{"id":128053,"date":"2019-02-18T12:00:58","date_gmt":"2019-02-18T12:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=128053"},"modified":"2019-02-15T10:23:19","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T10:23:19","slug":"enough-of-western-interventions-let-the-people-of-venezuela-decide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/02\/enough-of-western-interventions-let-the-people-of-venezuela-decide\/","title":{"rendered":"Enough of Western Interventions: Let the People of Venezuela Decide"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Thousands of Venezuelans took the streets in Caracas in support of President Nicolas Maduro.
(Photo: via Social Media)<\/p><\/div>\n

13 Feb 2019 – <\/em>American politicians from the two main parties have finally found something to agree upon. Democrats and Republicans alike want more intervention in Venezuela.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, despite [President Nicolas] Maduro, there is hope [in Venezuela]\u201d, wrote<\/a>\u00a0 Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, in\u00a0USA Today. \u201cThese events [the current political instability in the country] are a welcome development of Latin American nations defending democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republican Senator Marco Rubio, meanwhile, claimed that Maduro has picked a battle he can\u2019t win. \u201cIt\u2019s just a matter of time,\u201d he\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0New York Times. \u201cThe only thing we don\u2019t know is how long it will take, and whether it will be peaceful or bloody.\u201d<\/p>\n

This unprecedented unity between Democrats and Republicans reflects a US legacy that precedes the Trump Administration by nearly two centuries. In fact, it goes much further and deeper than America\u2019s hegemonic approach to South America, to encompass the entire Western political hemisphere, with the\u00a0exception<\/a>\u00a0of Italy, Norway and Greece.<\/p>\n

The West\u2019s love-affair with intervention has little to do with restoring democracy, either in Venezuela or anywhere else. In fact, \u201cdemocracy\u201d has been the tool throughout the 20th century to provide legal and moral rationalization for US and Western meddling around the world. It matters little to Western leaders that Maduro was elected in presidential elections deemed\u00a0\u201ctransparent\u201d<\/a>\u00a0by international observers in May last year. Notwithstanding Maduro\u2019s own shortcomings in uniting his people in the face of a most pressing economic crisis, what gives America\u2019s Trump, Canada\u2019s Justin Trudeau and France\u2019s Emmanuel Macron the right to decide who rules in Venezuela?<\/p>\n

Sadly, Venezuela is neither setting a precedent nor is it an exception. South America \u2014 like the Middle East and Africa \u2014 has long been perceived as a Western protectorate going back many years. And again like the Middle East and Africa, Venezuela is rich with oil and other mineral resources and is strategically significant in terms of global hegemony. Colonialism might have ended in its traditional form (with Israel\u2019s colonial occupation of Palestine being the ongoing exception) but it lives on in other ways.<\/p>\n

While the US and its Western allies are challenged strongly by rising economic and military powers in Asia, the fate of South America, the Middle East and Africa is yet to be decided. The US, in particular, has always viewed South America as its own turf \u2014 \u201cAmerica\u2019s backyard\u201d \u2014 and has either directly or indirectly contributed to coups and political and economic instability across the region over the years.<\/p>\n

US National Security Adviser John Bolton has garnered himself a terrible reputation due to his role in the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent destabilization of the Middle East. Although discredited for his\u00a0thoughtless<\/a>\u00a0and often\u00a0militant approach<\/a>\u00a0to politics, he was resurrected by Donald Trump and is now traveling the world sowing the seeds of political and military discord. While speaking about Washington\u2019s need to \u201cprotect democracy\u201d in Venezuela, Bolton admitted that a coup there is an opportunity to exploit the country\u2019s vast oil and natural resources. He explained the economic logic of US intervention in an\u00a0interview<\/a>\u00a0with\u00a0Fox News\u00a0soon after Venezuelan opposition leader and US ally Juan Guaid\u00f3 declared himself to be \u201cinterim president\u201d on 23 January. Regime change \u201cwill make a big difference to the United States economically, if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela,\u201d the US official explained.<\/p>\n

How is that to be achieved? Bolton let that slip too. During a press conference at the White House a few days after the coup, he \u201cappeared to disclose confidential notes written on a yellow pad that included a plan to send US troops to Colombia\u201d in preparation for military intervention in Venezuela.<\/p>\n

Hasn\u2019t the Iraq debacle quelled Bolton\u2019s appetite for intervention, considering that the entire Middle East region now subsists in political uncertainty and unrelenting wars? And if Bolton the right-winger is yet to take the hint that the world is changing rapidly, and that it behooves his country to reconsider its destructive interventionist foreign policy, why are Democrats joining in with the clamor for intervention in Venezuela, alongside supposedly liberal and socialist European states? \u201cOld habits die hard,\u201d apparently, and it seems that Western politicians refuse to abandon the old interventionist maxim and colonialist mentality through which they divided and ruled the world for far too long.<\/p>\n

I do not mean to underestimate the horrific economic conditions in Venezuela or overlook the endemic corruption in that country, which need to be understood and, if necessary, criticized. However, while the Venezuelan people have every right to protest against their government, demanding greater accountability and economic solutions to the crushing poverty engulfing them, nobody else has the right to meddle in the affairs of Venezuela or any other sovereign country, anywhere.<\/p>\n

Moreover, it is very obvious that neither the US nor its allies are interested in helping Venezuela to overcome its economic woes. In fact, they seem to be doing everything in their power to exacerbate the problems.<\/p>\n

Hyperinflation and the crumbling of Venezuela\u2019s oil industries have led to a dramatic economic downturn in recent years, with about 10 per cent of the population fleeing the country. Poor policy choices also led to the significant weakening of local production and increasing devaluation of the currency. With Venezuela on America\u2019s radar for many years, the deterioration of its economy has provided the US with the perfect opportunity to trigger its Venezuelan allies into action, leading to the current coup and political stalemate.<\/p>\n

Those who are counting on the US to stabilize Venezuela in the long run, though, are ignorant of history. The US government has hardly ever been a source of stability in South America, certainly not since the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. Since then, Washington has done more than merely meddle; it has engaged in outright political and military\u00a0interventions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The situation in Venezuela is dire, with children\u00a0reportedly<\/a>\u00a0dying as a result of the lack of medicine and food. The country is also gearing up for a US military intervention and possible civil war. Considering that all such tragic predictions have already been witnessed in Iraq, Syria, Libya and elsewhere, South American leaders and the few sensible voices around the world must move to block any further US meddling, and allow the people of Venezuela, through\u00a0democratic means<\/a>, to determine their own future.<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of <\/em>Palestine Chronicle. He has a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter and has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. Baroud is a Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California Santa Barbara. His books include <\/em>Searching Jenin, <\/em>The Second Palestinian Intifada, and <\/em>My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza\u2019s Untold Story. His latest book is The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story<\/a> (Pluto Press, London, 2018). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 ramzybaroud.net<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

13 Feb 2019 – The situation in Venezuela is dire, with children reportedly dying as a result of the lack of medicine and food. The country is also gearing up for a US military intervention and possible civil war. Considering that all such tragic predictions have already been witnessed in Iraq, Syria, Libya and elsewhere, South American leaders and the few sensible voices around the world must move to block any further US meddling, and allow the people of Venezuela, through democratic means, to determine their own future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":128054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}