Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro issued a furious six-page letter to international heads of state and to the United Nations denouncing the United States’ drug-fighting efforts as part of Operation Southern Spear.
Maduro also denounced the interdiction of U.S.-sanctioned oil tankers in international waters as an act of “state piracy” and as an “escalation of hostilities” against his authoritarian regime.
The letter, dated December 22, was revealed and read by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil on Monday at an official event in Caracas. Gil also shared a full copy of the missive in Spanish at his official Telegram channel.
The dictator began his letter by warning its intended recipients of the “escalation of extremely serious aggression by the Government of the United States of America, the effects of which transcend my country’s borders and threaten to destabilize the entire region and the international system as a whole.”
Maduro, citing the August 2025 start date of the ongoing U.S. military deployment in Caribbean waters, claimed that it is a “direct threat” under the “pretext of an anti-drug operation called ‘Operation Southern Spear.’”
“In this regard, I must emphasize that Venezuela has not committed any act that would justify such military intimidation,” Maduro claimed.
The dictator also cited the U.S. military attacks against drug trafficking vessels, which he claimed have allegedly resulted in “extrajudicial execution of 104 people, many of whom were shipwrecked.”
“These are not isolated incidents, but rather a systematic practice of lethal use of force outside any international legal framework and even outside the constitutional framework of the United States of America, where an intense debate is currently taking place, both in Congress and among the general public, which overwhelmingly condemns such actions,” the letter read.
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Maduro then referred to the recent interdiction of two U.S. sanctioned oil tankers and President Donald Trump’s order to impose a “total and complete” blockade of sanctioned tankers in and out of Venezuela. According to the dictator, both actions allegedly constitute “acts of piracy, understood, in accordance with customary international law” as well as “illegal acts of violence, detention, or depredation committed on the high seas against ships and their cargo” as per the U.N.
“The main purpose of combating piracy is to protect freedom of navigation and the inviolability of ships on the high seas, which makes it a universal principle that is clearly violated in the illegal operations described above,” Maduro wrote.
More bizarrely, Maduro attempted to compare the situation to the rise of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.
“In the 1930s, the silence and passivity of the international community in the face of the rise of Nazism led to an unprecedented human tragedy: the Holocaust and a world war,” he wrote. “Today, historical differences aside, the logic is the same: if the unilateral use of force, the execution of civilians, piracy, and the plundering of sovereign states’ resources are tolerated, the world is headed toward a scenario of global confrontation of unpredictable proportions.”
According to Maduro, the blockade against sanctioned oil tankers will allegedly affect oil and energy supplies, increase instability in international markets, and will “hit the economies of Latin America, the Caribbean, and the world, especially the most vulnerable countries.”
Maduro concluded his six-page missive calling for its recipients to stand together and condemn “these acts of aggression, piracy, and extrajudicial executions,” demand an end of the U.S> military deployment and blockade, and activate multilateral systems to “investigate, punish, and prevent the repetition of these acts.”
“Defending Venezuela today means defending peace, international law, and global stability,” Maduro wrote.