VENEZUELA

Or

WHERE IS MY UNITED NATIONS

Yesterday, a bunch of friends in a bar informed me that they had read an X message saying that President Trump was going to make a press statement about having captured the President of Venezuela, Nicholas Maduro[1].  They were happy and they wished it happened here.  I told them that it was a bad idea to think that other country’s forces would solve the problems of the country.  And that the Venezuelan event did not make me happy at all.  Of course, my friends are not as conversant with international events as I am.

These events risk happening elsewhere again.  That is where we should be able to call on the United Nations to help us reset the international order by pressuring the government of the USA into helping us all maintain the order that the USA itself was central to making.

So, here we have two entities that we should be discussing in this article: the United Nations and the United States of America

The United Nations was my employer for over 33 years.  So, I feel I legitimately have the right to be concerned with what happens in the world, and see the United Nations unable to even say a word.  The reason being that the UN has been weakened by the very same USA, by withdrawing funding, and determining which UN Agencies are priority for the USA: first, those that serve the interests of the USA economy, such as the World Food Programme, that helps sustain the American farmers by evacuating food to countries of the South in need of food assistance, rather in food insecurity situations.  And other agencies have clearly been put on the red, such as UNESCO.  And many others are in between, such as my UNHCR.

The UN reference is deep and deserves paying serious attention.  The Charter itself starts:

WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS, DETERMINED

• to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and

• to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and

• to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and

• to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

AND FOR THESE ENDS

• to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and

• to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and

• to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and

• to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,

• Have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims.

Article 1

The Purposes of the United Nations are:

1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;

2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;

3. To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and

4. To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.

Article 2

The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles.

1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.

2. All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter.

3. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.

4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

5. All Members shall give the United Nations every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the present Charter, and shall refrain from giving assistance to any state against which the United Nations is taking preventive or enforcement action.

6. The Organization shall ensure that states which are not Members of the United Nations act in accordance with these Principles so far as may be necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security.

7. Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter Vll.

   
   

The recent actions of President of the United States put all these resolutions in the trash can.  We should have seen it coming, because, having neutralized the United Nations through the withholding of funding, forcing a 40% reduction of staff and operations worldwide, the American President goes on to advance the real and constant element of US foreign policy: aggression.

Having gutted USAID of its programmes  - not that we  approve of the programmes, because in any case they pursued American policy priorities – he proceeds to bilateral agreements with governments, where the real reason is to gain tighter control of policies.

His government wants Venezuela, Greenland, Panama Canal, and has already shown supine disregard for any international convention of relations between states.

Can our countries force the Unted Nations to be more vocal based on the principles of the Charter?  They cannot.

The reality is that the US has been pursuing war against countries rich in oil.  And gold.  And now in strategic minerals that Chinaa is no longer providing. While the US is today the biggest producer of oil, with 12 million barrels per day, it needed to open areas hitherto protected (Alaska) to respond to national consumption needs.  America consumes 20 million barrels of oil daily.  Meaning that consumption, and lifestyle are way beyond its resource base. 

It may already have calculated that perhaps within a decade or two, there will not be enough oil to sustain consumption.  Do you now see how to situate the wars against Iran, (first using Iraq, and then turning on Iraq itself), Iraq, Syria (areas still under American occupation in Syria are precisely oil producing areas), Libya and now Venezuela, the biggest world reserves?  Do you see why it also needs to be near Nigeria?

America is losing its place as a superpower, and that will continue.  The dollar is losing its power, and that will continue.  But the giant will not go without a fight, and some serious damage will result.  Just where, that is for us to be alert.

Using very questionable approaches, America has been expanding their dominance over other countries.  After kidnapping the Venezuela President just last week, they are not taking him to an international tribunal, but  to an American court of law, and an American jail.  Inverted extra-territoriality, while also defending an extra-territoriality right for its nationals.  Complete insult to international norms of conduct between nations.

Just in the last few weeks, America exerted its duty to protect Christians in Nigeria - whoever gave it that duty.  And bombed the country.  I have made another article on this, addressed to Nigeria and Nigerians, and largely to Africa.  In that article my argument is that that this first bombardment has given America the right to continue bombing in Nigeria, and they will seek to expand that imperialist right over other African countries, especially where conflict provides the opportunity to invoke flimsy justifications to intervene. Justifications that their press is just eager to propagate. And where there is what they call terrorism, especially if that terrorism can be associated with Islamic rhetoric.  Like in Mozambique, my own country: abduct one skinny American citizen, and the whole American war machinery will have found a justification to rain hell on Mozambique! 

Back to Venezuela

We need to remind our presidents in Africa that the Venezuela project for the US has been brewing more than two decades.  The US tried to overthrow Hugo Chaves and to install a Juan Guaido.  Today, they overthrew Nicolas Maduro and will try to install the Nobel prize winner 2025 Maria Corina Machado who allegedly won the prize because of her work in Venezuelan democracy.  The same lady who called on the US to come overthrow Maduro.  She now has what she called for[2].  We are sure she has some legitimacy in her own country.  That does not explain the call for America to come and colonize her country, because that is what will happen, what with all the oil reserves, the gold etc.  No foreign army resolves national issues.  This is a point worth repeating.

Democracy: we hope that we have started understanding that the word democracy (of Greek origin), has become synonymous with fraud: we are constantly being gaslighted with democracy, as a way of keeping exploitation and oppression over the people.  You can see it anywhere in Southern or East Africa.  Rich countries, a very small minority of chiefs swimming in incredible wealth together with their families (less than 1% of the population anywhere), while the rest of the people are wallowing in misery, selling second-hand anything, their youth riding cheap motorcycles and thinking that these motorcycles will navigate their children through school and through life.  A poorly educated youth seek employment in this current market environment, while the big wigs fight over gold mines, large tracts of privatized land, PPP with foreign companies. 

Democracy needs to be de-constructed, de-mystified.  The same way as the Nobel peace prize is no longer about peace but about the political interests of the North.

What am I saying?

The Venezuela story is a play that dramatically went into a new chapter whose  outcome we cannot foresee yet.  Remember that the US has renamed the Department of Defense as the Department of War.  It has signified its strategic interest in Greenland, Panama, the same way as it had defined its strategic interest in Ukraine but now, because of the Russian response, they are retreating.

War is what we will be seeing more of.  Bombing Nigeria in NW: if one comprehends the geolocation of the bombing, one cannot resist the conclusion that the bombed area is near Niger, from where the American and European military forces were expelled two years ago.  America had started settling for the long stay, with an airfield fully constructed and fully functional in Niger.

Does this contain a lesson for Africa?  It has several.  Remember that when America occupied Haiti and governed it for some years, their first act was to raid the central bank and remove all the gold and take it to America.  All the gold of Libya was also removed when Muhammar Kadhafi was removed from power by America and European military forces.  The gold in Iraq was also removed when America occupied that country. 

Do we see where this is going?  We need to see the pattern and to acknowledge America as a vicious war machine because, and perhaps inspite of itself.  And we need to understand that other smaller vicious war machines are being incubated.  The foreign policy of African countries needs to seriously consider sovereignty as a subject to be taught in diplomatic schools.  So that our future diplomats can advise our governments the extent to which and how we should conduct business with existing and emerging powers.  Power, being the operative word.  If you have no power, you prepare yourself differently, shield your house and teach your children how to preserve security, dignity and autonomy of action.

Let us repeat: Foreign forces are not the solution to national problems.  Foreign forces only tend to perpetuate themselves, find some interesting rubi or gold mine in the areas we allow them to operate, and get surreptitiously busy.  Suddenly, perpetuating insecurity seems a good proposition to continue staying in place and explore resources, and export them in small quantities, in small planes, in small containers.  If you ask any supporting foreign force in an African country when they intend to leave, they will say: the time it takes to end the insurgency.  And at night, they feed the same insurgency with information and small equipment to continue harassing.  Continue justifying their presence.

Does this sound familiar? Mali, Somalia, DRC, Niger, Cabo Delgado in Mozambique.

Oil and gas inventory, is energy inventory, a commodity developed economies cannot live without, a commodity that has become a resource curse for us.  Energy inventory is an inventory of future (and present) conflict areas: Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Venezuela, Nigeria: the story is not close for any of the conflict potential areas.  Permit me to add here my own country, Mozambique.  And by the way, Niger.

Message to our country Mozambique: reassess our foreign policy, review foreign forces in our territories and define their exit strategy by empowering, appreciating, and educating the national army in the art of legitimate warfare.  And most importantly, how to win hearts and minds of the population.  The population is like water to fish.  You do not poison the water in which you navigate, because you breathe and drink that water.  The people are not a discourse for electioneering; they are the most important center of power.  And if they do not benefit from any of what goes on in the palace, they have no interest in defending that palace.  Because they live in squalor, they give birth in squalor, they marry in squalor, they eat in squalor, while others party over weekends in Dubai and eat caviar for breakfast and drink champagne for thirst! 

Rentier capitalists who can only survive on PPAs and all they do is sit waiting for the rent to be paid.

Above all, let us reevaluate our national relations.  And acknowledge that what happens in one country will have future impact on the neighbours.

Not to excuse the United Nations, let the United Nations find its footing again, because we desperately need it stronger and more relevant to our needs.

Whatever the Venezuelans feel for their leader, that is not the way to treat a sitting head of State, however he managed to sit in that chair, however good or evil has his rule been.  Certainly it was not about drugs, which are produced and sent to the US by other countries in far higher quantities.  For the Venezuelans who are now cheering, let us meet in just two months.

Canhandula

January 2026

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crmlz7r0zrxo 

[2] https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/15/americas/venezuela-machado-trump-maduro-latam-intl