The United States attacks against Venezuela and the subsequent “capture” of Nicolas Maduro announced by President Donald Trump throw doubts about its legality and about the impact that this almost unprecedented event will have on the rules-based international order.
The analysts consulted by EL PERIÓDICO to interpret Washington’s movement agree that the sovereignty of Venezuela has been violated and with it international legislation. They aim at military success to arrest a Nicolás Maduro who should have been highly protected. And they emphasize that this is a new reinterpretation of the old Monroe doctrinewhich imposed the primacy of the United States over the entire American continent.
“Legal patina” with accusations of narcoterrorism
The analyst Mariano Aguirre, non-resident researcher at CIDOB and Chatham House in London, maintains in conversation with this newspaper that the Trump Administration is trying to provide a legal patina to a military escalation against Venezuela.
La fiscal general Pam Bondi has already stated that Maduro and his wife have been charged with narcoterrorist conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.
Trump says US was ready for ‘second wave’ of attacks in Venezuela / .
In recent months, the United States has gone building a story in four stepsthe analyst emphasizes: (1) declare that the United States is in “armed conflict” with drug trafficking; (2) linking Venezuela as the origin or exit platform for fentanyl or other drugs, despite the fact that these arrive through Mexico; (3) present Maduro as leader of the “Cartel of the Suns”; and (4) use that chain to justify the operation of “capture” and transfer to the United States of Maduro to be tried.
Warns that jurists and military experts question that basis for its vagueness (comparable to the “war on terror” declared by George W. Bush), due to the difficulty of treating drug trafficking as an “enemy” in legal terms, and due to the empirical weakness to identify the Cartel of the Suns as a coherent organization comparable to a state actor and, even more, to attribute it to the Venezuelan president.
From the presidency of Richard Nixonthe country tends to request the extradition and try in the United States those it considers responsible for drug trafficking, and the Trump Administration has tried to paint Nicolás Maduro as a boss of a narco-state.
Venezuelans observe the smoke after the United States bombings in Venezuela / Associated Press/LaPresse / LAP
There is another legal option, which is the one that a US senator has pointed out: the application of the Article II of the United States Constitution, that legitimizes the use of force if American citizens are at risk abroad. An argument that Aguirre considers “caught by the hair.”
“It violates international law”
“Capturing and forcibly transferring the president of a country is a violation of sovereignty and the principle of prohibition of the use of forceexcept for self-defense or with a mandate from the Security Council,” he assures EL PERIÓDICO Carlota García Encinas. For this reason, United States attacks such as Maduro’s arrest violate international law, he affirms. Washington will defend its actions by ensuring that it is not a legitimate president and relying on previous accusations of terrorism and drug trafficking.
The Government has expressed itself along these same lines. Spain offers its “good offices” to negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict, but calls for respect for the international order and de-escalation.
“It is important to separate the military, political and legal dimensions. The military operation appears to have been brilliantly executed.. The United States located Maduro, forced its way through Venezuela’s significant anti-aircraft defenses, and took Maduro and his wife away. There are no reports of American casualties,” Mark F. Cancian, retired United States colonel, tells this newspaper.
However, a regime change has not yet occurred, as requested by part of the opposition. “This appears to have been limited to that specific blow. All US forces have been withdrawn. Maduro officials, including his vice president, remain in charge in Venezuela. The United States will have to convince them to relinquish power and hand over the government to the opposition, which is widely considered the legitimate authority.”
The “Trump corollary” to the “Monroe doctrine”
There is a partial precedent to the current situation: the capture of the Panamanian dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega after the United States invasion of the country in 1989. Noriega then evaded capture for several days before seeking refuge in the Holy See’s diplomatic mission in Panama City, but he ended up surrendering on January 3, 1990 and was tried in the United States and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
The two analysts frame this action in the new interventionism of the United States in Latin America, in a new version of the Monroe doctrine.
The Monroe doctrine is a foreign policy framework enunciated by President James Monroe in 1823 to delimit separate spheres between Europe and the Americas: he warned the European powers against new colonizations o interference in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere and at the same time promised the United States do not interfere in European wars nor in existing European colonies.
He Roosevelt Corollary (1904) was an extension: President Theodore Roosevelt transformed that defensive logic into a claim that the United States was a kind of regional “police” that could to intervene in Latin American countries to “preserve order” and protect US interests.
The National Security Strategy published by the Trump Administration a few weeks ago explicitly states that the United States intends to “apply the Monroe Doctrine” and the “Trump Corollary” by which it will refuse “non-hemispheric competitors” the possibility of control strategic assets in the region. Chinaa competitor of the United States, receives oil and minerals from Venezuela and has many interests throughout Latin America. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, although it is heavy and difficult to refine.
Now the way is open to possible new interventions. Carlota García Encinas remembers that the person behind the entire operation was the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who has Cuban origins. Cuba could lose access to Venezuelan oil if the government changes hands or could even be the next target of the US Administration.
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