Venezuela's Spin on the Ramming of the German Cruise Ship

The story, as set out in The Week's Venezuela coast guard ship tries to ram German cruise liner, sinks, is that the German cruise ship Resolute was in international waters, repairing some engine issues, when it was assaulted by a Venezuelan coastie, which rammed the Resolute repeatedly until the Venezuelan vessel suffered enough damage for it to sink. The German ship remained in the area to offer assistance to the crew of the sinking coast guard vessel, but was directed to move on.

In any event, "President" Maduro has come up with a spin to make it all the German ship's fault:

Venezuelan President Maduro accused the captain of the Resolute of “terrorism and piracy”. In addition, the Venezuelan Strategic Command Operations accused the ship of having fast-moving command boats that could execute “fast raids”. According to Venezuelan state-run news outlet VTV,


“The cruise ship RCGS Resolute, which attacked a Bolivarian Navy ship last Monday

Source

while patrolling northeast of La Tortuga Island, is equipped as evidenced by photographs published by the Strategic Operational Commander with inflatable boats capable of transporting up to seven commands to execute incursions in coastal areas.”

VTV cited Maduro as saying that the Resolute’s refusal to allow Curaçao authorities to access the ship “confirms the hypothesis that this ship was being used to bring mercenaries to our coasts and carrying out attacks on military units or political objectives”.

interesting, I know that several cruise ships carry rigid hull inflatable boats (RHIBs) to carry their paying passengers to shore excursions (see here), but ... "conducting "fast raids" with them? Cool idea.

I guess if I had just been put on notice that the U.S. has declared me a drug smuggling person of interest, I might start getting a little paranoid, recalling, oh, say, Manuel Noriega. Of course, Maduro has more reason than just that to be paranoid.