US intervention in Venezuela exposes the dangers of cowboy capitalism, selective international law and the growing threat to state sovereignty.
By IQBAL SULEIMAN
To begin with, this was not a ‘capture’, as presented by sections of the mainstream media, including CNN, BBC, Sky News and Al Jazeera. The use of the word ‘capture’ creates the misleading impression that the United States and Venezuela are at war, and that Maduro was seized during an armed conflict.
This is not a matter of semantics. To describe a violent kidnapping as a ‘capture’ is to misrepresent the facts and distort the truth. What occurred was a clear violation of international law: the world’s richest and most powerful military entered a sovereign state under the cover of night, killed civilians and forcibly abducted the head of state and his wife from their home.
Donald Trump and his administration are distinctive in that they openly and unapologetically express the racist settler mentality underpinning the American empire and the ideology of cowboy capitalism. There is no pretence or subtlety. Trump has openly declared that he intends to take control of Venezuela and allow American corporations to ‘fix’ – in reality, plunder – its oil resources.
When settler colonists invaded North America, Indigenous peoples were categorised by empire as either ‘hostiles’ or ‘friendlies’. The ‘friendlies’ were those who collaborated, surrendered their autonomy and allowed settlers full control over their land and resources. The ‘hostiles’ were those who resisted – independent, anti-capitalist communities who believed in shared wealth, equality and human dignity.
They chose resistance over submission. As the Sioux resistance leader and martyr Crazy Horse famously said: ‘You cannot sell the earth upon which people walk.’
To Trump and the American empire, Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro are modern-day ‘hostiles’ – socialist leaders who refused to allow American capitalists to loot Venezuelan oil.
Chávez led Venezuela’s socialist revolution and expelled American corporate interests. Popular and principled, he was democratically elected. His belief that Venezuela’s natural wealth belonged to its people, not foreign corporations, rendered him ‘hostile’ in the eyes of empire. After his death, Nicolás Maduro continued this stance, refusing to capitulate even under threats of violence.
For those with political amnesia, regime change is embedded in the DNA of American foreign policy. Mohammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected leader of Iran, was overthrown in a CIA-orchestrated coup on August 19, 1953 after nationalising Iran’s oil. He was replaced by the Shah, a compliant ruler who surrendered Iran’s resources to Washington. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 reversed this theft, returning control of oil to the Iranian people – and rendering Iran permanently ‘hostile’ to the United States.
Similarly, Chile’s democratically elected socialist president, Salvador Allende, was overthrown in a CIA-backed coup on September 11, 1973 and replaced by the dictator Augusto Pinochet, who aligned himself with American interests.
The United States is not motivated by freedom, democracy or human rights. It is motivated by profit. This is capitalism – cold, crude and ruthless.
Europe, which claims to be the cradle of democracy and the rule of law, failed to condemn the kidnapping or the violation of Venezuela’s sovereignty. Keir Starmer, Britain’s leader and a former human rights barrister, endorsed this lawlessness when he said he would not ‘shed any tears’ over Maduro’s abduction.
Western racism has been laid bare during the Gaza genocide, the unlawful 12-day war against Iran and now the cowboy assault on Venezuela. For the West, international law applies selectively and rarely to the Global South.
This is the same West that loudly invoked sovereignty when Russia invaded Ukraine, yet remains silent on Venezuela.
South Africa, however, has been consistent. On Saturday, January 3 – the day of the kidnapping – the government appealed to the United Nations Security Council to convene urgently and address the United States’ military intervention in Venezuela, including the detention of Nicolás Maduro and his spouse.
In a statement, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation said: ‘Unlawful, unilateral force of this nature undermines the stability of the international order and the principle of equality among nations.’ It further described US actions as ‘a manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations’, which obliges states to refrain from the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another state.
This is a critical moment in the history of international law and state sovereignty. The implications extend far beyond Venezuela. If powerful states are permitted to act like gangsters with the tacit support of others, the ‘cowboy state’ becomes normalised.
Cowboy capitalism is entering unprecedented territory. How would the West respond if Russia were to enter Kyiv and kidnap Ukraine’s president, or if China abducted Taiwan’s leader to stand trial in Beijing?
Trump has also trumped up charges against Maduro. US Attorney General Pam Bondi has listed allegations including ‘conspiracy to import and export cocaine’ and ‘possession of automatic weapons’. The charges are absurd. Every head of state is commander-in-chief of armed forces. By this logic, no leader is safe from abduction.
In this context, Pretoria’s principled defence of international law and sovereignty will be studied by future generations of international law scholars and human rights activists.
Iqbal Suleiman is a social justice lawyer, former head of the Lawyers for Human Rights Law Clinic in Pretoria, and a research associate at Media Review Network.
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