U.S. INFLUENCE IN VENEZUELA VIOLATES INTERNATIONAL LAW.
According to reports, the United States of America’s influence in Venezuela violates international law. Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign minister in a conversation with Mike Pompeo stressed that the influence was destructive. According to him, the interference had nothing concerning democracy. President Trump had been prepared to initiate an action that involved the use of the military to put to end the crisis that was being experienced in Venezuela (Patterson 2016). The influence resulted in sanctions that affected Venezuela to a great extent. Some politicians felt that only Venezuela had the right to decide what will happen in their country. This is because it is an independent country that has its president who is the ruler of the state. US interference proved in the country means that it does not recognize the rights the country has.
Venezuela was bracing in riots and violence following protests organized by Juan Guaido the state opposition leader. The anti-government leader piled a bid pressure on Nicolas Maduro who was the president. The president ordered the military to rise against Guaido resulting in violence. The United States was among the supporters if Guaido and they acted up to give him back up after declaring himself the interim police. Despite the leadership crisis, Venezuela has also been faced with others that have seen the intervention of the United States (Patterson 2016). The others did not have many effects and did not violate human rights like this one. The sanctions that occurred in the process were a direct violation of international law. It was sarcastic to see the US violate the law as they are one of the major pioneers of this law. The law was implemented to facilitate and promote social and economic development across the whole world. It also acts to advance peace and security on international levels.
The measures the president of the United States took are against the international law that deals with cooperation as well as friendly relations. The measures resulted in negatives impacts associated with the sanctions. Economic sanctions that have hidden political purposes are against human rights. Venezuela has been in a great crisis under the rule of President Maduro who was elected and sworn into power in 2013. The president is of the united socialist party of Venezuela political party. In 2019, he got into power again narrowly but this time around, his presidency was considered illegitimate (“US Venezuela Sanctions Violate Human Rights, International Law: UN Expert” 2020). The opposition leader Juan Guaido whom the people think that was elected through free and fair elections formed a National Assembly for the opposition side. The assembly sought to form a transitional government to serve up to the time elections that are observed internationally are held. Following this, the US among many other countries recognizes Juan Guaido as the interim president of the state of Venezuela. However, Guaido has failed to overthrow Maduro in power and he was at risk of being unable to secure the presidential seat. On a tour, he met with President Trump.
The United Nations celebrates its success in the formulation of international laws. The laws have been great at fostering peace and not to forget the sense of security that is attached to them. These laws have always advocated for peace even when in solving disputes. The United States might, however, go overboard and violated international law by the measures that it applied to Venezuela without its consent (Seelke et al. 2019). These sanctions were not legal per the United Nations laws. This is purely unethical considering the goal of the United States is to remove the Venezuela president out of the office and his whole government. The penalties are not allowed by the United Nations this the United States is violating the laws that are put in place for everyone’s protection globally.
The United States us not dealing with Venezuela in the right way. Foreign policies are meant to keep the interests of the country and also the interests of citizens in that country. The sanctions that the United States is giving out are violating human rights and are not only against international laws but also against the laws governing the United States. The United States president is however determined in using these sanctions in Venezuela to achieve the goals he has set (Reisman, and Douglas, 1998). There are serious implications of these because most of the assets that gave been limited or rather prohibited by the United States are placing Venezuela’s economy at risk.
Venezuela citizens are barely getting the basic needs that they need because the country cannot bring in goods or sell goods to other nations to get funds to provide for its people. There is a large number of people in the past years that have died because they lacked access to medicine and food. This is a violation of human rights (Reisman, and Douglas, 1998). These sanctions are hurting more people than it should and it is fair to say that the United States us being selfish on this. The United States us claiming that these sanctions that have been put in place are meant to help people. The result of this is evident, Venezuelans are just getting worse instead. Once the economy of a nation is affected the nation can barely take care of its people. Countries with bad economies have issues like hunger, poverty among other issues like poor health care (O’Neil 2018). This is what is happening to Venezuela with all the sanctions that the United States is placing on the government.
This is a clear violation because the right way of imposing sanctions is if the United Nations council investigated and finds out that there is a real threat that might disrupt peace. It is only determining that if the sanctions are not put in place, the security of various nations might be at stake. After this is done, the security council to the United Nations then imposes the measures. This means that the United States has no right to do this (Seelke et al. 2019). The only right body to do this is the security council and not just any nation that feels threatened by the governance in another nation. The international law that is violated here is that the relationship between United Nations members is injured yet it is supposed to be friendly for the prosperity of all nations. Also, the cooperation of nations is violated by the United States in this scenario. The United States not involving the United Nations in its decisions and failing to follow the right procedure is pure disrespect to the international laws.
The United States has further expanded the sanctions by going to the extent of canceling the visas of Venezuelan citizens in America. This purely inhuman because the fate of these people is not known. They have to go back to Venezuela whereby access to medical health is also bad because of lack of medicine, doctors are also leaving and a large number of doctors have been recorded to leave Venezuela to go seek better countries (Seelke et al. 2019). Venezuela can barely manage to pay them, let one them getting the right things for giving people good medical care. Oil production is also on the low in Venezuela yet it is something that largely boosted the economy of Venezuela (Wilpert 2003). Oil production is not the only thing that has tough measures put to it but also the central bank yet it is in charge of running the economy of Venezuela.
The United States imposing tough measures on Venezuela is also backed up by it claiming that Venezuela does not want to fully cooperate with the measures that the United States has put in place to prevent terrorist attacks. To the United States, this suggests that Venezuela might be cooperating with terrorist groups (Sullivan 2019). The United States as per now is prohibiting Venezuela from accessing weapons starting with it prohibiting sales of weapons to Venezuela. The United States is also not allowing the transfer of weapons or it’s soldiers to Venezuela. This is unethical because Venezuela needs weapons too to protect itself and also give security to its citizens. The imposition of these sanctions has been intensified with the United States suspecting of Venezuelan involvement with terrorist groups with providing funds to terrorists. This resulted in some agencies dealing with traveling getting restrictions on their work.
America also has claimed that Venezuela does not want to follow the set rules on preventing drug abuse among people. The United States has taken measures in finding out how Venezuela is in support of promoting drug abuse. Some of the measures that it has undertaken might be out of what the law permits (Højen 2015). America has always had the motive to show how Venezuela is violating the “international narcotics argument”. The United States has also ignored the set policies on the assistance that Venezuela gets from other nations (Sullivan 2019)s. Some organizations have received these measures that the US keeps imposing which has greatly affected their business because of the labeling as drug trafficking firms. Many prominent Venezuelan leaders have also been affected by this because they have been branded as drug traffickers and sanctions placed on them restricting what they engage in.
Venezuela cannot gain any access whatsoever to the outside markets go gain money. The not gaining access was however lifted off a little bit because the Venezuelan people had the impact falling on them (Wilpert 2003). A few exceptions were made so that the people of Venezuela could not suffer much from what the government of the United States was doing. The Venezuelan government was also not allowed to participate in changing currencies by the United States. This is a violation of international laws because Venezuela just like any other country needs to participate in trade and trading activities for it to grow its economy (Sullivan 2019). Also, the United States placing restrictions on Venezuela such that no other country could trade with it was a violation of laws. Venezuela deserves to have its people reaping the be edits of trade with other nations.
The United States does not also allow any individuals to be of help to the Venezuelan government. The United States is set at making the Madura government weak in every aspect, be it economically or even politically (Højen 2015). No United States citizen regardless of the position is allowed to do business with the Venezuelan government. For any people to do this, there has to be permission from the relevant bodies that the United States has put in place for this purpose. The people who are at risk are the ones with the United States visa, serious repercussions such as their visas being revoked stand. Even for something some such as giving Venezuelan citizens food aid. There have to be permitted to do this and lacking this permission, Venezuela cannot get this aid. This is a measure of restricting the help that Venezuela gets. This is a violation of international laws that require nations to be friendly to each other. Communication providers are also limited to getting permission from the OFAC before helping Venezuela.
The United States also had claimed that whatever the Maduro government was engaging in was corrupt hence the need to restrict people from doing transactions with it. The United States associated it with doing transactions to help criminal activities and specified on some sectors in Venezuela to be strong supporters of these (Højen 2015). There was a scheme of changing the currencies of money that the United States suspected to be corrupt and hence had to sanction some individuals. Most of the organizations that operated and dealt with transactions involving oil trade with Venezuela were stopped from doing this (Seelke et al. 2019). The United States has gone further to our barriers to accounts in the United States. The US determination to stop the Venezuela government is great such that it extends to it violating more rules. Putting restrictions on the military of Venezuela is a violation of the international laws because Venezuela needs it’s military to protect its people and protect its assets.
The crisis that saw the US intervene in Venezuela had resulted to collapse of the economy of the country. The country was faced with very high rates of inflation, shortage of basic needs such as food and healthcare. The crisis saw many citizens dehumanized by forces such as the police. A bigger proportion of the p6of Venezuela was living in severe poverty. These problems are related to US sanctions in the country (“US Venezuela Sanctions Violate Human Rights, International Law: UN Expert” 2020). However, the truth is that the crisis is a result of poor management and corruption in the country. Maduro was an extreme corruption leader was siphoned a lot of state funds into his accounts. This reduced the funds available for state development thus leading to the deterioration of the economy. The US sanctions in Venezuela resulted in the migration of citizens to neighboring states. Life and become extremely hard. There were shortages of food, water, and their shelters were under the risk of being destroyed anytime. Therefore, they decided to move to other countries to seek better lives. This means that the country lost its citizens and the population went down. Also, labor production decreased as people moved out of the country.
The US policy in Venezuela was initiated inn2019 shortly after recognition of the leadership of Guaido. Since then the US had done everything to offer support to the interim government of Venezuela. To increase pressure on Maduro officials, the president of US targeted sanctions as well as interference with Visa relocations. The sanctions were initiated in the borders, the government m, and the oil company in the nation (“US Venezuela Sanctions Violate Human Rights, International Law: UN Expert” 2020). The USAID entered into an agreement with Guaido that gave the government of the US the power to provide development assistance and increase democracy and human rights assistance. However, Maduro was still in power therefore, the US had to face opposition from him. Following the deterioration of conditions in Venezuela as a result of the sanctions, what sarcastic is that the US humanitarian assistance helped citizens in Venezuela.
Following the sanctions, human rights in Venezuela have deteriorated. Leaders and the police do not respect human rights. People ordered by the president dehumanized the citizens but nothing is done to them. Abuses ahead been on the verge of increasing following the actions of the police and the protests. A report was issued on violated human rights by the Venezuela security force under the influence of the US (“‘US Influence In Venezuela Violates International Law’” 2020). Excessive force was used to deter protestors by the internal government of Venezuela, degrading treatment that entailed torture, and fear instillation among the citizens. The following human rights were violated concerning US US influence Venezuela. The first one is that people were killed in cold blood, other detained, and others shot following the use of force by the police. There was a fight between the internal security forces of Venezuela and collective forces send by the US to back up Guaido. The second one was a violation of ILO conventions that were initiated by the Maduro government in response to US influence. This resulted in the killing of multiple trade unionists. Lastly, there were extrajudicial killings and harsh treatment by the police. All these violations were inline with US influence in Venezuela.
The sanctions issued by the US government in Venezuela restricted access to financial markets. The US sources of financing into the Gove of Venezuela. The restrictions saw Trump cut off Venezuela from accessing the financial market of the US. This means that the citizens of the US cannot convert their money to US dollars. This was meant to completely bend the interest of Venezuela citizens in the economy of the US. As a result, the value of Venezuela currency decreased in value (“‘US Influence In Venezuela Violates International Law’” 2020). The government of the nation could no longer access US debt as well as the equity market. These were significant sources of government funds to the economy of Venezuela. The government of the US also made sure that anybody associated with Venezuela does not access their currency. Even investors were revoked of their financial rights to access US currency.
There have been numerous debates on the efficacy of the United States sanctions of Venezuela. The sanctions aimed at disadvantaged president Maduro and its administration. However, observers say that the sanctions were unlawful and they interfered with human rights as well as their freedom. For the investors, being denied access to US currency and market as well as direct discouragement and psychological trauma. The sanctions affected Russia’s economy (“‘US Influence In Venezuela Violates International Law’” 2020). A Russian company used to transport oil in Venezuela. Following the sanctions, the company was negatively affected. This affected the production of oil in the country. The government of Maduro suffered a major setback following the drop in oil production that is attributed to US sanctions, and also poor management. The US-Venezuela oil trade was cut off following the sanctions. However, Maduro took a step ahead and seek for new oil traders. Some of these were involved in crude oil trade with the US. A good example of these oil traders in China.
Most people have a concern about the citizens of Venezuela because they are the most affected in these sanctions that the United States keeps imposing. While to others the current Venezuela government may not be good, whatever the United States may be doing is not doing any good at all to Venezuela. The pressure on the Venezuelan government may be huge but it is being done at the cost of the innocent citizens of Venezuela. To think that do Innocent people are also getting affected by what the US is doing is disheartening. The United States has violated a lot of laws including the Human Rights act which is not a good thing. The US had first to involve the United Union before taking the measure of imposing the restrictions on Venezuela. As a result, Venezuela has resorted to using “cryptocurrencies” to finance most of its activities. The United States’ claim of assisting the citizens of Venezuela should be done using a different approach rather than this one where the people’s lives are at stake.
References
“‘US Influence In Venezuela Violates International Law’”. 2020. Thenews.Com.Pk. https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/465695-us-influence-in-venezuela-violates-international-law.
“US Venezuela Sanctions Violate Human Rights, International Law: UN Expert”. 2020. Venezuelanalysis.Com. https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14474.
Højen, Louise. “US-Venezuela Relations in the 21 st Century: Sanctions against Venezuelan Officials.” (2015).
O’Neil, Shannon K. “A Venezuelan Refugee Crisis.” (2018).
Patterson, Margot. 2016. “How The U.S. Violates International Law In Plain Sight”. America Magazine. https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2016/10/12/how-us-violates-international-law-plain-sight.
Reisman, W. Michael, and Douglas L. Stevick. “The applicability of international law standards to United Nations economic sanctions programs.” European Journal of International Law 9, no. 1 (1998): 86-141.
Seelke, Clare Ribando, and MARK SULLIVAN. “Venezuela: Overview of US Sanctions.” Focus. Congressional Research Service (2019).
Sullivan, Mark. “Venezuela: an overview of US Sanctions.” Congressional Research Service, May 8 (2019).
Wilpert, Gregory. “The economics, culture, and politics of oil in Venezuela.” Venezuela Analysis 20 (2003).