SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic – US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday (Friday in Manila) supervised the seizure of a second aircraft belonging to Venezuela’s leftist government in less than a year, showing a hard line despite nascent diplomacy.
Rubio, a passionate opponent of Latin America’s leftist authoritarians like Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, witnessed the confiscation of the aircraft at the end of his first trip in the job, which took him to five countries of Latin America.
Rubio traveled to a military airstrip in the capital Santo Domingo where, in front of cameras, a Dominican Republic prosecutor and US law enforcement representative together taped a sign that said “seized” on a Dassault Falcon 200 jet bearing a Venezuelan flag.
“We are very grateful to the Dominican Republic for participating and cooperating with the US justice system,” Rubio said in an interview with SIN News.
“The message is that when there are sanctions because they are violating human rights, they are violating a whole series of things, traveling to Iran, helping countries that really wish harm to the United States,” he said, “these sanctions are going to be applied and reinforced.”
Dominican Republic authorities detained the aircraft last year after US authorities said it had violated unilateral US sanctions against Venezuela.
Venezuelan officials used the plane to fly to Greece, Turkey, Russia, Nicaragua and Cuba, and had taken it to the Dominican Republic for maintenance, according to the US State Department.
