On January 3, at about 1300hours, the president of Venezuela, his wife Cilla Flores, and his only biological son, Nicolas Ernesto Madura Guerra, were captured in one of the presidential safe houses in Caracas and spirited to New York on an American gunboat and are now facing trial in New York for drug running involving millions of tons of cocaine into the USA and narco-conspiracy. He was additionally charged with gun running.
He was born on November 23, 1962 in the capital city of Caracas to a trade unionist father. He was a previous bus driver and transport unionist before becoming a member of parliament in 2000 and five years later, he became president of the National Assembly and foreign minister from 2006 to 2012 and vice president from 2012 to 2013. He became interim president after his mentor, Hugo Chavez, died in 2013. He became president after a snap election in 2013. In 2018 and 2024, he was re-elected in what his opponents called sham elections and repression of democratic forces, following which most Western countries refused to recognize his government.
His regime moved closer to Cuba, China which buys 70% of its production of crude oil, and Russia and Cuba buys the remainder at premium prices. The country is sitting on about 40% of global known oil reserves. The exploitation of crude petroleum was largely developed by giant American oil firms before all of them, with the exception of Chevron were nationalised and expropriated by the Hugo Chavez socialist government in the 1970s. Those American oil companies nationalized included Standard Oil Company, now Exxon Mobil, Gulf Oil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips. From the 1970s nationalisation and expropriation of major American companies, the production of crude oil, either by design or incompetence, declined to just about one million barrels daily. The capture of Maduro came after months of an American armada of ships, air force, aircraft carriers air force aircraft of different types from stealth bombers, to helicopters naval assets of all kinds from submarines to attack naval crafts and deployments of FBI and CIA operatives. The apparent easy way the operation was conducted belied the fact of the cost and efficiency and effectiveness of American coordinated armed and security forces.
The Americans say none of their troops was wounded or killed but Cuba claimed that 32 of the intelligence officers in Venezuela were killed during the operation. After the success of Maduro and his wife’s capture, then what follows is the big question. From what President Donald Trump, the president of the USA and his foreign minister, Marco Rubio have been saying since the invasion of Venezuela, it does not seem there is a well thought-out plan for post invasion than his saying simply that he was planning to bring back the American oil companies that were driven out in 1970s out of Venezuela to come back after the success of the invasion. President Trump indicated the oil companies will come back to rehabilitate the degraded facilities to make America and Venezuela people rich. This will be under American administration. He also went further that Marco Rubio was already talking to Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez who had been appointed by Maduro as his vice president since June 14, 2018 and apparently retaining the other key elements of the Maduro government in office which will negate the whole purpose of the invasion of Venezuela in the first place by retaining the Maduro’s criminal infrastructure. It seems the Americans would be happy with remnants of the Maduro administration if it can run the country to the benefit of American oil interest.
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Perhaps America has learnt from its previous mistakes of totally disbanding of the Iraqi troops after capturing Saddam Hussein, thus creating a security vacuum which criminals filled.
I personally felt very sorry for President Trump to have been left to commit so much blunder while addressing the world press after the glorious military exercise. He ought to have been given a cryptic statement to read instead of his rambling about producing crude oil to pay off American oil companies following nationalising of the oil companies. There was no need to spell out what his victory would entail and anger not only the Venezuelan citizens, but also large measure of radical American and global population and people in neighbouring countries like Canada and Mexico.
As somebody with some experience in government, we would not have allowed our president to commit this kind of blunders while addressing the global community. One of these blunders committed by Trump was his dismissal of the democratic opposition in Venezuela and particularly his comment on the Nobel Laureate, Maria Corina Machado as not being popular and effective. By this statement, the potential American supporters are being alienated.
He is opening his country to much opposition from the global community to his rather abrasive policies and pronouncements. The Mexican and Colombian presidents are already shouting at the roof tops that Trump should perish the thoughts of similar actions against their countries. The president of Iran whose people are demonstrating against his regime and Trump’s statement that its guns are ready and loaded against the Islamic Republic should it attack the demonstrators against its regime. The Danish government owners of Greenland being publicly demanded by Trump for American security say over and over again that the large Arctic island is not for sale. Some enemies of our country and its current government are urging Trump to direct its action to Nigeria.
Whoever thinks this kind of pleas will be considered because one is against the current administration in Nigeria should ask himself under what justification that would be legitimately considered. In the meantime, opposition against American intervention is gathering support from US Democrats in Congress, the UN Secretary General and generally the governments of global South which Trump’s policies and action had angered, irritated and generally put at arm’s length. The Security Council of the UN has been meeting to discuss the American government’s action but it is known by most people that the structure of the UN would militate against the UN because the USA, like the remaining four permanent members of the UN has the veto power against all possible action of the Security Council which requires UNANIMOUS action of the five permanent members. This is because structurally, the UN is handicapped and will be unable to do anything to the US, and not even a condemnation because decisions in UNSC are taken by unanimous decision and even if Great Britain and France are unhappy about the US action, they will not join China and Russia to unanimously condemn the USA and if they do the USA will veto it.
The consequences of the actions of the USA would empower Russia to intensify its actions against Ukraine and China would use the same USA forceful action to take over Taiwan and India may be emboldened in her policies towards Sri Lanka and Jammu and Kashmir thus opening a Pandora Box of desire by bigger and more powerful countries to forcefully run over and annex neighbouring states they had hitherto claimed leading to a breakdown of international order and war will become acceptable for settling international relations.
The world is entering a phase where national power would be the most important lever of the engine of international relations.
