a series of strikes on Caracas and its outskirts, was also deadly. Just a few hours after it was concluded, The New York Times reported that an anonymous Venezuelan official said at least 40 people, including civilians and military personnel, were killed.

Venezuela’s Attorney General Tarek William Saab reported that “innocent victims have been mortally wounded and others killed by this criminal terrorist attack”.

In Catia La Mar, strikes hit a three-story civilian apartment complex, killing one person, seriously injuring another, and destroying the exterior wall.

The very next day, the Times reported that, “according to a senior Venezuelan official”, 80 civilians and military personnel had been killed.

The Cuban government later acknowledged that 32 of its citizens were among those killed. It gave few details, but said all the dead were members of the Cuban armed forces and intelligence agencies. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said they had been providing protection to Maduro and his wife “at the request” of Venezuela.

“True to their responsibilities concerning security and defense, our compatriots fulfilled their duty with dignity and heroism and fell, after fierce resistance, in direct combat against the attackers or as a result of bombings on the facilities,” the government said in a statement, announcing two days of mourning on January 5 and 6.

Videos that surfaced online revealed heavy damage at Fuerte Tiuna, which is Venezuela’s primary military headquarters, as well as in La Carlota air base and Higuerote airport, where at least two Buk-M2E air defense systems were destroyed by U.S. strike.

Both air defense systems were not apparently active at the time of the raid, and there are claims that at least one of them was equipped with inert missiles used for training. Several other air defense systems were likely also hit, but there is still no visual confirmation.

Following the capture of Maduro, who will face drug charges, Trump said that the U.S. is “going to run” Venezuela indefinitely.

“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump told reporters during a press conference from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida on January 3.

“We don’t want to be involved with having someone else get in, and we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years. So we are going to run the country,” he added.

Maduro’s allies are still very much in control of Venezuela. Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, appointed by him, was quickly sworn in as president.

Despite talking with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio right after the raid in Caracas, Rodríguez adopted a defiant tone at a televised speech later on that day, condemning the abduction of Maduro and his wife, and even demanded their return.

“What is being done to Venezuela is an atrocity that violates international law. History and justice will make the extremists who promoted this armed aggression pay,” she said. “There is only one president in Venezuela and his name is Nicolás Maduro.”

Rodríguez, however, offered co-operation with the U.S. at her first cabinet meeting, in what may be an attempt to consolidate her rule.

“We invite the U.S. government to collaborate with us on an agenda of co-operation orientated towards shared development within the framework of international law,” she said.

Keep the pressure on Venezuela, Trump on January 4 warned that Rodríguez may pay a bigger price than Maduro “if she doesn’t do what’s right.”

“If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump was quoted as saying in the telephone interview with The Atlantic magazine.

While the escalation against Venezuela was initially promoted by the U.S. as a part of the war on drugs, in recent weeks the Trump administration’s interest in the country’s oil reserves, the largest in the world, became more clear.

Right after the capture of Maduro, Trump openly said that the U.S. will be “very strongly involved” in Venezuela’s oil industry.

Oil will be the center of the U.S. next move in Venezuela. Trump took Maduro out of the picture because he refused to cooperate on this, not because he wants to change the whole regime. This is very clear in his lack of interest in working with opposition leader María Machado, and his openness to cooperation with Rodríguez.

Asked whether Machado would have any part in the post-Maduro government, Trump said during the conference he held after the raid in Caracas that he had not been in contact with her, and that while Machado was a “very nice woman,” she “doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country” to lead Venezuela.

The Trump administration has already threatened more escalation against Venezuela, with Rubio even telling CBS on January 4 that if Venezuela doesn’t “make the right decisions”, the U.S. “will retain multiple levers of leverage to ensure that our interests are protected”.

These threats and the previous ones appear to be meant to pressure Rodríguez and the rest of the Venezuelan government into cooperating with the U.S., especially on oil.

If Rodríguez cooperates, Machado and the rest of the Venezuelan opposition will likely have no future in the country. There is even a chance that Trump would accept a deal with the Venezuelan government to release Maduro and his wife, for example, to a third country.

What the Trump administration is doing represents a departure from previous interventions, where the U.S. thought to achieve its interests by completely dismantling entire regimes causing chaos and creating new security threats. However, this new approach may not be any more successful.

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