JAKARTA - The United States military has built a strong presence of US troops in and around Venezuela to support post-earthquake relief operations, with more than 900 personnel in the country and another 800 in Caribbean centers, Puerto Rico and Curacao, the highest-ranking US general for Latin America told Reuters.
Commander of the United States Southern Command General Francis Donovan said US forces had participated in search and rescue operations, helped operate airports, and mobilized air and naval assets to enable the arrival of humanitarian aid after last week's devastating earthquake.
He said the US military had also deployed at least four or five MQ-9 Reaper drones over Venezuela, which, along with a joint cell in Miami, strengthened the intelligence picture for Venezuelan authorities.
"We're using some of the same assets that we might use to track threats in the hemisphere (to) make sure highways stay open and make sure we know where damaged buildings are," General Donovan said, adding that some of the insights are sometimes more difficult for Venezuelan authorities to see "from the ground," as reported by Al Arabiya from Reuters (1/7).
It is a remarkable turn of events for the US military, which on January 3 carried out a raid to arrest Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and fly him to New York to stand trial on drug trafficking charges. President Maduro denies any wrongdoing.
In the past month, the US military carried out an attack that killed the leader of the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua, an action carried out in coordination with Venezuelan authorities.
"January 3 is not long ago. And imagine how this relationship has changed," said General Donovan.
Venezuela was hit by two earthquakes with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5 less than a minute ago on Wednesday, collapsing buildings and trapping thousands of people under the rubble.
With the chances of survival dwindling by the hour, Venezuela's legislative chief Jorge Rodriguez said on Tuesday only one survivor - a 3-year-old child - had been rescued so far during six days of rescue efforts. However, the effort is still ongoing.
General Donovan said the US Marines were the first US personnel on the ground helping the rescue team dig through the rubble to find survivors.
The US military helped fly civilians, including a rescue team from Fairfax, Virginia who published a video at the weekend of the rescue of a mother and her 9-month-old baby.
"This wider operation is very dependent on logistics," he said, focusing on ensuring life-saving international aid does not pile up at entry points.
"Because that's where the event can sometimes get chaotic. You bring too much material and you don't have adequate logistics to then move (aid) to the affected areas," he explained.
The Venezuelan government itself has faced criticism for failing to act sooner to send heavy equipment and search and rescue teams, leaving residents to use their hands, shovels and ropes as they tried to find relatives in the crucial first days after the disaster.
On Saturday, state television showed construction equipment sorting through rubble of bricks and concrete in some places. Residents said foreign rescue teams had helped them remove bodies.
When asked about frustrations within Venezuela regarding the government's response, General Donovan was cautious but acknowledged that Caracas was grappling with decades of bad leadership that "basically destroyed the country's infrastructure."
Reported shortages of medicines and hospital staff could exacerbate frustrations, he said.
General Donovan declined to speculate on how long the US military mission in Venezuela would last, leaving it to the US State Department, which is leading the broader US aid mission.
However, he said the US military was not preparing a long-term mission on the ground with troops sent to help relief efforts.
"There's no talk of staying," General Donovan said.
"This is what we do (in relief operations). We leave after it's done," he said.
General Donovan hopes that the US effort can build a stronger US military relationship with Venezuela.
"If this opens the door to better military-to-military relations, of course, we will be ready to move forward," he said.
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