The US has undertaken various steps for bringing regime
change in Venezuela. As usual, it has been joined by some member countries of
European Union. Though, the super power has failed in achieving its objective, people of Venezuela are bearing extreme distress. Does the civilized world have
the slightest realization that the US actions to execute regime change in
Venezuela are illegal?
In January, Juan Guaidó declared himself interim president,
in a strategy orchestrated by the US to seize power from President
Nicolás Maduro. In March, Guaidó announced that Operation Freedom, an
organization established to overthrow the Maduro government, would take certain
tactical actions beginning in April. The plan anticipated that the Venezuelan military
will turn against Maduro.
This strategy was detailed in a regime change manual prepared
by the US Global Development Lab, a branch of the US Agency for International
Development (USAID). The manual advocated the creation of rapid expeditionary
development teams to partner with the CIA and US Special Forces to conduct a
mix of offensive, defensive, and stability operations in extremis conditions.
Guaidó is funded by USAID’s sister organization, the
National Endowment for Democracy, which is notorious for meddling in other
countries and putting a good face on the CIA’s dirty business. The US generally
opts for low-intensity conflict over full-scale wars. The low-intensity
conflict involves four tools of regime change: sanctions or economic warfare;
propaganda or information warfare; covert and proxy war; and aerial bombardment.
In Venezuela, the US has used the first and second, with the third and fourth
now on the table since the first two have created chaos but so far not toppled
the government.
The sanctions imposed by the Trump administration in January
had an immediate, very harsh impact on Venezuela’s economy, and on the general
population, which depends on the export revenue from oil for essential imports
including medicine, food, medical equipment, and other life-saving necessities.
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Human Rights Watch issued a
report documenting food and medicine shortages and sharp increases in disease
throughout Venezuela. They characterize the situation as a humanitarian
emergency and recommend a full-scale response by the United Nations Secretary General.
The US misuse of
humanitarian assistance as a cover for smuggling weapons and other non
humanitarian items also has a long history in Latin American countries, Alfred
De Zayas, former UN special rapporteur in Venezuela, said in an
interview with AntiDiplomatico. De Zayas called out the United States for
its hypocritical policy: “It is not possible to be a major cause of the
economic crisis — having imposed … sanctions, financial blockades and economic
war — and then mutating into a good Samaritan.”
The US is adamant at increasing the suffering of the
Venezuelan people, in hopes they will rise up against Maduro. Similar approach
was used by the Eisenhower administration after the 1959 Cuban Revolution. It
was based on a State Department memo that proposed a line of action
that makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to
decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and the
overthrow of the Fidel Castro government. The US economic blockade against Cuba
continues to hurt the people but they have not overthrown their government.
Venezuela has asked for and received assistance from the
United Nations, Russia, China, Turkey, India and Cuba, De Zayas reported
that was humanitarian and offered in good faith and without strings attached.
US aid is the fruit of the poison tree.
On April 3, Sen. Marco Rubio, who has helped lead
the charge for regime change in Venezuela, introduced a bill in the
Senate aimed at getting approval of US$400 million assistance for Venezuela and
take steps to facilitate regime change. It would assessed the declining
cohesion inside the Venezuelan military and security forces and the Maduro
regime, and described the factors that would accelerate the decision making of
individuals to break with the Maduro regime and recognize Guaidó as interim
president of Venezuela.
At the end of March, the Russian government sent 100 troops
to Venezuela. Russia’s Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said,
“Russian specialists … arrived in accordance with the clauses of a bilateral
agreement on technical-military cooperation.”
In early April, Russia announced plans to install a training
facility for military helicopters in Venezuela. The Trump administration is rattling
its sabers at Russia. US National Security Adviser John Bolton warned that
the US considers the presence of military forces from outside the Western
Hemisphere a direct threat to international peace and security in the region. Russia,
however, denies that its military presence in Venezuela poses a military
threat. “The Russian side did not violate anything: neither the international
agreements nor Venezuelan laws,” according to Zakharova.
Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza cited the
hypocrisy of U.S. policy. He said “Such cynicism that a country with more
than 800 military bases around the world, much of them in Latin America, and a
growing military budget of more than US$700 billion, intends to interfere with
the military-technical cooperation program between Russia and Venezuela.”
In late March, the US House of Representatives approved a
bill called the “Russian-Venezuelan Threat Mitigation Act” to gauge Russia’s
influence in Venezuela. It aimed to devise a strategy to counter threats from Russian-Venezuelan
cooperation. The bill also required assessment of national security risks posed
by potential Russian acquisition of CITGO’s United States energy infrastructure
holdings.
To conclude the UN Charter prohibits the use or threat of
force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another
nation. The Charter of the Organization of American States forbids any country
from intervening in the external affairs of another nation. And the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantees the right to
self-determination.
