© CNNFormer Chacao mayor Ramon Muchacho speaks to CNN on August 14. The lower third reads, “Muchacho: the military alternative could end up being inevitable for the US government.”
Speaking to CNN on Monday, former Venezuelan mayor Ramon Muchacho warned Venezuela had become a threat to US interests.
"[If] the information the United States [has] is saying is that Venezuela is a danger - and indeed it is - then there may be no alternatives," Muchacho stated.
"When you find that there is no option, then you find that the military alternative may end up being inevitable for the US government, whether ... we condemn or support it," he said.
Muchacho made the comments just days after President Donald Trump said he was open to a military option in Venezuela.
"A military option is certainly something that we could pursue," Trump said.
Muchacho himself made his comments from Miami, and is currently wanted in Venezuela.
Last week, a Venezuelan court sentenced Muchacho to 15 months imprisonment, after ruling he had failed to abide by a court order to clear violent anti-government groups and their roadblocks from his municipality. Muchacho was also stripped of his position as mayor of Chacao, one of Caracas' wealthiest areas.
Chacao and surrounding districts have been hard hit by protests and political violence over the past four months. The municipality has been the site of at least two deaths linked to anti-government unrest.
In June, 21-year-old bystander Orlando Figuera died after allegedly being attacked by opposition groups. According to witnesses, protesters accused Figuera of supporting the government, before stabbing him, dousing him in gasoline and torching him alive.
A month earlier, opposition protester Juan Pablo Pernalete Lovera was killed amid clashes with security forces. The public prosecution has alleged he likely died as a result of being hit by a tear gas canister fired by the National Guard, though the precise cause of death remains in dispute.
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