The White House assured Sunday that last afternoon’s raid by the U.S. Coast Guard on the oil tanker Centuries near Venezuela is legal, even though the ship is not on the list of vessels sanctioned by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
Deputy White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly has indicated that the tanker was “carrying oil from the PDVSA, which is under sanctions” (the Venezuelan state-owned company Petróleos de Venezuela) and that it was “a false flag vessel that operated as part of the Venezuelan shadow fleet to transport stolen crude oil and finance the drug-terror regime of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.”
Kelly posted this message on According to New York newspaper sources, the Centuries is owned by a China-based trader that specializes in transferring crude oil from Venezuela to the Asian giant’s refineries.
In addition, the ship flies a Panamanian flag, unlike the oil tanker Skipper boarded by the US on December 10, which was sanctioned by the Treasury Department and which, according to its authorities, was flying a false flag of Guyana. To further complicate the situation, official sources confirmed to The New York Times that the Coast Guard did not have a search warrant to enter the Centuries and inspect its cargo, as was the case with the Skipper.
In these circumstances, official U.S. sources told The Washington Post on condition of anonymity that boarding by the U.S. Coast Guard is actually protected by a maritime law known as “right of visitation,” under which a warship can conduct an inspection on a vessel even if it is merely suspected of engaging in illegal activities.
For all these reasons, the Venezuelan government ultimately directly condemned the incursion as a “theft” of its assets and a “kidnapping” accompanied by the “forcible disappearance of its crew by United States military personnel in international waters,” said the statement from the government of Nicolás Maduro.
Venezuelan authorities have described this new seizure as “piracy,” which Caracas says violates several norms of international law and constitutes a “flagrant commission” of a “crime.”
The Venezuelan executive “will take all appropriate measures” to ensure that these acts do not “go unpunished,” including filing a complaint with the United Nations Security Council and other international organizations.
About The Author
