By Halifa Sallah
It is not only President Maduro of Venezuela who is reported to be captured. His wife, who is not an official of the Venezuelan state, is also reported to be captured. I am not sure whether she is indicted for committing any crime.
The President of the United States and all Presidents and Heads of State and Government should go back to the drawing board and rethink the implications of what has happened. Putting legality and the issue of national sovereignty and independence aside for the moment the lesson is glaringly clear. Once again, it shows that all Presidents of the world and Heads of State and Government are weak and vulnerable and could easily be targeted by armed state groups and individuals.
They can be assassinated, overthrown, captured and eliminated in revenge killings or plots like Muammar Ghaddafi and Idris Debi Itno of Libya and Chad respectively. Even the life of President Trump has been attempted. His counsel to Prime Minister Netanyahu not to target the Islamic leader of Iran was a wise one aimed at reducing a tit-for-tat elimination of Heads of State and Government and Supreme Leaders of countries.
The world will never know peace until governments and peoples respect and uphold each other’s sovereignty and right to self-determination and independence. This is the verdict of historical science and common sense, and it is incontrovertible.
President Trump should know that people have their diverse opinion of him, but regardless of what such opinions are, all must agree that his intervention in Venezuela does not serve and will not serve his interest or that of the United States of America and his steadying of the troubled waters in the Middle East and piloting of the uneasy peace talks between Russia and Ukraine serves him and the United States of America better.
His advisers should have told him and are duty-bound to still counsel him to recall that removing Saddam Hussein did not automatically put Iraq under US tutelage. On the contrary, it led to the disintegration of Iraq and the emergence of religious and sectarian factions that are incapable of bringing the people together to build a sovereign democratic republic.
Heads of State and Government could be conquered but no people could be dominated or ruled against their will. That is the lesson from Libya and Iraq that is now a chapter and verse in books on international relations that should be instructive to all those who want to learn good lessons from history to prevent any recurrence of missteps and mishaps.
Respect for the sovereignty of peoples and countries should compel all Heads of State and Government of the world to rely on courts of international justice to pursue cases of crimes allegedly committed by people occupying the highest office of a state.
There should also be the golden rule of respecting the constitutional mandate of a Head of State and Government and only bringing him or her to justice in the courts of another country, after leaving office. Only international courts should try sitting Heads of State and Government to ensure the impartiality and independence required for a fair hearing.
Since President Maduro is reported to be in the hands of those who exercise direction and control of the justice system in the US, his wife should be released to go back to Venezuela, if it has not already done. Those who currently have his wife in custody should know that the US justice system is also on trial before the court of world public opinion.
President Maduro should have access to legal practitioners, the civil liberty union in the United States and his family members. The justice system in the US should immediately prove that it is not engaging in a witch-hunting exercise by commencing open court proceedings so that speedy justice can be seen to be in action.
The mistake has already been made. What is necessary is to manage the situation and prevent any recurrence. First and foremost, the people of Venezuela should know that they are faced with a national crisis. The sovereignty of their nation and people is at stake.
Despite party affiliation, they should throw away political expediencies and hold a national conference to determine how to create transitional institutions in order to preserve national unity, pending the holding of free and fair elections to put the undiluted choice of the people in office.
It is the exercise of their cooperative sovereignty with undiluted honesty, in good faith, in their national interest that would lead to national salvation, they would be held hostage just as President Maduro is held hostage in the US against his will. The African Union, Brazil and many governments and peoples in the world condemn the violation of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of Venezuela.
However, such condemnation alone, though well-meaning, will not alter what has happened or prevent further erosion of the sovereignty of the Republic and the people of the country. Only united people with abiding love for the country and people could preserve Venezuela’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence.
It is only the cooperative resolve and action of the people of Venezuela to put differences aside and work together, in the supreme national interest, to build a more inclusive and participatory representative institutions that put fair play, justice, general wellbeing and the happiness of the people first, that would ensure and assure national salvation.
Hence, the UN, the African Union, the American Civil Liberties Union and other such national or multinational stakeholders for the protection of the sovereignty of countries and the civil liberties of people should monitor the treatment that President Maduro is having under US justice and seek to prevent any miscarriage of justice.
He should be released immediately if there is no tangible evidence available to convict him of a crime under US law. The UN, the AU and other leaders of the Western Hemisphere should come together and send delegations to Venezuela to promote a successful transition of the country to a state of normalcy so that every Venezuelan, at home and abroad, would be proud to call the country their homeland.
The people of Venezuela should know that elections in a sovereign republic should not lead to war among the sovereign people. The electoral process should lead to unity, national cohesion and seriously meant national conversation on which political association is more competent to establish a government that exists to serve all the people, irrespective of party affiliation.
That is the level of political literacy that the country needs to preserve its sovereignty and its right to self-determination and independence. The people of Venezuela should know that united they stand to build a nation for all but divided they would serve none and would fail and fall.
On the other hand, President Trump should realise that as he seeks to prevent the intrusion of migrants into the heartland of the USA, he would be going against the interests of the United States if he tries to rule the countries from which the migrants hail. As he preserves the territorial integrity of the United States, he should also respect the territorial integrity of other states.
It should be clear to the policy advisers and makers of the United States that the world has changed and can no longer be divided into spheres of influence as it was during the Cold War, characterised by closed borders based on ideological branding of states. Today Russia cannot be classified as a communist enclave. China is no longer in isolation. It has a flourishing relationship with almost all the countries in the world.
The post cold war US administrations did not exploit the collapse of the Soviet Union to reduce Russia into its sphere of influence. It left Russia to shoulder its own challenges and carve its own path to development. It is very apparent that if Russia resolves its war with Ukraine by not seeking to expand to govern populations whose needs it may not be able to satisfy, it would have a flourishing relationship with all countries in the world. Who then is the rival for spheres of influence in the politics of the world?
The US leadership should also recognise that the US economy, since 1812, has been based on building financial and manufacturing corporations. According to Sylla and Wright, by 2024, a US population of 7.5 million had a financial sector that made up 44 per cent of the 500 largest corporations. They refer to the US as the “world’s first corporation nation.” These corporations eventually became multinational corporations that brought benefits to the US economy thus charging it with the responsibility to share benefits through the establishment of the Peace Corps and other institutions like USAID.
This is how the world’s largest economy could contribute to the reduction of poverty and enhance goodwill among people. Currently, all the big economies of the world are linked to the US economy. Any protectionist measures would have a worldwide impact. Hence, U.S. policymakers must think in a global context to save the US and the world from isolationist and confrontational tendencies.
In the political domain, no country in the Western Hemisphere seeks to have antagonistic relations with the US. Citing the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 after invading Venezuela with 150 aircraft is inappropriate. The doctrine sought to oppose any colonisation of countries in the Western Hemisphere by foreign powers.
The U.S. policymakers need to revisit their fundamentals of post-Cold War international relations. The US could be a force of stability instead of being a force of destabilisation. The recent events in Venezuela will not allow Canadians and those in Greenland to sleep with ease. The clock of history should not be wound back to the Vietnam era. Too much blood has already been shed for decolonisation to warrant turning back to such dreadful pages of history.
It goes without saying that international peace and security can only be preserved and enlarged if Heads of State and Government and peoples of the world ensure and assure the protection of each other’s sovereignty, political independence, territorial integrity and national unity. This is the verdict of political science, history and common sense and it is irrevocable.
Failure to observe and uphold this lesson would plunge the world into conflicts and undermine the ethical architecture for the promotion of good neighbourliness between countries, big or small, that constitutes the rule-based order of peace and justice that the United Nations aims to create for our generation and those yet unborn.
The current generation has a duty not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Vietnam is still fresh in the minds of those who currently lead the United States and the exchange of skeletons still taking place between Ukraine and Russia should be a reminder that there is no war without death and destruction. Gold and oil cannot be more precious than human life.
Things should exist for people and not people for things, if we are to live in a world that puts human life and happiness first. Civilisation is properly crafted and displayed when the cooperative intelligence of peoples is utilised to ensure and assure liberty, dignity and prosperity for all human beings on the face of the earth. This is no time to despair.
This is the time to sign a contract with destiny and vow to give to society the utmost we have to make it a better place to protect, save and serve all of us to live the life of dignity, liberty and prosperity that all human beings on planet earth deserve. The ugly pages of history will only remain if the beautiful sides fail to shine like the noon day golden sun.
About the publisher:
The views published here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the publisher. Want to be a contributing author? Please email info@outpost220.net
About the author: The author is the Secretary General of the People’s Democratic Organization for Independence. He is also former Member Of The Pan African Parliament (2004-2007) And Former Head Of Delegation To The EU/ACP Parliamentary Assembly Of The Gambia (2017-2022)
