Most UN Security Council members criticise Maduro’s capture; US says it’s ‘law enforcement,’ not war
United Nations: Facing criticism at the Security Council from allies and adversaries for capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, the US has defended it as a “a law enforcement operation” and not a war.
At the Council’s emergency meeting on Monday, France and Britain, US allies with permanent membership on the Council, lobbed mild criticism at Washington from an international law perspective. The other two permanent members, China and Russia, lashed out at the US, demanding Maduro’s immediate release.
“There is no war against Venezuela or its people”, US Permanent Representative Mike Walz declared, quoting Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “We are not occupying a country”.
Attempting to undercut arguments that the US was violating the UN Charter and international law by invading Venezuela, he asserted, “This was a law enforcement operation”.
“The United States arrested a narcotrafficker who is now going to stand trial in the United States in accordance with the rule of law for the crimes he’s committed against our people for 15 years”, he added.
The Council meeting overlapped with Maduro’s first appearance to face narco-terrorism charges in a US court south of the UN in Manhattan after he was seized on Saturday from a fortified military base in Venezuela.
Venezuela’s Permanent Representative Samuel Reinaldo Moncada responded, accusing the US of the “kidnapping of a head of state”.
He said the US “illegitimate armed attack” in contravention of the UN Charter was motivated by its aim of getting his country’s natural resources.
The country is now headed by Delcy Rodriguez, who was Maduro’s vice president, and US President Donald Trump has so far left her in place, expecting her cooperation.
France and Britain, and several other countries, denounced Maduro for what they said was his fraudulent election victory and human rights violations, while also criticising the US intervention.
But France’s Deputy Permanent Representative Jay Dharmadhikari also said, “The military operation that led to the capture of Nicolas Maduro contravenes the principles of peaceful settlement of disputes and non-use of force”.
Britain’s Deputy Permanent Representative James Kariuki said, without naming the US, that violations of the Charter by permanent members “undermine the very foundations of the international order”, he added.
China’s Deputy Permanent Representative Sun Lei said Beijing “is deeply shocked by and strongly condemns” what he said were “bullying acts” by the US.
Russia’s Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia asserted that Maduro was “the legitimately elected” president of Venezuela and should be immediately released.
He accused the US of giving “fresh momentum for neocolonialism and imperialism”.
The US received the unqualified backing of only Trinidad and Argentina.
Giving the strongest backing for the US, Neil Parsan, the permanent representative of Trinidad, said his country is “steadfast in its support of the United States of America’s initiatives that strengthen regional security”.
Accusing his country’s neighbour Venezuela of running “networks that enable transnational crime across the Americas” and weakening the region’s security and stability, he said Trinidad is “committed to cooperative efforts led by the United States to disrupt and dismantle networks” of Maduro.
Argentina’s Permanent Representative Francisco Tropepi called the US action “decisive” for addressing the region’s drug trafficking problems.
“Peace, freedom and democracy in Latin America have been put at risk” by Maduro, he said.
Deep concern over the capture of Maduro and Trump’s threat to act against others was palpable among the other representatives of Latin America.
He accused Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro of drug trafficking and said on Sunday, “He’s not going to be doing it very long”.
Responding to a reporter’s question, he said a military operation against Colombia “sounds good to me”.
Colombia’s Permanent Representative Leonor Zalabata Torres condemned the US action as among the “worst interference” in the region and said, “Democracy cannot be defended or promoted through violence and coercion, and it cannot be superseded, either, by economic interests”.
Hector Enrique Vasconcelos, the permanent representative of another country that Trump said he wants “something to do about”, told the Council that it has an “obligation to act decisively and without double standards” when the Charter is violated.
Earlier, Rosemary DiCarlo, who briefed the Council on behalf of Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said he was “deeply concerned about the possible intensification of instability in the country, the potential impact on the region”.
It may also be a precedent for “how relations between and among States are conducted”, she warned.
