Maduro is setting a trap for the U.S. and the opposition, former Colombia president says

Former Colombia President Iván Duque does not believe Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro will allow free and fair elections and leave power in Venezuela if he were to lose.

In an exclusive interview with the Miami Herald on Tuesday, Duque said there was “no chance” that Maduro would leave power and that he has no incentive to do so “because the discussion in Venezuela is not about democracy, about power, it is about the drug trafficking business. And what Maduro wants is to preserve the drug trafficking business.”

The United States stopped recognizing Maduro as the legitimate president of Venezuela in January 2019. Instead, it supported the claim of then National Assembly leader Juan Guaidó to be considered the country’s interim president for almost four years in a push to unseat Maduro. The Trump administration also slapped the Venezuelan regime with sanctions.

But the United States later switched its position under the Biden administration with a push for a “Venezuelan-led” solution, and recently negotiated a deal to lift some oil sanctions on the Maduro government in exchange for an agreement to create conditions for free and fair presidential elections next year.

The deal, formally signed in Barbados by representatives of the Maduro government and the opposition, includes a commitment by the regime to reinstate all opposition candidates previously banned arbitrarily. María Corina Machado, who won the opposition’s presdiential primaries last month, is among those banned from running for office and regime officials have said she will not be allowed to run for president.

Duque said Maduro is setting up a “vile trap” for the opposition, and trying to make the conversation about reinstating Machado’s right to run. Maduro would likely accept her candidacy as a last-minute concession “so he can run, say he defeated her, and the whole world would say he is a democrat legitimized as head of state,” he added.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has set a Nov. 30 deadline for the regime to announce a process to reinstate all candidates, otherwise, the sanctions will be reimposed. Duque also urged the Biden administration to demand that Maduro himself not run.

“I believe that the administration of the United States has to realize that this is the trap that Maduro wants to set for them,” he said. “That’s why the United States must take a very firm position that there must be free elections, and for that, Maduro cannot be a candidate.”

Maduro, who has been in power since 2013, is being investigated by the International Criminal Court on accusations of having committed crimes against humanity in Venezuela. He was also indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2020, accused of narco-terrorism and having a leadership role in a Venezuelan drug-trafficking syndicate known as the Cartel de los Soles with the help of guerrilla groups based in Colombia like the FARC.

The Miami Herald and other media outlets recently reported on a massive leak of documents from the Colombian Attorney General’s0 Office providing more evidence of how Venezuela has become a significant cocaine transport hub under Maduro.

“Venezuela is a narco-dictatorship,” said Duque, who recalled that his government presented documentation at the United Nations also showing the participation of the FARC and other guerrilla groups such as the ELN in drug trafficking. “Frankly, it should surprise no one that what is established in Venezuela is a criminal drug trafficking structure at the highest international level.”

The current president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, also reacted to the reports of the leaked documents. Petro, who has shifted away from the efforts to eradicate the growing of coca in his country, said on X that “the expansion of coca leaf crops in Colombia has stopped, and the traditional coca-growing areas of the country are deteriorating.”

The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said the cultivation of coca in Colombia reached record levels last year, to 568,340 acres, a 13% increase from 2021. Duque also raised the issue in the interview with the Herald.

“There is no guarantee that there is an offensive strategy against the drug cartels, and the price that Colombia is paying is that we are seeing an exponential growth of illicit crops, a larger network that is distributing drugs from Colombian territory and a greater presence of Mexican cartels in our country,” Duque said.

“We fought drug trafficking with all firmness, and the only thing that the current government of Colombia is doing is the complete opposite of what we did.”