The first time I went to Venezuela, I had to pay a bribe to get back. It was December 1978 just before Christmas and the airlines were swamped with passengers coming and going. As I checked in at the VIASA counter, I was told I had no reservation though there I was holding a ticket in my hand. Fortunately, I was with a savvy Venezuelan friend who immediately recognized the scam and said, “Give me your passport” and after disappearing with that and $50 came back with my stamped passport and a boarding pass. It was a classic “mordida” or “a little bite,” an accepted way of getting things done there.
I mention this because in a small way it suggests Trump’s kidnapping of the Venezuelan president and his wife just might turn out to be more troublesome than a simple mordida. Cultural, regional and international repercussions could bring about seriously negative consequences right now and in the long term.
The removal of president Maduro most certainly is a positive action, both for the Venezuelan people and the hemisphere. Many in Venezuela and bordering countries will loudly applaud the end of a hideous government that has terrorized and impoverished its people and sown discontent and aggression in the region. This is a given.
What isn’t a given is what happens now. The Maduro government is still intact, and Trump says he is going to run Venezuela until who knows when. He has also come clean to reveal that his action all along has been about oil, not drugs or immigration issues. The audacious and ballsy violation of Venezuela’s sovereignty and snatching of its president is really indefensible other than he was a bad guy. America’s sanctimonious posturing and scolding of other nations for similar illegal actions has certainly lost its credibility across the world, especially with chief offenders such as China and Russia.
The United States has a long history of intervention in Latin America which is not lost on people south of the border. They view us with cautious optimism at best along with healthy distrust as they should. The record is not good. U.S. marines literally ran Nicaragua and Haiti for decades between 1915 and 1934, and the CIA overthrew legitimate governments in Guatemala and Chile later in the 20th century. The list of interventions in Mexico, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba, when added to the Mexican and Spanish American Wars, paints a picture of the colossus of the north running roughshod over its hemispheric neighbors. While the Monroe Doctrine (1823) and its Roosevelt Corollary (1905) were originally applauded by our neighbors, they eventually came to be seen both for what they were—
rationales for American hegemony. Ask yourself: how did these previous incursions come out? The current intervention in Venezuela does not look promising.
Finally, if the historical record is fraught with danger, what does the intervention say and mean for democratic and constitutional government in the United States as well as for international law and America’s reputation overseas? Questions of legality, congressional prerogatives and limits on executive power must be addressed if the country is to remain a constitutional republic. But there should be no surprise as we have a rogue president who has time and again shown that he has little understanding or no respect for the conservative principles that have governed our behavior for over two centuries. He is above the law, damn the torpedoes.
Let me say that these words of criticism in no way detract from my personal feelings about Venezuela and its people. Nor do they suggest support for American imperialism. Venezuela is a beautiful country that deserves to have a a decent government for all its people.
Maduro and Chavez before him destroyed the county and its economy all in the name of Bolivarian socialism which proved to be nothing more than a dictatorship too often seen in Latin America. Maduro was a classic caudillo.
I have cried for Venezuelans since Hugo Chavez took power in 1999. My experiences there put a face on friends and others, most of whom have been fortunate to relocate in Miami or Ft. Lauderdale. The fate of those left behind can only be imagined. While I am happy to see Maduro gone, I have real worries about what is going to happen to the country. American intervention in Venezuela has just begun, and it is way too early to speculate about its future.