Jewish groups praised U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to designate a criminal network, which is tied to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, as a terror organization.
Marco Rubio, the U.S. secretary of state, stated on Nov. 16 that Cartel de los Soles, “cartel of the suns,” is headed by Maduro and “other high-ranking individuals of the illegitimate Maduro regime who have corrupted Venezuela’s military, intelligence, legislature and judiciary.”
“Neither Maduro nor his cronies represent Venezuela’s legitimate government,” the U.S. secretary stated. “Cartel de los Soles, by and with other designated foreign terror organizations, including Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel, are responsible for terrorist violence throughout our hemisphere as well as for trafficking drugs into the United States and Europe.”
The Maduro regime has reportedly denied that the cartel exists.
Daniel Mariaschin, CEO of B’nai B’rith International, told JNS that “the key message here is that terror cannot pay, whether carried out by state or non-state actors.”
“There should be no safe zones for terror, whether in the Middle East or right here in the Western Hemisphere,” he said. The “designation of the state terror enterprise in Venezuela will surely resound globally,” he said.
Dina Siegel Vann, founding director of the American Jewish Committee’s Latino and Latin American affairs institute, told JNS that it is “high time for Venezuela to be brought to task for its unqualified support of criminal and terrorist groups at home and across Latin America.”
“The country has been recognized as the gateway to an Iranian presence and influence in the region ever since President Hugo Chavez established a strategic alliance with Iran and its proxy Hezbollah, leading to the break-up of historical close relations with Israel several decades ago,” she said.
Siegel Vann told JNS that Tehran showed what it “is capable of” when it blew up the Israeli embassy and a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1994. “Since then, Iran has used Venezuela and other state and non-state actors to sow instability and endanger Jewish life in the region,” she said.
