US President Trump ordered the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela “closed in its entirety” on November 29.
Yet the US has as much legal and moral authority to shutter the skies over Venezuela as the Venezuelans have to close the putting greens at Mar-a-Lago. Yes, that’s ridiculous – but not any more so than Washington’s phony pretext of drug interdiction for their deadly regime-change offensive against Venezuela.
To date, the Yankee military has murdered over 80 people in alleged “drug boats” in the southern Caribbean and eastern Pacific but has yet to confiscate a single milligram of narcotics from Venezuela. The Venezuelan authorities, in contrast, have seized 64 tons of cocaine this year that were being transited through their country and have done so without killing a single person.
However, Venezuela’s interdiction pales in comparison to the 400 tons of cocaine smuggled into the US enabled by one Juan Orlando Hernández, according to the US Department of Justice. Hernández is a former Honduran president and right-wing Washington ally. He was convicted in a US jury trial for running his country like a narco state, taking bribes from Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
The day before Trump “closed” Venezuela’s airspace as part of his so-called “crackdown on drug cartels,” he announced his intention to pardon convicted cartel-enabler Hernández, who is serving a 45-year sentence at a penitentiary in West Virginia.
If Washington succeeds in blocking air travel to Venezuela, the action has an added cruelty. It coincides with the winter holidays, when overseas Venezuelans would return home to visit family. Many of these migrants are economic refugees, driven from their homeland largely by the US’s unilateral coercive measures designed to asphyxiate Venezuela’s economy.
The CEO of America’s empire has ambitions for vast powers and now claims dominion over the firmaments. Yet the US Congress has not approved his no-fly zone, nor has any international authority such as the United Nations – and certainly not the host country, which under international law has sole control over its airspace. Even David Deptula, the retired general who enforced a no-fly zone in Iraq, questioned Trump’s declaration.
Such an act constitutes a blockade and, as such, is considered an act of war; more precisely, an escalation of an ongoing hybrid war against Venezuela.
The offensive has taken many forms – unilateral economic sanctions, coup and assassination attempts, a dual government, diplomatic intrigue, election interference, an astroturf opposition, and a psychological pressure campaign by compliant corporate press. The hybrid war is as deadly as a hot war, having taken over 100,000 lives by denying essential food, medicines, and fuel to the most vulnerable, according to a United Nations special rapporteur.
But Washington’s quarter-century siege of Venezuela has “failed” in its objective of regime-change. For the imperial hegemon, the success of the Venezuelan resistance has led it to push its campaign to the brink of military invasion with the no-fly zone declaration serving as an ominous harbinger.
The political leadership of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution includes President Nicolás Maduro, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López. These officials are distasteful to Trump and Rubio. The US State Department State Department designated them as leaders of a “foreign terrorist organization,” the Cartel de los Soles.
But then again, the current US president is distasteful to 60% of his constituents. And the so-called Cartel de los Soles doesn’t exist.
In 2002, the US backed an abortive coup that attempted to overthrow then Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who was restored to power by a spontaneous uprising of the people. That event had a century-old precedent, as Venezuelan-Canadian sociologist María Paez Victor recalls:
In 1902, English and German gunboats attacked Venezuela and their marines invaded. The Europeans were demanding payment of outrageous loans their banks had forced upon the country. The president, Cypriano Castro, had no money and hardly any armed forces. But he appealed directly to the people in a Proclamation that became a historic monument to the love of Venezuelans for their country.
Its opening sentence is a call to defend the land from invaders: “Venezuelans, the insolent foot of the Stranger has profaned the sacred soil of our Homeland.”
People rushed with whatever arms they could lay their hands on. Even our newly sainted doctor, José Gregorio Hernández, a veritable man of peace, rushed to give aid to the wounded. The foreign marines were routed – they had never expected such a firm, unbeatable stand. They thought it would be a piece of cake; they were deadly wrong.
Washington now stands at a crossroads of its own making. Having failed to crush Venezuela through sanctions, coups, diplomatic isolation, economic strangulation, and psychological warfare, it now toys with measures that violate the Zone of Peace, proclaimed by the 33 members nations of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).
The US attempt to impose a no-fly zone exposes a desperate imperial drive for domination. The Bolivarian Revolution, having endured more than 25 years of siege, remains rooted in the same collective resolve that once repelled foreign gunboats and reversed the 2002 coup. Should Washington escalate further, it will not confront a compliant colony, but a nation prepared to defend its airspace, institutions, and sovereignty – joined by a genuine international community in solidarity.
Meanwhile CNN reports “massive disapproval” of Trump’s Venezuela policy, and the Simón Bolívar Airport is operating normally.
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