Washington Escalates Hijacking of Venezuela’s EMTRASUR Boeing 747

Misión Verdad | Aug 14, 2022

Conviasa workers marching in Caracas demanding the return of the EMTRASUR jumbo jet controversially grounded by Argentina, August 9, 2022. Photo: Twitter/@laradiodelsur.


BACKGROUND

On August 11, the Lomas de Zamora court (Buenos Aires, Argentina) accepted the request for the seizure of the Boeing 747 aircraft belonging to the Venezuelan company EMTRASUR, illegally held at the Ezeiza airport since June 8. The request was made earlier this month to the Argentine judge Federico Villena, by the Federal Court of the District of Columbia (Washington), which was sent by the United States Department of Justice to the authorities of the Argentine republic.

Accepting this order supposes a turn of events in the kidnapping of the Venezuelan aircraft, on various levels. Legally and judicially, it implies an act of foreignization of the case, specifically that of the plane, since now a trial will be opened in the US courts to settle the dispute over its final destination. Politically and diplomatically, it means that the aircraft has been effectively placed under the protection of the United States and reflects an intensification in the strategies used to tense the bilateral relations between Venezuela and Argentina, to the extreme.