Venezuela: the kidnapping of Maduro, or the raw return of American imperialism
In Venezuela, Washington demands a military operation and the capture of Nicolás Maduro. Beyond the character, it is the UN Charter that is being trampled on and the law of the strongest that is being reinstated.
Rapture as a method of government
Whether a leader is contested, authoritarian, or hated by part of his people does not change the essential: a State does not have the right to remove the leader of another State at the end of an armed operation, then to present the matter as a judicial formality. What is at stake here goes beyond Maduro: it is a demonstration of power, a pedagogy through fear, a signal sent to the whole world. When the leading military power on the planet decides that it can capture a foreign president, the message is clear: the sovereignty of others is conditional. It lasts as long as Washington accepts it.
International law relegated to the background
The United Nations Charter is not a flavor text. It prohibits the use of force against the territorial integrity and political independence of a state. It poses a simple principle: peace is not the law of the strongest. However, in this case, international law is treated as an administrative obstacle, which can be circumvented at will. We talk about “targeting”, “operation”, “narcoterrorism”. The vocabulary changes, the logic remains: force first, justification then. With each cycle of interference, the same narrative returns: “liberate”, “protect”, “restore democracy”. And each time, reality imposes itself: instability, fragmentation, violence, sanctions which crush people, and “tailor-made” transitions where the outcome must suit the sponsor. Latin America knows this scenario by heart: direct interventions, coups d’état, economic pressures, governments overthrown when they thwart strategic interests. Today, the “war on drugs” serves as window dressing. Yesterday, it was anti-communism. Tomorrow, it will be another label.
Extraterritoriality as a weapon: judging and governing at a distance
What is also shocking is the limitless extension of American sovereignty which aims to be global: indict in New York, arrest in Caracas, decide from Washington what is “legitimate” or not. In this regard, any power could arrogate to itself the right to capture a head of state that it considers “criminal”. It is the world of official kidnappings, of national courts established as universal tribunals, of justice confused with power.
The precedent that threatens everyone
The most dangerous thing about this type of act is not only what he is doing in Venezuela. This is what he allows elsewhere. Because if we accept that a State can “extract” a foreign leader in the name of its own accusations, then we legalize the international jungle. And this jungle will spare no one: neither small states, nor already fragile regions, nor even Western societies which will discover, one day, that “exceptional” violence always ends up becoming routine.
We can criticize Maduro, fight his authoritarianism, support the democratic aspirations of the Venezuelan people. But we cannot, in the name of this, applaud the humiliation of a country and the placing of its sovereignty under supervision. When the empire authorizes itself everything, democracy becomes a pretext – and international law, a collateral victim.
