Let’s call out Trump’s intervention in Venezuela for what it is: an undemocratic coup

A welcome distraction from impeachment proceedings, it is surely only a matter of time before the president and his far right allies in South American resort to more ‘muscular’ options against Nicolas Maduro’s presidency

Donald Trump has promptly recognised formerly-unknown quantity Juan Guaidó as his interim president of Venezuela. Without taking the trouble to wait for elections, Guaidó proclaimed himself president and swore himself before almighty God and the cameras. Pictures reproduced around the world show him holding a constitution, approved during Hugo Chavez’s administration, with liberator Simon Bolivar on its cover.

The stunt is supposed to send a message to millions of Venezuelans outside the mostly urban, middle-upper class strongholds of the right-wing opposition, and the world, who before yesterday had never heard of Mr Guaidó, that he too recognises the Bolivarian foundations of the Republic, historical and more recent.

But neither God nor Trump and staged spectacle provide legitimacy or cover for what this is: a coup. Most Venezuelans would recognise it as such. Engineered from outside, decorated with a thin constitutional patina.

Interventions like this, using “lawfare” rather than warfare, have now become a norm in the region. But they aren’t new. It’s the exact same script of the 1973 coup against the also democratically elected, also socialist president of Chile, Salvador Allende. As US-imposed economic sanctions deepened an economic crisis caused by industrialist strikes, retail boycotts, currency failure, lack of imports and thereafter political division and paralysis, Allende too was accused of usurpation of power by a right-wing legislature. The rest is history, or tragedy.

A similarly farcical script has been followed recently in the region, as the US struggled to react to democratic left-wing, progressive governments in places like Honduras, Paraguay or Brazil. This doesn’t mean the threat of force is absent. Last year, world media reported that Trump had stunned his White House security advisors asking for an invasion of Venezuela. He was told by General HR McMaster such an option would alienate US allies in the region.

But now McMaster is gone and the hemispheric landscape has changed: in Colombia liberal Juan Santos has been replaced by an appointee of the notorious neo-con Alvaro Uribe, whose own “counter-terrorist” dirty war displaced close to seven million people (no humanitarian interventions back then); neo-fascist Bolsonaro rules Brazil supported by Argentina’s conservative Macri who is facing deep economic troubles of his own, and pro-Pinochet Piñera is in Chile.

In fact, vice-president Mike Pence said yesterday that although Trump dislikes interventions elsewhere “he thinks differently about this hemisphere”. This is as explicit a reinstatement of the old Monroe and Manifest Destiny doctrine as you can get. Under the doctrine, the US has historically held its “responsibility” to intervene in its “backyard” by all means necessary. That’s why the White House declared yesterday it would remain vigilant of developments on the ground, keeping “all options on the table”. Which means hoping for a heavy-handed response by Maduro’s government that would provide moral justification for an intervention perhaps approved by the Organisation of American States, whose current leadership responds to America’s commands, on humanitarian grounds or the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, in defence of “democracy, constitutionalism and human rights”.

Bolsonaro and the like as self-proclaimed humanitarian leaders in the region will be fooling no one. Hence the condemnation by the other powerhouse in the region, Mexico, and outright refusals by Bolivia (next in line), Uruguay or the Cubans who know a thing or two about these things.

To staunchly reject Guaidó’s move as an external intervention isn’t to endorse everything Maduro has done. It’s true that Venezuela’s problems are dire, and the responsibility ultimately lies with the government. There’s plenty to criticise about late or misguided economic measures, corruption, and power-hoarding. None of these things can justify nor disguise a coup. Moreover, staunch refusal of this coup becomes all the more necessary now that the winds of war are being fanned with uncertain global consequences.

Further economic sanctions already promised by the White House will have no other effect than punishing already suffering Venezuelans, causing millions more to leave. They know that. The US also said they’ll re-direct oil revenues towards the “new” Venezuelan government, in a rare admission that the latter is unlikely to gain control over state institutions and they, the US, controls the cheque book. Since the White House acknowledges the relative weakness of “lawfare” options, they’re surely contemplating more muscular ones.

Trump counts on Colombia’s Uribe appointee and Brazil’s Bolsonaro to support a military option, welcoming US bases, advisers or contributing troops of their own if needed. The prospect of a smaller number or no US troops involved in a multi-regional humanitarian effort against a “communist dictator” would seem palatable, to say nothing of the electoral spoils of a “just war” and distraction from impeachment proceedings.

But many in Venezuela, including Maduro’s critics who’re still Bolivarians, fear more the prospect of intervention and right-wing purge than Maduro’s alleged incompetence. Further, as Chavez once put it apropos of Allende’s historical precedent, the people may be democrats but unlike the Chileans they’re armed. Would they stand by or happily cheer the intervention? Furthermore, there’s China and Russia. They’ve rejected US-backed intervention. Russia vowed to come to its ally’s defence. Is this the beginning of the next world’s crisis?

Oscar Guardiola-Rivera teaches human rights and philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London