Our View: Maduro’s capture a threat for rules-based international order
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was to appear in a Manhattan federal court on Monday afternoon to face drugs and weapons charges following his capture by US forces in a pre-dawn raid on Saturday. It is not the first time the United States invaded a Latin American country and captured its leader. In 1989, on the orders of President George Bush, US troops invaded Panama and captured the country’s dictator Manuel Noriega, who was charged for his links with the Medellin drug cartel and sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Maduro, who faces charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy and possession of machine guns and destructive devices “against the United States”, had been a target of President Donald Trump during his first term, but Trump stopped short of direct action, a decision that was criticised by some members of his administration. There was no turning back this time after the US navy imposed a blockade on Venezuela, capturing oil tankers and attacking “narco-boats” in the run-up to Saturday’s raid.
No US troops stayed in Venezuela after the raid, although Trump said the US would control the country for the time being. “We will run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump said, but it is difficult to see how this will happen considering the Maduro government remains in charge of the country. Vice president Delcy Rodriguez was expected to be sworn in on Monday afternoon, but Trump warned on Sunday that if she did not do what was right “she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.”
Nobody should be surprised by these crude threats. This is President Trump’s style and his way of telling the world that the US has the power to do as it pleases. Although Maduro headed a repressive, incompetent, kleptocratic regime and had stolen the last elections in Venezuela, there is no way the US action can be justified. It was a gross violation of international law – some described it as “gangsterism” – and sets a very dangerous precedent. On Sunday evening, Trump said that Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro – “a sick man who likes making cocaine” – could be the next leader to be attacked.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a statement on Monday saying he was “deeply concerned about the possible intensification of instability and the precedent it may set for how relations between and among states are conducted.” The sad reality is that the UN has fallen into irrelevance and the same appears to be true of the EU, which has urged adherence to international law and called for restraint, but avoided direct condemnation of the US for fear of angering Trump. Maduro’s toppling, viewed in isolation, was no bad thing, but its implications for the rules-based international order are extremely worrying.