Foreign Digest: Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia and Bolivia

Venezuela: Trinidad and Tobago offered the United States military access if it were necessary to defend Guyana against the Socialist dictatorship of Venezuela, with which the island State in the Caribbean Sea shares a maritime border. Trinidad and other States in the Caribbean are adversely affected by the drug trafficking from Venezuela. As I had noted in my last post, the U.S. has increased its bounty for the Socialist dictator of the South American State, Nicolas Maduro, who is wanted for drug trafficking. An American flotilla of warships has been dispatched for anti-drug trafficking operations, but which could also strike Venezuela. Ecuador and Colombia: Ecuador and the United States have intercepted shipments of tons of cocaine, as well as explosives coming from the neighboring South American State of Peru that officials believe would have been sent to the Marxist narco-terrorists in neighboring Colombia. As I noted in my last post, the Colombian narco-terrorists are holdouts of a rebel organization that had fought for over four decades until signing an agreement to end hostilities nine years ago. They have recently increased their activity. Meanwhile, a seventh suspect has been arrested in Colombia for his role in the assassination plot against a conservative Senator and presidential aspirant who died earlier this month from his wounds in June. Bolivia: Even ahead of the Bolivian presidential runoff election, in which a center-right political leader faces off against a conservative former President, thereby marking the two-decade streak of election wins by the Socialists in the South American State, Bolivia’s courts have been reviewing the criminal cases against conservative leaders, The conservatives were prosecuted in connection with the popular uprising against a Socialist Bolivian President. The increasingly authoritarian President, who was seeking a fourth term, despite a two-term constitutional limit and the rejection of a popular referendum to end term limits, was forced to flee the capital. One conservative leader has been released after his conviction was overturned and one of the cases of former interim President Jeannine Anez has been thrown out, but she remains imprisoned on other related charges.