In a special communiqué circulating in this capital, the countries’ group expressed its “deepest concern” at the continuing escalation of tensions in the Caribbean, with the increasing military concentration of air and naval assets, which include nuclear-capable assets and more than 15,000 soldiers.

Besides the presence of the world’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford and its associated group as part of so-called “Operation Southern Spear,” a military deployment that includes a joint force that has not being seen in the region since the 1989 invasion of Panama, he said.

The grou of friends affirmed that these aggressive actions, coupled with military exercises a few kilometers from Venezuela, with the participation of the Marine Corps, “represents a severe and provocative escalation in the already alarming accumulation and hostile maneuvers of the US military power in Latin America and the Caribbean”.

The Group of Friends denounced that the combination of a massive military deployment, together with explicit threats and the fabrication of legal pretexts through lies and disinformation, “creates an environment of coercion and intimidation” and constitutes a clear violation of the UN Charter and “Flagrant threat to regional and international peace and security”.

The member states of the bloc condemned in the strongest terms the threats made by the highest levels of the US government against Venezuela, including its President, by authorizing the Central Intelligence Agency to formally conduct lethal operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.

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