AT PENPOINT
In one respect, the American abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is a wildly obvious flouting of the concept of national sovereignty, but in another, it is an example of the Munroe Doctrine as it exists today.
The USA was perhaps the first country that did not participate in the Treaty of Westphalia to be acknowledged under it. Well, as it did not create any organization, as in accordance with it. The act of exchanging ambassadors, as the USA did with the European powers, was enough to constitute the principle of non-interference in internal affairs.
For that was how the European nations established the principle, in the wars following the Reformation in the 16th century. Peoples split from their monarchs, some staying loyal Catholics, some becoming Protestant. This included the monarchs, and the Holy Roman Empire proved the most intractable, for though divided into a vast number of entities, all owed allegiance to the Holy Roman Emperor, who was also the Archduke of Austria and King of Bohemia. Once you no longer acknowledge the Pope as your spiritual master, why acknowledge the Emperor as your temporal? The principle was stated at the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, as ‘cuius regio, eius religio’ (whose region, his religion), and basically meant that every realm was bound to follow the religion of the ruler.
That was not to be the final settlement, for sectarian differences led to the Thirty Years’ War, which ended in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia. The principle of noninterference in internal affairs was acknowledged, and has been accepted ever since. It provided for colonialism in later years, accepting that there were places which could be interfered with, but once taken over by a (European) state, were to be alone by the others.
This is the basis on which two world wars were fought, and then the colonial empires were dismantled, with the world splitting into two blocs, the American and Soviet, with the newly independent colonies forming sovereign nations which could join whichever bloc as the ruler wished, in a sort of updated version of the ‘cuius regio, eius religio’ principle. The blocs had no formal organisation, but all states, old and new, were members of the United Nations.
There have been exceptions to the principle of non-interference, most notably over the question of compliance with international humanitarian law. There are difficulties in interfering, even when respect for sovereignty means allowing leaders to commit the most awful crimes imaginable. World War II was not caused by Nazi genocide, but by its international posture, starting with its invasion of Poland.
After World War II, notable events involving international humanitarian law in which the world watched in silence as genocide was committed were the Rwanda massacres of 1994, which saw between 500,000 and 662,000 Tutsis killed by Hutu militias, as well as the 1982 Sabra and Chatila Massacre of up to 3200 Lebanese Shia and Palestinians by a Phalangist militia protected by Israeli forces, the Bosnian Serb killing of 8000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica by Bosnian Serb forces, the killing of between 1.5 million and two million Cambodians during the Khmer Rouge regime of Cambodia. The latest example is the slaughter of over 66,000 Gazans by Israel ever since 7 October 2024.
It’s all about the oil, and Trump has shown before that he listens to what oil companies tell him, whether it be taking an oilman as his first-term Secretary of State or his second-term blare of “Drill, baby, drill”. As everyone seems to have noticed, Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world.
Perhaps the hesitation in dealing with these is partly because if the rule of non-interference is abandoned, then things like Maduro’s overthrow happen, where the worst he is accused of as President is not running his country’s oil industry efficiently. He is accused of being a drug dealer, but that is hardly reason to have him kidnapped. He is being given a trial, but there are due process issues raised, which might explain why Trump’s lead official on the matter is not the Attorney General, but the Secretary of State.
This forces all heads of state and government to make assessments of their position towards the USA. Hostility, it seems, is not allowed. Next, if the particular head of state and/or government is bent on hostility, can his armed forces protect him or her? In short, the old assumption of immunity for heads of state or government has gone out of the window. It had done so before, with Saddam Hussain’s capture and execution, and the hounding of Mullah Umar into exile. World War I had seen various dynasties fall, but no ex-monarch or ex-PM was executed, except Russia’s Prince Nikolai Golitsysn, but he was executed by the Bolsheviks, not the Germans.
Even Hitler and Mussolini in World War II, while dying violently, were not killed by their opponents, It is not as if the USA has not intervened directly in other countries in the Americas. It occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934, and the Dominican Republic (in the remaining part of the island of Santo Domingo) from 1916 to 1924, and though it was behind the assassination of Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973, and the replacement of his elected government by a military junta, as well as the military regimes in Brazil from the 1950s, this represents the first invasion by the USA of any country south of the border.
The exception has been Mexico, which has lost territory to the USA, but since the 19th century, the USA has not sent troops across the border. However, Mexico has been mentioned by Trump as a possible target for military action, as has Cuba and Columbia.
There is a racist and colonialist dimension to the whole enterprise. The Venezuelan or Columbian vessels smuggling drugs into the USA, and the Mexicans doing so across the land frontier, are not doing so as part of some grand conspiracy, or some natural viciousness, but because of US demand. Interestingly, Trump has done nothing domestically to curtail that demand.
It is possible to argue that the USA’s drug problem reflects the inner emptiness of the capitalist system and of the life it provides to its workers. It is also possible to argue that unless something is done about US demand, nothing will happen no matter how many countries are invaded. It also means that leading figures in potential narco-states, including Pakistan, had better watch out. Trump, after all, is notoriously fickle.
Another problem is the display of American exceptionalism, behaviour as if it is above all international law. It’s bad enough when the USA displays it, but when Israel does the same, it seems that the tail is wagging the dog. Are Arab rulers hanging back on recognizing Israel to be kidnapped by Israeli covert-action teams and made to face an Israeli court? Or will it simply use drones to murder the hold-outs?
Venezuela has got to deal with a situation no country would like to face. The President in captivity, but claiming to still be President. A Vice-President who has assumed the interim presidency. What happens if the President is convicted? Will the Venezuelan courts recognize this? Can he be convicted or does he enjoy immunity while he holds office? The prosecution will say that the USA did not recognize him as legitimately elected, which in turn means that the principle of non-interference goes out the window. One country recognizes as president, PM, or Grand Panjandrum whoever claims the office without challenge. Trump accepts Ahmad Sharaa as President of Syria even though he took office forcibly, by driving out his predecessor Bashar Al-Assad, because he exercises the office, not because he was legitimately elected.
It’s all about the oil, and Trump has shown before that he listens to what oil companies tell him, whether it be taking an oilman as his first-term Secretary of State or his second-term blare of “Drill, baby, drill”. As everyone seems to have noticed, Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world.
